The Realm of the Dark Blade

Wow… It’s 2010 folks… 2010!

2009  just flew away… And didn’t even look back.I, for one, would like to thank the thousands of you that read this blog on a daily basis, believe me, I never thought I was writing anything that interesting. Well at least not to anyone but me… But I can’t say it hasn’t been rewarding. And to my regulars, I say Domo Arigatou Gozaimasu. Thank you very much! I will do my level best to continue to keep you all entertained in 2010!

And 2010 looks like it will be an auspicious year. It’s a nice round number, for one thing. And It has a movie named after it… though somehow I doubt the events in the movie will actually occur in real life… But either way, I think this is going to be an amazing year… I can just feel it in my smoldering bones. I’ve got some interesting projects planned, and I think you will all like them.

This will be the year of really, really, cool stuff. And I leave you with one such piece of cool to contemplate:

The Sword Gun

Awesome to 2010 and BEYOND!!!

Best wishes for the new year, from me, your perpetually fiery host, from the Realm of the Dark Blade!

~Phyreblade~

So guess what… I found another Gunblade…

Brevete 22 cal. Knife Revolver

This, my friends, is the Brevete Pinfire .22 cal Knife revolver. Nice eh? Ivory grips on a Revolver  is nothing new. Ivory grips on darn near the whole frame of a revolver, with a blade attached to the front… Now *that* you don’t see every day.

Brevete 22 cal. Knife Revolver - Right

If you’re gonna bring a knife to a gun fight, you might as well do it in style. And this would certainly fit the bill for any particular porpoise. Yes. I said Porpoise. No, it’s not a mistake, bit your tongue for even suggesting it! It’s just that Porpoises tend to be much more discerning about these kinds of things than humans.  So there.

As a side note, for some odd reason, looking at this revolver evokes memories of a funny little poem:

One fine day in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys got up to fight,
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other,

One was blind and the other couldn’t, see
So they chose a dummy for a referee.
A blind man went to see fair play,
A dumb man went to shout “hooray!”
A paralysed donkey passing by,
Kicked the blind man in the eye,
Knocked him through a nine inch wall,
Into a dry ditch and drowned them all,

A deaf policeman heard the noise,
And came to arrest the two dead boys, If you don’t believe this story’s true,
Ask the blind man he saw it too!

Personally, I think this duel would have made  so much more sense if these two dead boys each had a  Brevete Knife Revolver in .38 special, with ebony black grips. I’m sure even the blind man would have been impressed…

But that might just be me.  o_O

Brevette .22 cal Knife Revolver – [Dawes & Co]

Ok… so up until this point I’ve posted a lot of gun blades, blade guns, gun like blades, etc… Today I ran across something a little new. A rifle blade.

CSA Rifle Sword

Now before you ask, no, it is not actually a working firearm. though it does look a whole lot like one. So this cannot technically be called a gunblade. Or a rifleblade, as it were. This is more like… a rifle-like sword. Or a sword cane. Or actually a sword rifle. Or whatever. Take your pick.

The important thing is that there’s a cool, almost 28″ blade, in what looks like an equally cool civil war rifle, when sheathed. Coolness all around. The grip of the sword is made to look like a working trigger group, firing mechanism and butt stock of a civil war rifle, while the sheath replicates the barrel of the rifle, complete with plunger.

A cool idea. Except for one thing. From a tactical standpoint, it kinda seems self defeating to disguise a sword as a rifle. Think about it. Disguising a sword as a cane gives you an advantage because you can hide the true power of your weapon. But this… Well, it’s like bringing a sword to a rifle fight. It may look cool, but you probably wouldn’t fare very well if push came to shove.

But I might just be over analyzing it a bit.

Either way it’s an absolutely beautiful piece of work. So just ignore me.

CSA Rifle Sword – [True Swords]

Today, per popular request, I thought I’d treat you to one of the sweetest gun blades I’ve ever come across. A very unique gun blade that is so cool in so many ways, I hardly know where to begin. So I guess I’ll start with a pic:

The High Roller - By Bruce Bump

Now *that* is a cool gunblade. Exactly *how* cool? Let me count the ways…

First off, this piece of art is a study in beautiful black damascus steel. And my regulars will all know that black is a BIG plus in my book. This little knife is a beauty. A 5″ black damascus blade, that folds into a beautifully contoured black damascus grip, adorned with a set of sweet sambar stag horn scales. Just amazing.

