Quick Review: Messer KARL by Landsknecht Emporium

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A to-the-point review of the "Karl" Messer by Landsknecht Emporium (landsknechtemporium.com/produ....
The long-form version can be found here: • Review: Messer KARL by...
The Messer was provided for free by Landsknecht Emporium, they were aware that there was going to be a review.
If there is anything that you are interested in concerning this Messer that the review did not cover, feel free to check out the long-form version and/or drop us a comment.
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Опубликовано:

8 авг 2024

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Комментарии : 23

@MairsMate 8 дней назад

LE is really good. Love mine (even though the handle has exploded). Oh how I wish Messer tournaments would be a thing in the German Historical Fencing scene.....

@die.freifechter 8 дней назад

Frankly, every Messer I had that has a long handle has suffered. I know the pain :) My Gottfried also had its grip replaced, simply because one of the pins got loose after a while. I am thinking about doing the same on my Kleinkriegsmesser. It is a very big target. On the other hand it can also protect you sometimes. Messer tournaments in Germany would sure be nice. I know several people are musing a German Messer event at the moment, a tournament could be part of that. But it takes a lot of time to organize all that. - Peter

@MairsMate 8 дней назад

@@die.freifechter Dann wird gespannt gewartet! Thanks for making so many interesting videos and reviews.

@die.freifechter 8 дней назад

Hier auch :D Thank you for watching! - Peter

@FiliiMartis Месяц назад

Since you mentioned asking for the blue paint, I have a question about your colour choices for grips. Do you have a particular coding put in place? I remember you mentioned in a past video that blue is your club colour, so you prefer it. But I also remember that you re-wrapped the grip on the Kvetun Sidesword 1 we see in the background (such a good entry level sidesword, btw). So why isn't that grip cord blue? You made that one yourself! 🤨😄

@die.freifechter Месяц назад

We do actually have a colour coding in place at my club, but it does not extend to weapons. When we standardized our gear back in the day we decided that we would only wear black socks and pants, while shirts and jackets would have to be blue. Masks should have a black cover and no painting on the grill. We later softened that a bit to allow for some blue or black highlights and generally try to be reasonable. If you already have gear when joining our club you can keep using it, and if there is an offer that does fit your budget but not really our colour-scheme, we can usually work things out. SO I would not HAVE to get my shoes or gloves with blue on them, but it fits the rest. Same goes for grips or sheaths etc :). That being, I am limited by my abilities somewhat but mostly I do not really have a proper workspace in my flat to do an actual re-wrap or make a proper new grip. So to make the Kvetun grip thicker I just used a grip band I knew worked well enough, and that happened to be black. Now that you mention it I could have put in a little extra effort to make it blue too :D. Well as soon as the current is worn out I guess. - Peter

@FiliiMartis Месяц назад

@@die.freifechter I'm happy to hear about clubs building their own traditions and "esprit de corps". 👍

@FiliiMartis 17 дней назад

I hope you see this... ok, I want to order a new messer to add to my collection, probably a sharp one. Since you are the Karl expert 😉 I want to run some things by you: 1. LE has some pics on their FE (May 2022) of a fancy Karl with a knucklebow. You know much more than me, wouldn't that affect the way we use a messer? I'm thinking in regard to changing grips and using the flat of the blade (i.e. thumb of blade) and the way the knucklebow may affect that. Or am I overthinking this, and this is not an issue in the slightest. 2. You know the hollow CC1 pommel LE are offering (the Maximilian messer type style pommel cap). On a trainer, it would look fancy, but do you think it would survive impacts? On a sharp, this is not an issue (I don't plan to start fights with it). 3. So I'm thinking about going with a Karl, with a hollow CC1 pommel (to look good but also keep the full grip length for hooking actions), but no knucklebow that would limit changing grips. I think this would give the best combination for this type of blade (with a more thrust focused narrow straight blade). An alternative would be a Gunther, with a knucklebow and a CC2 pommel (solid CC1 would look good too, but I have that on my Gottfried, so I want to avoid repeating elements). The wide blade would be more cut oriented, so the shorter grip makes sense in my head. What do you think of these combinations from a (historically plausible) fighting style perspective? I'll run my choices pass LE in due time, but I would appreciate the thoughts of someone that actively trains in messer systems. 😇

@die.freifechter 12 дней назад

Hey there, Peter summoned me to answer this. :) So, regarding your questions, a well-made knucklebow wouldn't really affect your ability to switch grip that much (depending on the glove you're wearing). However, I'm not a big fan of knucklebows at Messers per se, because they suggest the illusion of a protected hand, while in fact the actual protection is not *that* much bigger. Yes, it helps against a rogue handsnipe, but it doesn't really protect against thrusts to your hand - so even when using a knucklebow you should be able to keep your hands out of harms way without and not rely too much on it. I have a pretty long hollow brass-pommel on of of my older Messers by LE (proto-Gottfried) and it has gotten quite a beating over time - it is a bit deformed, but there hasn't been any significant damage to it - so far. The Karl in your specification is an excellent choice - you'd like to keep in mind it is a bit stiffer in the thrust, though, compared to a Gottfried. That being said, all of the three more prominent blade styles LE has in offer have their own characteristics and upsides, in the end it all comes down to personal preference. I own one of each, and I like to fence with all of them. Cheers, Ulrik

@die.freifechter 12 дней назад

Quick addition - my brain somehow skipped the sharp part right in the beginning: a knucklebow shouldn't affect handling a sharp too much, also for cutting I have the most experience with the Gottfried blade-shape, and it performs well. :) Cheers, Ulrik again

