cas tactical wakizashi or katana

[XanRa]

I agree with you Tony.

I'm no 12th level ninja or whatever, but I have owned and used wakis and katanas for a couple of decades. (for fun, simply because I like them)
I have several waki style blades I use as machetes that have felled many MANY a tree with plenty of wear, but no real damaged to the swords. I have no formal training yet I consistently use them to great effect, even out chopping friends using traditional machetes.
Yes I realize trees are not people, but this still demonstrates that (1)- not all sword shaped blades are delicate flowers that fall apart with the slightest use (or abuse). (2)- an untrained guy with a basic feel for swinging blades can chop to great effect. (also I've noted that even without using "propper" slicing technique my wakis still chop amazingly well)
I even preffer to cary my wakis over the shoulder baldric style. Have done so for many years, and have never had a problem drawing a waki sized blade. ...Resheathing is trickier, but with only a small amount of practice is not difficult at all... not to mention that resheathing tends to be less of a speed priority than unsheathing.

I wonder how much "real" experience our "experts" here actually have? How many times have they used a sword on a real attacker? How many times have they seen an untrained yet committed defender/attacker fail to damage their enemy with a real sword?
I would also note that while techniqe and muscle memory are great things, I have also noticed that some people can get too hung up on "correct" or "traditional" forms, only to choke or freeze up when reality does not match up with their training sessions. -No offense, just an observation.

Look, I'm aware that the right techniques will increase the effectiveness of any weapon, but you don't need to be an expert to stick someone with a knife, wack them with a sword, or pull a trigger. I can agree that a full sized sword can be impractical in many senses, but I am of the opinion that the right waki style sword has its uses and advantages, even for the non-ninja and samurai. You could weigh the pros and cons of sword vs xxx as a backup choice, but first the OP simply wants to narrow the choice between waki or katana...

I say waki.

I really want to know what kind of wakis you use in the bush

Care to elaborate? I would love to pick up a bush waki haha

[djjonny]

The kind where the pummel pops off and the handle houses some matches and some ninja darts to assassinate the bears that wonder in your camp
(LOL just kidding)

To OP:
Assuming it's legal to use a sword and you know what u doing, are you prepared to do this to people?

If so, well then cool, go ahead

Lastly here's some motivation


Back to reality

If you want really want to avoid SHTF then forget about using a sword. Think of a scenario where you've dismembered an attacker.
The fact you used a sword on your attacker can easily tell the courts your intent was kill him and not defend yourself.

If they rule in favor of the person you maimed then welcome to SHTF, when you potentially have to pay damages the rest of your life
for preventing him from being able to work again

Lets say you decapitate your attacker and the courts convict you of murder. Welcome to SHTF when you get locked up with gender
inaccurate men, who will with show you how to really use a blade.
Oh crap! You don't have your sword to protect you anymore

[Tony8179]

The kind where the pummel pops off and the handle houses some matches and some ninja darts to assassinate the bears that wonder in your camp
(LOL just kidding)

To OP:
If it is legal to use a waki and you know what u doing are you prepared to do this to people?

If so, well then cool, go ahead

Back to reality

If you want really want to avoid SHTF then forget about using a sword. Think of a scenario where you've dismembered an attacker.
The fact you used a sword on your attacker can easily tell the courts your intent was kill him not defend yourself.

If they rule in favor of the person you maimed then welcome to SHTF, when you potentially have to pay damages the rest of your life
for preventing him from being able to work again

Why does it keep coming back to legality issues? We are talking about a scenario where the shit has hit the fan, people are running amok, there is complete world wide anarchy, the end of the world, viruses that are taking out four fifths of the population, a comet or asteroid is about to hit Earth that will destroy 95% of all humanity, zombies have risen from their graves to feast on the brains of the living, Aliens are attacking our entire planet, ginormous ninja clans are wiping out the human population at an alarming rate, and dinosaurs are eating the zombies and ninjas and turning into zombie dinosaurs that puke up ninja zombies.

What does legality have to do with anything?