The High Roller - Sans Pistol

And then we have the fully functional black powder muzzle loader pistol in .22. All in black, with beautifully done scrollwork along the length of the barrel and backstrap/grip.

The High Roller - Top

Seriously, a black damascus folder, especially one like this, is a thing of beauty all by itself. But a black damascus folder attached to a black steel gun? That’s just too darn cool for school.

The High Roller - Grip

And as if that weren’t enough, the knife was made to stow in a beautiful book set, complete with black powder kit and a pair of elephant ivory dice to boot.

The High Roller - Book Safe

This, ladies and germs, is functional art. None of that “fantasy” garbage here, the knife is fully functional, the pistol is fully functional, and the whole thing is just an amazing amalgamation of art, sinister lines and beautiful darkness all put together to make a single, awesome kit of uncompromising WIN.

The High Roller - Pistol Barrel

What more can I say? I’m not the gambling sort, but I’d certainly take it up if it gave me an excuse to carry something like this around…

The High Roller by Bruce Bump – [Blade Gallery]

I’m not really into politics, however it appears that the Good ‘ol U. S. of A. is going to have it’s first African American President. Now while that is of itself a noteworthy and landmark occurrence, as the transition from slavery to presidency is no mean feat, I’m also hoping it will bring with it important changes. Like an improved economy. Reduced national deficits. Better international relationships. You know. Good Presidential stuff.

However we will just have to wait and see. Politicians are politicians after all, it doesn’t matter whether they are black or white, which is a fact many seem to have forgotten. The proof is in the pudding. Whatever that means… I never really liked pudding anyway. Only time will tell how well campaign promises equate to results…

Anyway, in honor of this momentous occasion, I thought I’d break out a beauty of a weapon I ran into a while back. I have done a few gunblade posts in the past, but none of them compare to the sweetness that is the Gun Katar:

Gun Katar

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Is that not completely and uncompromisingly awesome? Now this is a weapon for which a Gun Kata would make practical sense. Yes, A Gun Kata. You know, that little gun dance that seemed to occur at random in the movie “Equilbrium”? The one with Christian Bale before he became the “Dark Knight? Yeah. That one. Go look up Gun Kata (not Katar) on the YouTubes or something. But I’m ranting here. Back to Gun Katar goodness.

What you are looking at here is a Katar, a traditional Indian punch dagger, primarily a thrusting  weapon, often designed to penetrate chain mail armored opponents. It has a thick wedge shaped blade, and unlike most other weapons, the blade is held vertically, by a grip and a set of side bars that sit at right angles to the blade.

Gun Katar - Side View

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This one is a particularly ornate one, featuring some very intricate engravings. You can see an elephant and a boar on one side, as well as flowers, leaves in the center area where the blade emerges, and other traditional Indian adornments.

Gun Katar - Engravings

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Gun Katar - Engravings

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Like many other katar, this features a double bar center grip, with the traditional side bars that run down either side of the blade and acts as guard as well as added support for the weapon.

Gun Katar - Side Guards

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Under normal circumstances, that would be the sum total of the design of a traditional Katar. Except this one takes quite a hike from the traditional beaten Katar path. This Katar is loaded. With black powder. A double charge no less…

Gun Katar - Flintlock Pistol Barrel

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This Katar is sporting a pair of flint lock pistols, one attached to either side of the weapon. If you look closely at the grip, you can see a pair of triggers recessed into the front bar, one at the top and one at the bottom.

Gun Katar - Flintlock Pistol Triggers

[click image to view full size]

As you can probably imagine, a person wielding this in battle would have a healthy advantage over your poorly equipped standard Katar wielding schlub. I can just imagine how confrontations with the original owner of this weapon would have ended. Indiana Jones style.

I love weapons that make the old saying: “never bring a knife to a gun fight.” redundant…

Anyway I thought this was a cool weapon for a special day… There are one or two more pics at the link after the jump. Here’s to great things in our future…

Peace!

Gun Katar – [CollectorEbooks.com]

Here is an interesting crossbow design:

Gun Crossbow

[view full size]

[view XL Size]

Now as crossbows go, this is quite the looker. Melding design cues from the medieval hand held firearm with that of the venerable crossbow we get: The medieval gun crossbow. Sporting what looks like a medieval flint lock hand gun grip attached to a small cross bow. It’s just all kinds of style right there. The medieval warriors answer to the modern hand gun.

