The Flagship Line is the first full tang weapon-grade line of swords. The best steels and the best construction methods are used. The balance, fit and finish are extraordinary. They feature ergonomic and angled handles; a hot-drop-forged D-Guards in ASAI 304 stainless steel; a quillon designed for flipping and trapping. The blades have distal and profile tapers (not a flat piece of steel) and sport either a true lenticular or wide hollow grind.
After the release of our Integral sword line, we spent 6 months gathering feedback from over 30 top sifus and improving the design. These swords are the result of that work. They are lighter, quicker, stronger, feel better, and trap better than the Integral swords, which were already the best swords on the market. The balance on these swords is second-to-none. In addition, the blade shapes have been modified to better suit multiple lineage's requirements.
More Information: The Hybrid Blade is our own invention. It is a mix of a pure chopper and a stabber. We felt that even though most lineages use the modern chopper version, you still need to be able to stab effectively, so we made the blade in a manner that allows it to effectively chop and stab. This allows all lineages to use the swords. Most chopping versions of the swords are too blunt and rounded at the tip to stab effectively, while most stabbing versions are too thin and not rounded enough to chop. This version allows you to use the swords in all methods of attack: chopping, stabbing, slicing and slashing.
The Bellied Chopper is mainly used for hacking and slashing techniques. It makes the chops very powerful and a real weapon can cleave through bone. Choppers sacrifice the ability to stab as effectively. Our chopper resulted from our careful study of the best features of the blades on Ip Man's actual swords, other famous Sifus, and world-class experience.
We will typically refer to the "Bellied Chopper" as simply the "Chopper" style, although technically the 2 are different. Many swords you see today have a fat rectangular blade with no belly. (The belly is the part that widens out near the tip). We have not found any historical blades that are made like this, and believe it is most likely a modern invention used to make cheap swords. You typically see these swords used in Southern Shaolin styles of KungFu, but we mention them here because many Wing Chun people end up with these swords due to their availability. Very few people actually prefer or request them, and for this reason when we typically refer to the "Choppers" we are thinking of only the Wing Chun version - the bellied chopper.
The Narrowing Stabber is mainly used for piercing opponents. The narrower blade and sharper tip facilitate this. These blades are good for stabbing and slicing but sacrifice some chopping ability. You will notice that the top edge of the blade (the spine) is also angled downward. This gives the sword more piercing power as the tip is in alignment with the handle and wrist. This is very similar to how they made the swords in the Red Boat (war) era of Wing Chun's history. These are lighter and faster than the choppers. Our 12" stabber was based on a historical triangular design rather than using one of the ugly modern rectangles that had no precedent in historical China (and are just a low-cost manufacturing innovation).
The "Tough-As-Hell" Edition is a hard-core training and combat sword and is the 3rd series of our Flagship line of blades. The "Tough-As-Hell" Edition uses a hand-hammered combat-ready carbon spring steel that is both flexible (so the blades will not snap) and strong. When testing edge-vs-edge striking on other steels our 9260 hammered combat steel performed the best. That said: We NEVER recommend any sword for weapon vs weapon training because ALL weapons fail at some point and can cause massive injury. While these are capable blades, NEVER go steel on steel with your swords. No matter what you are hitting - these swords are the toughest of any other production butterfly sword we have found on the open market, and the toughest we have produced to date (2013).
