Gun vs Katana

[Sasaki Kojiro]

Another demonstration of the sharpness of a katana:

http://www.compfused.com/directlink/408/

[tool Dude]

Sharpness is tha main thing bout a samurai sword especially to cut their enemies body's into pieces for easier meal to tha wild animals!

[Uesugi Kenshin]

It is amazing how sharp Katanas are. It cut the target in two and left it standing for another cut.... Amazing.

[metatron]

The same show later demonstrated a katana against a .50 M2 machine gun. It lasted seven rounds before breaking in half.

[Byzantine Prince]

The most amazing thing about katanas is the fact that you can bend them with your bare hands. They are extremely flexible like that. In another way though they are invincable. I wonder though, could a normal european sword do the same?

[Togakure]

You'd have to be pretty darn strong to bend a katana with your bare hands, though they can be snapped very easily if they are lodged in wood and then twisted/bent with weight/force. They can also break very easily upon impact with another weapon if the angle is incorrect.

Note that the impressive strength lies primarily in the forging/folding of the steel. Many of the mock katanas that you can buy for $400-$1000 dollars here and there are forged, but not forged and folded. These katanas do not possess this impressive strength. Forged and folded blades are available, made for cutting, and run between $700-$5000 ($4000 and up for custom-designed blades).

Bugei makes some nice cutting blades: http://www.bugei.com

My Katana is of the very popular and widely available Golden Oriole style, but was made by Bugei, forged and folded, from Swedish powdered steel. I have done a bit of Tameshigiri with it and it cuts very nicely. Bugei does not normally make the Golden Oriole; someone special-ordered 30 of them and then didn't follow through, so Bugei made them publically available for $700 each. I snatched one up as the price was right (good cutting blades normally start around $1000). The difference between mine and the common Golden Oriole is that it is forged and folded SPS, whereas the common Paul Chen blades are forged 440 steel.

Do handle all blades with extreme care! One of my best friends came over after I'd gotten my blade and asked to inspect it. It was sitting on a stand on my fireplace mantle and I was in the process of moving, so there were boxes in front of it on the floor. My friend, a 2nd degree black belt in Shotokan karate and a brown belt in Uechi Ryu karate, all too reverently leaned over the boxes and took the sword down, grasping it by the saya (scabbard) only (without placing his thumb over the Tsuba (guard), which he should have done). I had been drawing with it a lot, so it no longer stuck firmly in the scabbard (which is desireable for a practical blade). He made the mistake of tipping it a little the wrong way, and it started to slide out. Appalled that he was about to drop the blade of his friend's katana, my buddy snatched the sliding blade with his bare hand--and proceeded to almost sever four fingers. Blood fountained everywhere; it was quite a mess. But, he did manage to prevent the sword from falling, which he proudly pointed out afterward (he is an extremist when it comes to custom and being martially "proper"). Fortunately his fingers healed up after a month or so, but keyboarding was a major pain for a while. Do be careful ... .

[Byzantine Prince]

I saw a program on TV about professional japanese sword making and the guy that making them said "now you woudln't think this is possible with a sword *starts bending it*, but they are actually quite flexible". It didn't look very hard to do. I don't know why you can't do it with your sword. Maybe your is thicker or something.

It's really amazing how they use over 40 different types of stones to make them sharp. Very interesting what long tradition can accomplish over time without any real high tech.

BTW does Bugei have those nice "stick" like disguised swords? Forgot the name for them.