Anyway, one of the things I really like about this weapon is it’s simplicity. You can practically count the number of moving parts on this weapon with one hand. And yet it’s simplicity does not diminish it’s effectiveness one whit. Even though, compared to a full size cross bow, this would have been very weak. But don’t let the simplicity fool you. It could have been quite lethal at close range.

Yet another interesting thing about this weapon is that it is sporting a rather neat little feature that I don’t often see in medieval crossbows. Fore and aft adjustable sights!! If you look closely at the pic you’ll notice two posts with aiming apertures pinned to the right side of the crossbow. To be honest, I’m not positive about their adjustability, but the fact that they are pinned to the side, as opposed to being fixed to the latch plate, may suggest they were adjustable. Yep, this little beaut’s got all kinds of bells and whistles… Ok, so maybe one or two. But back then that was a lot.

And it would have been easy to conceal. At least compared to a full sized crossbow. There was even a little ring in the butt stock so you could hang it from your belt. Talk about shooting from the hip! And the beauty of it was, back then, no concealed carry license would have been required. Ah, the good old days… Gun control was all about “Robin Hood”ing your crossbow bolts…

Gun Crossbow – [Realm Collections]

OK, I know I just blogged about the wonders of the gunblade, but I still have another one to show you. Now this blade is also a prop from the Final Fantasy franchise, but, in my humble opinion, I think this is *Teh Pwnerer* of all gun blades right here. Yep. The Ultimate Gun Blade. What? Never heard of “Teh Pwnerer” before? *snort* Yeah, I’m a bad, bad, man… That’s right, don’t mess wit’ me or imma have to break out my GUNBLADE up in this mug…

Ya skeerd? Not buying it huh? Oh well. It was worth a try… I’ll bet you’d be skeerd if it you happened to meet Seifer Almasy in a dark ally… ‘Cause this here is his gunblade. I present:

The Hyperion Gunblade

Now at this juncture, I suppose you’ll be wanting me to actually qualify the opined ultimacy of this here gunblade. I would be extremely happy to oblige.

First, the hyperion blade is, imho, a much cooler design than Squall’s Gunblade. In contrast to the curved lines of Squalls gunblade, The Hyperion Gunblades transitional areas all seem to terminate in corners or wicked points. This gives it a much more sinister appearance. If you have been reading my blogs for any amount of time, you should have figured out that this is a great big plus in my book.

The Hyperion Gunblade - An Evil Gunblade

Now if that wasn’t enough, take a look at the type of firearm the blade is attached to. A pistol! Yes, ladies and germs, the Hyperion Gunblade is a giant sword with an automatic pistol attached, as opposed to Squalls gunblade, which is attached to a revolver. Now I have mentioned before that I am a fan of weapons in general, and firearms are no exception, so allow me to provide a little insight as to why I feel that a pistol-based Gunblade is a superior combat weapon. It is true that, from at least a zen perspective, a revolver might appear to be better, since they do not rely on large magazine springs or highly complex mechanisms, are simpler, more robustly designed and therefore generally more reliable.

HOWEVER, a pistol can generally carry more ammo than a revolver, (usually 50%-100+% more), can be designed for full automatic fire, and can be lighter and smaller than a revolver for any given caliber. I think these qualities outweigh the potential pitfalls, and make it a shoe-in for total combat dominance. Hence the “Ultimate” title. What? Don’t believe me? Look it up, buster. Don’t make me bust a cap in yo… Oww… that really hurt! Sheesh! No pinching!

Seifer Almasys Hyperion Gun Blade – [True Swords]

It’s a Gun! Its a Sword! No, Its the Gun Blade! Today we get the opportunity to look at another unique entry in the humongousword saga, with a twist. This is Squall Leonheart’s Gun Blade Sword From Final Fantasy VIII

Squall Leonheart's Gun Blade

Now here we are presented with a unique combination. I have in fact seen a similar, more realistically scaled combination before, however this one is definitely more commanding. It is essentially another large sword, 30″ to be exact, but this time attached to a revolver, which acts as both the gun stock and the sword grip.

Squall Leonheart's Gunblade

Or is it a large caliber revolver with an over sized, permanently fixed bayonet? Either way, it isn’t exactly a conventional bladed weapon, but then few of the weapons I post about will be particularly standard.

Kinda puts a whole new spin on the old phrase about bringing a knife to a gunfight…

Squall Leonheart’s Gun Blade Sword – [True Swords]