I reviewed the new Pattern 1796 British Light Cavalry Sabre reproduction made by Windlass under the supervision of Matt Easton. This reproduction is modeled on one particular antique example sold to Windlass by Matt Easton, who provided counsel on several prototypes. The result is one stunning recreation of the original, particularly nailing the mass distribution along the blade--a concept that's always championed by Matt Easton, by having the most accurate distal taper, profile and cross sections. I have reviewed 4 reproductions of particular antique example developed with the help of Matt in the past 6 months--by different makers, and found the results to be highly gratifying.

The blade features a distinct concave distal taper by starting out at 8.8mm at the base, and thinning down rapidly in the bottom half, to 6mm at 8" from the base, and 3.9mm at midpoint, 1.9mm at the end of the fuller, and the un-fullered foible section between 1.5-1.7mm. It also has the most iconic broad profile done right, starting out at 42.5mm wide, tapers down by 20%, but flares up to 41.4mm at the hatchet point below the tip. The antiques of this pattern fulfilled by different 19th century makers vary a bit, but this profile is the most stereotypical. Comparing to the old Cold Steel version also made by Windlass, the distal taper is so much more accurate, as the top 1/3 of the blade carries basically only half the weight of that CS model. The handling difference is literally night and day. Coming in at 840g (1 lb 13.6 oz) but having the point of balance sitting at 7" from the hilt, it feels rather agile but each swing still feels highly authoritative, as a cavalry sabre doesn't need to worry too much about recovery. But if I am to attach a pommel to the end of the hilt, this would completely feel like a lightweight medieval falchion and moves exceedingly well!

For something with such a complex non-linear distal taper, you typically would have to pay a pound of flesh to a premium custom maker, who would usually be hesitant to work on a military sabre recreation. But Windlass did it right for a mere $380 MSRP. That's in itself a triumph. Other than that, lots of the small details have been refined, such as the hilt fittings and steel scabbard have the proper dimensions and tapering, and being hot-peened to the steel backstrap and ground flush--an obvious benefit from having the antique original in the maker's hand.

So you would think this is close to perfection, but unfortunately something has to go wrong. I don't know whether Windlass was trying to rush the first batch before Christmas, but the hilt fittings and the grip were mounted on very sloppily. The entire hilt looks 5 degrees canted from the blade. It seems that the hidden tang isn't centered within the wooden grip, and both the steel backstrap and the P-shaped stirup knuckle guard are not properly aligned and the hilt is slightly rattling. The movement is causing the backstrap opening to keep shaving the knuckle guard and creating some sharp burrs that look dangerous--luckily the locations of these burrs make them tucked away from the user's hand.

Miraculously the sloppy hilt mounting doesn't affect the handling when I cut with it. All the cuts are super clean and precise--after I spent 15 minutes to reprofile the edge to properly apex it and give it an apple seed geometry instead of the usual jarring secondary bevel, that is. So I'm willing to accept this simply because the handling is so amazing, and I'm not confident that I would get a better sword if I exchange for another one from Museum Replicas.

It seems that Matt Easton has exhausted all the options to push Windlass to do this right. And the blade component alone is absolutely a triumph. Yet the quality control without a doubt must be improved, and it can only be done on Windlass' end. Nate Sil made the comparison between 2 examples from the first batch of this new model before shipping one of them to me, and found both having excellent distal taper, but also equally sloppy hilt constructions. This seems to be a consistent trait. I hope it will only be corrected in the future.

Watch alientude's unique perspective on this model in his review: [ Ссылка ]

1796 Pattern antique photos by:
Easton Antique Arms Ltd ([ Ссылка ])
Schola Gladiatoria YouTube channel ([ Ссылка ])
Royal Armouries National museums of Arms and Armor in Leeds ([ Ссылка ])

Background music:
Orchestra Filarmonica di Lucca - British Grenadiers ([ Ссылка ])
Epic Intro 2018 by Sascha Ende from filmmusic.io

00:00 Intro
00:24 Test Cutting
02:46 Historical Background
03:35 Amazing Reproduction!
07:40 Comparison to Cold Steel model
08:18 Most Faithful Distal Taper!
11:49 Scabbard and Hilt Done Right!
15:17 Typical Secondary Bevel!
18:29 Very Sloppy Hilt Mounting
23:45 Final Conclusion

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