Even if this situation wasn't a SHTF scenario (which it has been through the entire span of this thread) and someone just came into your home with the intent to hurt your faimly and you happen to half sever the guy's hand. Are you really going to be thinking about the legal issues after you've stopped the piece of garbage in your home? Are you really going to care about what may happen afterwards when at the time all you are thinking about is stopping this guy from hurting your family.

You're so worried about legal issues when you should only be concerned with the protection of yourself and your family. I would use whatever I could get my hands on to defend myself or the ones I love. If the only thing I could grab in a heartbeat was a pepper grinder then I would be beating someone to death with a pepper grinder. I wouldn't be worrying about whether or not I've been trained in proper pepper grinder use, I wouldn't be worrying about what may happen to me after I beat someone to death with the pepper grinder, I would be thinking about hitting the guy with the pepper grinder until he completely stops moving. Would I be prepared to cave in someone's entire head with a pepper grinder if I had to? Yes. Would my intent be to kill? Yes. I defended who I had to defend by killing the person that planned on harming them in the first place. My intent was to defend by killing.

[XanRa]

Why does it keep coming back to legality issues? We are talking about a scenario where the shit has hit the fan, people are running amok, there is complete world wide anarchy, the end of the world, viruses that are taking out four fifths of the population, a comet or asteroid is about to hit Earth that will destroy 95% of all humanity, zombies have risen from their graves to feast on the brains of the living, Aliens are attacking our entire planet, ginormous ninja clans are wiping out the human population at an alarming rate, and dinosaurs are eating the zombies and ninjas and turning into zombie dinosaurs that puke up ninja zombies.

What does legality have to do with anything?

Even if this situation wasn't a SHTF scenario (which it has been through the entire span of this thread) and someone just came into your home with the intent to hurt your faimly and you happen to half sever the guy's hand. Are you really going to be thinking about the legal issues after you've stopped the piece of garbage in your home? Are you really going to care about what may happen afterwards when at the time all you are thinking about is stopping this guy from hurting your family.

You're so worried about legal issues when you should only be concerned with the protection of yourself and your family. I would use whatever I could get my hands on to defend myself or the ones I love. If the only thing I could grab in a heartbeat was a pepper grinder then I would be beating someone to death with a pepper grinder. I wouldn't be worrying about whether or not I've been trained in proper pepper grinder use, I wouldn't be worrying about what may happen to me after I beat someone to death with the pepper grinder, I would be thinking about hitting the guy with the pepper grinder until he completely stops moving. Would I be prepared to cave in someone's entire head with a pepper grinder if I had to? Yes. Would my intent be to kill? Yes. I defended who I had to defend by killing the person that planned on harming them in the first place. My intent was to defend by killing.

Best thing I've heard in awhile

That's all it's really about, it doesn't matter who or why- things happen and you have defend yourself or ones you love, with whatever you have

[Nate805]

The kind where the pummel pops off and the handle houses some matches and some ninja darts to assassinate the bears that wonder in your camp
(LOL just kidding)

To OP:
Assuming it's legal to use a sword and you know what u doing, are you prepared to do this to people?

If so, well then cool, go ahead

Lastly here's some motivation


Back to reality

If you want really want to avoid SHTF then forget about using a sword. Think of a scenario where you've dismembered an attacker.
The fact you used a sword on your attacker can easily tell the courts your intent was kill him and not defend yourself.

If they rule in favor of the person you maimed then welcome to SHTF, when you potentially have to pay damages the rest of your life
for preventing him from being able to work again

Lets say you decapitate your attacker and the courts convict you of murder. Welcome to SHTF when you get locked up with gender
inaccurate men, who will with show you how to really use a blade.
Oh crap! You don't have your sword to protect you anymore

No offense but...Here we go again with the fear mongering instead of what the topic at hand is really about. Only this time, it's not about the android or mutant attacker that nothing can hurt but now it's about the " You gonna get raped!" prison threat. Yes indeed we should be afraid to defend ourselves with a certain weapon out of fear of the hypothetical, homosexual super rapist in prison that also happens to be a mutant that nothing can hurt.Beautiful.I guess the only way to avoid this would be to get a more friendly looking weapon like Tony8199's pepper grinder.

