Ok you happen to love (Japanese) swords, have no martial arts experience whatsoever and you need some work out every now and then to get rid of your inner stress 😮 So you go into your garden , armored with bottles of water, beach mats and or other targets in one hand and your sword in the other…ready to have some cutting fun !
We all have our own hobbies so nothing wrong with that but before I continue (and I’m sure you’ve hear it already 100 times..) don’t go too crazy, you still holding a weapon that can hurt you or someone else very badly !
This being said, what’s the best choice for you ?
Let’s consider a low budget anywhere between 200-400 euro..Going lower is always tricky and as you know, you get what you pay for and since you want to buy a weapon, you better think twice or safe some more money to get something better.
Now, if you just like to cut (every now and than) small bottles of water, cardboard tubes, 1-3 beach mats or some other soft targets you will be fine with any sword within the Practical serie or the Raptor serie.
The latter one was especially designed for these kind of practices so they should be a good choice.
The biggest difference between these 2 series are the way they have been made. All of the swords in the practical serie are made of high carbon steel and does feature a hamon, which means they are differentially hardened. The same kind of process they used to work with in ancient Japan.
The Raptor serie swords are made of 5160 steel and through hardened, so no hamon line there. 5160 Steel is an alloy steel that contains Chromium and Silicone which makes the blade more rust resistance and harder. The little silicone part adds more toughness to it.
In the Raptor Series you will find :
In the Practical serie you can also draw a line between the standard and the performance serie. The performance serie has these swords in that category :
And these swords are especially designed for cutting exercises. They have a stronger blade (blade is a little wider and a little thicker than its traditional counterparts) which allow you to cut more easily and it doesn’t get damaged as easy when you happen to perform a bad cut.
If you just want to cut some water bottles or beach mats every now and than, you will be fine with one of these here. They are not as strong as the one’s I’ve mentioned here above but they are still for those light targets :
The Zhui Feng Swords we offer are still within the low budget class and ideal cutters.
The biggest difference is that we have full control over the design & production process of the Zhui Feng Swords where we have absolutely none with Paul Chen. So we listen very closely to the feedback we get and adjust where necessary in order to get every little detail right.
A few differences that come to my mind right now :
The feedback we got up to know from practitioners, every single one of them placed to Zhui Feng’s above the Paul Chen katanas.
You better spend it on something else than a sword if it’s just for having some cutting fun ! I’m a very bad salesman as you can see but I don’t think you want to spend a ton of money just to have some fun in your garden.
But in case you want to have cutting fun AND a nice collector piece in your home, you can consider the pieces I mention in the practitioners guide, being :
I need to say that they are not stronger or better in terms of quality and cutting ability if we compare them with the monosteel swords but of course they are better looking and an important factor if you like to display it somewhere in your house and or you just love a katana with a hada (pattern in steel).
These here are the one’s I would recommend or at least take a look at :
Of course we can also offer you a custom made katana where you can compose one by choosing only the components that you really want/need. Just keep in mind that you will need to have some patience there..the delivery time is usually around 8-10 weeks.
Or..we can also change a standard model for you over here, which goes much faster of course. Usually we can fix that within 1 week and we can :
Just contact me at dave@samurai-sword-shop.com if you need more info on this.