Gross Messer: Destructive Testing

The Gross Messer (German for 'Big Knife') is an interesting beast. A kind of hybrid between a Falchion and a Saber, the Cold Steel version is the only production replica on the market - and while it tends to be somewhat more overbuilt and heavy than the historical examples - as you can see from the official Cold Steel videos, it has a reputation for extreme cutting ability...

VIDEO: Official Promotional Video While this is more of an advertisement than objective testing, the results are very impressive and speak for themselves...

However, in the last few years - the reputation of the Gross Messer was tarnished by some unexpected failures of this promising blade to live up to its fearsome reputation. But in the interests of evaluating the current offerings - the following review by SBG contributor Robert Betts (Suvurov on the SBG Sword Forum) puts the Messer through hell to see if the offerings available in late 2007 have seen any improvements...

Cold Steel Gross Messer

Over the years I've read a lot of negative comments regarding this sword, mainly faulting poor construction, but I always felt that most of those comments held an underlying dislike of Cold Steel (thus weren't exactly unbiased).

The stats:

The blade is "standard" Messer shape, kind of like an enormous bowie for those not familiar with the sword type (grosse messer translates roughly to "large knife" I think), the hilt iron or mild steel, grip is rosewood (very functional and to me, attractive), mild steel pommel. Hilt and pommel are blackened.

My son and I needed to work off a bit of frustration, so we dug out old the old shield target for what became its final hurrah. The cutting session lasted about an hour all together, with both of us giving the sword a turn through its paces. The pics of the sword hanging and lying were made after the session. All of the pics below are of cuts made with the swords factory edge.

First, the sword

Hilt close up (the dark spot on the hilt is sweat, the hilt is a uniform color)

The Blade

The target (may it rest in peace)

And on to the other side...

Underhand, one hand thrust (almost 2.5 inches of penetration)

After all of that, you might expect the blade to be in bad shape, but far from it.

Other than a few light scratches, the only marks on the blade came from when it split the shield and hit the iron post support the arm rest of the futon to which it was strapped. Image magnified 200%

So, do I believe those other posts? Nope. This sword is a serious piece: fast to use, solidly made, and one that delivers powerful cuts. A person could do a whole lot worse in buying a sword, and probably not a lot better in the performance department.

Buy one and see for yourself...

PROS

• EXTREMELY durable and with extreme cutting power

• Very sharp and good to go straight out of the box

• Well balanced and very fast, despite it's significant (4lb) weight

• 'Modern' look and feel, not especially historically accurate

WHERE TO BUY

The Gross Messer retails for US$299.99 direct from Cold Steel, however even though it is clearly a good value for money buy - you need not pay anywhere near as much for this blade…

The best place to buy it is here at Trueswords.com where it is available for just US$189.99 - which not only saves you $110, but with customer service and a very fair return policy, you can avoid any nasty surprises or end up with one of the defective older models...