[killgar]

I'll throw this into the mix, there was a highly publicised incident back in 2009 where a college student at John Hopkins University killed a burglar with a samurai sword. If I recall correctly, he cut the burglars hand off and the burglar died from blood loss. No charges were ever filed against the student.

An internet search for "student uses samurai sword", or somethging similar should bring up several media reports.

And though I know that it was an isolated incident, and that there is always a great deal of luck involved when untrained people use weapons successfully for self-defense, as I recall, the student was not a samurai and had no training in the proper use of a samurai sword. Yet he was successful none the less and never went to jail.

[ednemo]

I love swords! I currently still own about 6 and still practice with them. After teaching many people about sword-fighting, (both Western and Eastern), most people don't understand the dynamics of fighting with a sword. Bodies move, people do not automatically riposte or get the Hell out of the way. My point is, that without real instruction, you have a good chance of hurting yourself. Whether you are using a katana, rapier or ginunting, each have a different set of techniques. Knowing what I know would I carry a sword? No. Maybe a high quality machete or a large hunting knife. But if I am going into some apocalyptic situation, I would be using guns. If I was fighting zombies and all the bullets in the world were gone, I would use a spear or an axe. Swords were used for very specific reasons. In armed combat, it was generally the last resort. Bows, then spears, then swords. Make no mistake, a sword is a killing instrument, but unless you are an extra in Highlander, they are horribly impractical.

Wow, that was really rambling.

[djjonny]

Kilgar with the utmost respect.
In the case of that student, it was a case of home defence and laws generally are more lenient in those cases (correct me if I'm wrong)

I was talking more in the streets. The Op did mentioned chaos people rioting running out of amo ...etc
Many states and coutries that allow knives to be carried and used sd have length limits. If there are none were the OP stays, then no problem as far as swords in the street are concerned

As far as weapons and lack of training are concerned there are many success stories but personally I am not willing to take that chance.
Also if a weapon is illegal I am also not willing to take a chance with the law no matter what. Also If I had to use a wepon I would prefer to minimise the change legal issues and procedures as much as possible (just my pref)

Tony, as far as protecting my family is concerned I always have various legal weapons (as per SA law) on my person or nearby should the need ever arise

I love swords! I currently still own about 6 and still practice with them. After teaching many people about sword-fighting, (both Western and Eastern), most people don't understand the dynamics of fighting with a sword. Bodies move, people do not automatically riposte or get the Hell out of the way. My point is, that without real instruction, you have a good chance of hurting yourself. Whether you are using a katana, rapier or ginunting, each have a different set of techniques. Knowing what I know would I carry a sword? No. Maybe a high quality machete or a large hunting knife. But if I am going into some apocalyptic situation, I would be using guns. If I was fighting zombies and all the bullets in the world were gone, I would use a spear or an axe. Swords were used for very specific reasons. In armed combat, it was generally the last resort. Bows, then spears, then swords. Make no mistake, a sword is a killing instrument, but unless you are an extra in Highlander, they are horribly impractical.

Wow, that was really rambling.

^^Bingo That was not rambling, that was fact.^^

Lets take zombies into account (I can't beleive I'm responding to this lol). If they did ever appear (hypothetically) in ones fantasy world, remember a zombie bite infects the victim and turns them into one of them. No matter how many times you hack them it takes one bite
Also Zombies sometimes move in packs
Depending which lore you chose to believe they sometimes move quite quick

Those of you thinking of using a sword. Do you really think carrying a sword you never trained to use will help you in any of the above Zombie cases?
At best it will only slow you down when you try to escape.

No offense but...Here we go again with the fear mongering

Nate, as far as fear mongering is concerned. Do you doubt a sword doesn't dismember, decapitate or cut a person wide open?
If so how do you think a sword damages a person?

I'm not saying dont get or use a sword because of this. I'm just saying to use a sword you must be prepared to do this if you choose to.
With any weapon, if you are not willing to inflict the damage that weapon causes you will not be able to use it to protect yourself

As far as the legal issues I mentioned. I never said they will happen for sure but what the consequences would be if they did.
Once again, not a chance I'm willing to take whether it's bound to happen or not

Personally I'm tired of this thread and done with it. Agree or disagree, I will not posying or replying anymore.

