We held off on adding these awesome swords simply because until the recent product category expansion, there was no proper ‘home’ for them.
But with an appropriate place open for them in the training gear section, the time has come to add what we feel are the BEST sub $200 iaito around hands down..
Why?
First off, the blades are made from extremely tough 65mn Spring Steel – and the hamon that you see is the real thing, not some ground on cosmetic thing. Just like the Ryujin Custom Katana, the blades are differentially hardened with a natural hamon.
Secondly, like the Custom Katana, they are available with or without bo-hi (fuller) and weigh almost exactly the same as the live blade version (approx 2.3lbs for the bo-hi sword and 2.5lbs for the no-hi version, with some minor variances based on the fittings selected).
Thirdly, most iaito made from intentionally weak alloys have a sharpened tip – but this is quite dangerous on a spring steel blade, so the tips have been rebated for safety, making this one of the ONLY iaito around that can be used for hard steel on steel contact training (under the supervision of a qualified teacher. Even though they are unsharpened, these are still quite deadly if used as a weapon)..
And then there are the custom options – which are a serious bonus. The choices are EXACTLY the same as for the live blades. And if you choose the same tsuba, they will balance and handle almost identically (though it is recommended for safety reasons to have one point of difference, such as a red tsuka for the live blade and blue for training sword, slightly different tsuba, saya or something that keeps them in the same theme but makes them easily distinguishable from one another at a glance.
Need we say more? Just $189.99 with no extra hidden charges.