@FiliiMartis 12 дней назад

@@die.freifechter Thank you Ulrik, and a big thanks to Peter for summoning you. :) Your well-formed advice is really helpful. At this point, I'm thinking of two options... A sharp Gunther with a walnut grip, CC2 pommel and a knucklebow (the knucklebow will be there for the aesthetics of it; as it will be the Landsknecht knotwork and simple totentanz pattern on a scabbard). So this is the go hard or go home option for a test-cutter, that's why I want all these aesthetic elements. And I am thinking of a Karl with a walnut grip and a hollow CC1 pommel as a trainer (no knucklebow as not to inconvenience the use of gloves; the full length grip retained by the hollow CC1 pommel will also help). So this is the bling-ed up version of a trainer. And the idea behind this option is for me to like looking at it, so I would just pick it up and do basic drills with it (while still working during sparing with the occasional training partner). And in winter months, when it's too ugly and cold to take my Bolognese side-swords to the garden, it can work as an indoor training option (funny how short weapons designed to be used indoors also make for good indoor training options 😏). [there's the hidden third option of going for both, but I shouldn't talk about it 🤫, my wallet is giving me a judgemental look 😑]

@FiliiMartis 12 дней назад

@@die.freifechter No problem... I think I want now for the Karl to have a blunt blade (I'll need to see how the new sharp blade looks; I understood there has been a revision). Getting another LE scary sharp blade is fine, but I should start learning some messer techniques as well. 🤔

@raideninc 2 месяца назад

And it has the look of a real blade (especially in comparison to some more „sporty“ examples). 😎

@FiliiMartis Месяц назад

Ok, don't laugh, but when I ordered my sharp Gottfried (such a good-looking blade) from Landsknecht Emporium, I was looking to buy a Karl. I asked them if I could have the wide fuller profile, like on the blunt. They mentioned no, the sharp has a flat blade. So the trainer has a more "real" looking blade than the sharp. 😅 I ended up getting the Gottfried and I have zero regrets! But for a trainer, a Karl makes more sense to me. 👍

@die.freifechter Месяц назад

Well... what feels real really is a rather subjective thing, no? I think, to a degree, exposure play into it. By now I have seen enough originals, online or in person, that, as long as it is a blade that fulfills its purpose, I would call it "real". (Though what makes a sword as a whole "real" can actually be a surprisingly philosophical question). We have surviving training swords, at least for longswords, rapiers and smallswords as far as I am aware, and these are real too. Their blades just were designed to fulfill a different purpose and thus looked different. You cannot really make a blade look like a sharp and have it survive the rigours of regular training. Sharp blades were not designed for that kind of abuse. You can make it close, but that generally means you have to compromise. That is how you get blunts that look "real" at a first glance, but handle like bricks. And even within a category, there are multiple ways to achieve a goal. Some trainers have a dumbbell design to then, some have no fullers at all and are rather square. Same goes for sharps. I have several sharp swords by Ádám (that I still need to make videos on), that all have very different designs. Some have fullers, some don't. tl;dr: It's complicated and often a very subjective thing :) - Peter

@FiliiMartis Месяц назад

@@die.freifechter I think that's 100% subjective. Which is why we need to keep "real" in quotes. :) Two things more that I would like to add: 1. I noted that people in general seem to prefer blades that have some geometry to them, a fuller, a wide fuller that looks like a depression in the blade, or a ridge, a ricasso portion even on a blunt, just something to look at. Anything but flat, and if it's flat, it better to have some interesting etchings or gilding. 2. People seem to start liking even outliers (e.g. flat blades, or even asymmetrical sides with fuller only on one side and the like) once they understand their function. That translates into a deeper appreciation of that particular blade (e.g. in this case, thin flat blades are really great at cutting with little resistance; no surprise there, we don't shave with axes after all). And when it comes to trainers, I think that getting a functional trainer that feels good and looks good is where the art lies. Keep the weight and proportions like on a sharp, but get a 2mm safe edge while giving me a look for the blade I find appealing, that all is quite impressive in my book. People like LE and others are good at that, and we see the overall quality of makers getting better.

@FiliiMartis Месяц назад

@@die.freifechter Please videos on sharps soon! 🤤 P.S. Without divulging anything you know via your personal private means, is the reason why LE has stopped doing custom jobs and even removed the custom's gallery a result of Ádám moving on to doing his own custom work? To my vague knowledge, Ádám still works with LE in some capacity. It's just that LE is focusing on keeping up with the production line, while Ádám is doing all the crazy projects he wants (bollocks on swords, seriously? 😅... btw, echoing a previous discussion, on the same FB post of his, we can see the glimpse of a dussack hilt being made in a style I like).

@die.freifechter Месяц назад

Well, I think there are several things coming together here. I do not want to speak for them of course, but simply put, Ádám is still with LE, and I am not aware of that changing. He just, somehow (?!?), manages to do his personal project on top of the sometimes frankly insane hours they pull at the shop. They are slowly but surely clawing their way out of a big backlog, caused by number of bad luck incidents. Most famously there was the "riddle of steel" they had to try and solve, where, according to the lab tests, everything about their formed, filed and hardened blades was fine, but they kept bending and not returning true. (I sometimes feel like bladesmiths, collectively, must have some of the worst lucks of any profession, with how often I seem to read about people having to deal with breaking equipment at the worst of times.) That lead to them deciding to put a stop on custom LE projects for now, so that they could focus on finishing the ones still in the making and getting that backlog down. (And yes, I know what guard you are talking about.) - Peter