[XanRa]

Why does everyone keep bringing up legal issues...

He said in a shtf scenario- there would be NO "laws" in such a scenario

[Tony8179]

Why does everyone keep bringing up legal issues...

He said in a shtf scenario- there would be NO "laws" in such a scenario

I have tried every way possible to remind anyone who visits this thread that it is about a SHTF scenario. C'mon, dinosaurs eating zombies and ninjas then puking up zombie ninjas? You can't get more SHTF than that.

The thing is that this thread started off as a simple suggestion thread, then it turned into a warning and talking to from the experts, then it turned into a bit of fun. The honest truth is that if the SHTF ever, I mean really hits the fan, then it probably won't matter whether you have a gun, katana, waki, machete, or a pepper grinder. The chances are that you will be dead from some sort of event that will wipe out much of the population, if not all of it.

OP, go with the Waki.

[stabman]

The thing is that this thread started off as a simple suggestion thread, then it turned into a warning and talking to from the experts, then it turned into a bit of fun. The honest truth is that if the SHTF ever, I mean really hits the fan, then it probably won't matter whether you have a gun, katana, waki, machete, or a pepper grinder. The chances are that you will be dead from some sort of event that will wipe out much of the population, if not all of it.

OP, go with the Vodka.

Fixed it.

[Tony8179]

Fixed it.

Now that's funny.

[will_1400]

Why does everyone keep bringing up legal issues...

He said in a shtf scenario- there would be NO "laws" in such a scenario

I told myself I wasn't going to post in this thread any more... by the Hurricane Katrina was a "SHTF" situation. As I recall there was plenty of legal fallout for looters and the like when everything went back to normal. Ditto other large-scale natural disasters. There are plenty of major situations that can come about that don't result in a post apcolyptic collapse of society.

[razorsdescent]

My highlander question is this:
Why did no one have a 203? these guys are portrayed as having massive resources in terms of both money and experience and yet they use swords? that dumb, id modify the fuse on an HE 40mm round so that it only had a say half rotation delay before it was armed, pop it in a repeating launcher like the m-32 and light them up, then remove what was left of their spine with a khukri or something until the quickening begins. sheesh you'd think four hundred year old men would have more common sense.

[ednemo]

My highlander question is this:
Why did no one have a 203? these guys are portrayed as having massive resources in terms of both money and experience and yet they use swords? that dumb, id modify the fuse on an HE 40mm round so that it only had a say half rotation delay before it was armed, pop it in a repeating launcher like the m-32 and light them up, then remove what was left of their spine with a khukri or something until the quickening begins. sheesh you'd think four hundred year old men would have more common sense.

The singer from Fine Young Cannibals, (he was a villain on the show and I don't feel like looking up his name), would have his soldiers shoot an immortal and he would walk over and cut their head off when they were down. Apparently that was frowned upon. But it does show that they did have the idea.

[BePrepared]

If you ARE going to get a sword, there are a lot more practical options than a Hanwei Katana.

I have the Tac Wac, and it's a cool sword. More "practical" than the katana. And i have an "assassins baldric" that holds it perfectly on my back for fast, risk free presentation and re-sheating.

All that said, that blade just isn't anything i'd grab in TEOTWAKI

There are a few reasons. First, it's a SINGLE USE blade. It's good at lopping squishy parts of humans, and useless at pretty much anything else. That's NOT what you want in SHTF gear.

So, now on to what you DO want. You have a few options.

You could get a genuine HARD USE blade IE. Busse AK47, Swamp Rat Rucki, Scrapizashi, Miller Bros sword, etc.

These weapons are all designed to take MASSIVE abuse, chop wood, cut brush, etc, and still be optimal personal defensive weapons.

or, you can go buy a machete... either way, stay away from things with a 28" blade. 20" or less is plenty for a utility blade that doubles as a weapon

either way, don't get it in your head that whatever sword you get is your SHTF weapon. Get a shotgun, or a rifle, and a good handgun (glock 22)... THAT is your shtf weapon... your blade is another tool...