Dynasty Forge Musha Katana Review

Dynasty Forge have always had a reputation for high quality blades.

With swords sourced from the legendary Huano forge, owned by the legendary Chinese historian and scholar Fred Chen, they have been revolutionizing what is possible in the production sword market – mostly at the $1000 to $2000 price point.

So when they turned their considerable expertise to the more affordable sub US$300 Katana we all love and cherish, they may have decided to sacrifice some of the traditional forging techniques, the end result was a truly beautiful, superbly constructed cutting machine...

But are they really all that they are cracked up to be? Read on and find out for yourself!

Dynasty Forge Musha Class Katana

The second generation no-hi Musha is a 1060 Spring Steel Mono-tempered Katana costing $299.

I had 2 reasons for wanting to buy a Dynasty Forge katana, firstly their reputation for producing beautiful Katanas, and secondly their reputation for producing swords that perform exceptionally well.

”Reputation counts for a lot in the world of swords...”

When my sword arrived it was neatly and tightly packed, well greased, inside a blue sword bag, wrapped and taped tightly up in thick heavy duty bubble wrap, all secured inside a plain cardboard box.

At first i thought 'what? No fancy box?' but really - be honest, who here actually uses their fancy boxes?

Now onto the sword;

Here is the detailed description of the sword from the Dynasty Forge website:

Forged from extremely durable 1060 spring steel, this 28.5" blade is mono-tempered and machine polished. Forged without Bo-Hi, this blade is the most durable cutter in the 1060 line. The Shinogi-Ji is hand-burnished to a mirror polish, giving the blade a crisp geometry. The sword is fitted in Musashi themed Tsuba and Fuchi-Kashira with a pair of Buddhist sword Menuki. The Saya is finished in 11-layer natural lacquer taken to a high-gloss finish. The 11" Tsuka is paneled with genuine ray-skin and wrapped in black cotton Ito.

I chose the no hi version because I wanted a better cutter, the hi version weighs in at 2.3 lbs.

DESIGN, FIT & FINISH

The Blade;

”The blade of this sword is, in a word, amazing!”

With no etched hamon and some of the best polishing I have ever seen, it is almost as if you are not holding metal, but some crazy mirrored glass.

Sharp? this blade defines sharp, sharper than any of my hanwei practical blades (practical/light/XL light).

The transition from blade to kissaski (tip) is almost seamless.

At first, before cutting, I was worried about scratching this amazing polish job. I have now used it to cut various plastic bottles, some pretty tough ones, and a mat.

No scratches...
...At all.

This is not only a beautiful polish, but it is also a very hard wearing polish.

Ten! thumbs up.

The Grip;

This katana has an 11" tsuka, personally I think this is a great size, as I find larger tsukas harder to handle.

Everywhere states that the ito is cotton.

I am not in a position to argue with this, but I will say that if this is cotton, then it is FAR superior to all of my other 'cotton' ito tsukas.

Not so 'soft and fluffy' but ' hard, tight and grippy'

Excellent wrapping quality, tight and even.

My only single fault (if you could even call it a fault) that I could find is the two gold caps at the bottom of the tsuka ito don’t just line up perfectly. But on the other hand, they are held so firmly in place I cannot move them a single millimetre or a fraction of one.

”There is no chance of this ever coming loose.”

Here is a video I made showing the epic beauty of this sword:

VIDEO: Tour of the blade It’s obvious that Ric really has fallen for this sword. 6 mins and 8 seconds of ‘sword porn’

The Fittings

Musashi tsuba: material - cast iron.

Buddhist sword menuki: material – metal

Pegs (double): material – bamboo

Same: real – panelled

Some things, few things, require few words.

”Simple...

...Elegant...

...Quality!”

Handling

This sword handles very much like my Cheness Cutlery Tenchi, i.e. pretty damn well.

The only real difference is that this Dynasty Forge one basically just cuts BETTER...

TESTING

Water bottles;

Water bottles? What water bottles?

This sword has gone through every type of bottle I have put in front of it with so little effort you might almost as well just be cutting the air.

Tatami mats;

VIDEO: Musha Mat Cutting Effortless cutting and surprising speed and recovery for a solid bodied blade without bo-hi (fuller/aka blood groove)

As you can see, an excellent cutter.

This sword has instantly claimed its position as my favourite 'cutter' in my collection, I will be posting plenty more videos featuring this sword.

CONCLUSION

I didn’t think it was possible to acquire such a high quality sword for less than $300.

I was wrong.

Simply the best cutter I own, and it looks great to boot!

All for under $300...

PROS

• Incredibly sharp and amazingly effective as a cutter

• Highly scratch resistant mirror polish

• Very high quality fittings and tight assembly

• Not historically accurate (but not intended to be. It is intended to be a HIGH performance, durable, cutting machine.

• No bo-hi version feels just a little on the heavy side

• Wood core uses the minimum acceptable wood type for a cutter, creating a possible weak point

WHERE TO BUY

While their Musha series Katana typically retails from $360 to $299.99 – after finding out about the quality and cutting ability of these swords, I originally started stocking them at the SBG Sword Store.

However, I soon learned that there was a place selling them at a MUCH lower price than even I could do even at SBG going direct from the manufacturer, with Canadian based seller (after all, Dynasty Forge are based in Canada themselves) Reliks who stock them here for $244.99.

But then US based sword giant Kult of Athena started stocking the entire range with prices starting at a truly ridiculous $229.95!

So if you are in the market for one of these swords, for most people KoA will be the best option, and as you may know their customer service and shipping speed and prices are amoung the best the industry has to offer, so you would be kind of mad to buy them anywhere else..!