The Internet Medieval Weapons Discussion Group

CAS Iberia Steel Hilt Agincourt By Atrim This sword was provided by Twilight Door for review and evaluation and your reading pleasure. Unfortunately I turned down a chance to get a two year old Agincourt to look at side by side with this sword. If memory serves me right, the ìClassicî has a somewhat slimmer, but thicker blade. Very possibly making the earlier sword a better performing sword. Which would be kind of ironic, since the steel hilted ìLionheartî reviewed in December for Twilight Door and the ìMercenaryî and ìRhinelanderî just reviewed show definite signs of being substantially superior to CASIís of a couple of years ago. In fact if I was still as broke as I was just a couple of years ago, and still needed a sword, I could easily live with that ìLionheartî or the ìRhinelanderî still on the premises. But this Agincourt bothers me a bit. It shows signs of better processes in manufacturing {the guard looks like it was done on a CNC mill, and the fit between blade and guard is excellent}, but it looks sloppier in overall quality than the last three CASIís looked at.  On one side of the pommel you can see the threads in the hole coming through, a sign that the whole drilled in the pommel is too close to one side {this didn't present a problem in testing, but it still is a potential problem in the future}.  Like the previous three swords, the steel of the blade is plenty flexible and hard, but the grind of the blade is such that there is two low spots {potential weak or ìbendî spots} in the spine. However, even with an oversize handle the sword handled pretty good in dry handling, and was easy to handle during cutting and thrusting tests. Because the harmonic balance is off, there is some shock to the hand during cutting.                      This sword's blade actually met the target the same day the ìMercenaryî did. The ìstandardî penetrated the target 8.75 inches. The Agincourt penetrated 7 inches all three times the blade was introduced to the target. This Agincourt has two liabilities here that hold back its performance. One is the edge geometry, the other is the harmonics are a bit off. However, the construction is solid, and the sword should stand up to quite a bit of target use. The Agincourt fared much better in the ìpizza boxî drill. Its balance and weight combine to make it fairly fast in handling. And though the point isn't the most acute, it is sharp enough. Because of its handling characteristics {nice, easy, quite controllable}, and the thickness of the blade at the edge, I tend to see this sword as more of a ìstageî sword, or ìlive steelî sword than a martial or target sword. Since the problems of this particular sword are probably one of a kind problems, at $108 this is quite a bargain for a reenactment type sword.

The measurements:                     Total length ...................... 35.75 inches                     Blade length ...................... 27 inches                     COP ....................... 18 inches from guard                     POB ...................... 3.25 inches from guard                     Blade width at base ...................... 1.71 inches                     Blade width before curving to point .... 1.34 inches                     Blade thickness ...................... .150 to .170 inches                     No distal taper                     Wt ...................... 2 lbs 14 oz