Customer Reviews

Cold Steel Bokken Polypropylene Handle

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Once I bought my first set of these Bokken, I knew that there was no turning back to old traditional wood and bamboo practice swords. Wood breaks easy...but these things a virtually unbreakable...i have literally beat it on a steal pole and had zero damage to the bokken. It has very easily allowed my students and I to go full force/ full contact while training and not have to worry about if the bokken will break and perhaps hurt someone. Great product, recommend it 100%.

they don't break, when me and the other students train with the old wood bokkens we find that they are yes great, but when i brought my cold steel bokken in and tried it out after i had gotten it i took not to the fact of they are flexible on contact, the grip can be ruffed up more with sandpaper if you like a ruff grip that is. i found with this bokken over my wood bokken that it was lighter then i thought it would be more like a live blade but less like a wood bokken, in my personal opinion of it not great great for endurance drills so that your arm muscles use the weight of the wood in both the cut and the ready stances to build up for a live blade and the faster cut with the live blade from using the wood bokken, but as i said this is very minor difference that most that buy this as there first bokken will not know. i still have and use my wood bokkens for drills and solo training, but when it comes down to sparing i use this do to the fact of i have had a Japanese White Oak bokken shatter on me that was a $50 dollar bokken, and everyone thinks that price is everything... i will NEVER give anything 5 out of 5 to be honest, nothing is perfect, but this is really really close to a VERY good all around bokken.

The sword is good but one feature should be considered before purchasing. It is as follows:

I suppose this adds to it's "indestructibility" but the sword is a little flexible. However, if your blade angle is in line with the angle of your cut, then there is no notice. You can only feel it when you hit something, or when you, e.g. twist your sword during a cut. I suppose that can be considered a positive thing, as it will give you feedback when you make a bad cut.

I used it during a demonstration, and it was rather comfortable. The grip is (for lack of a better description that comes to mind) a the tiniest bit coarse, but it does nothing but improve grip.

This is a good choice, if you don't mind the slight flexibility. I haven't tried it yet, but i would imagine, it would be good for sparring, too.

I am a custom knife collector/user and actually own a fairly expensive differentially tempered clay hardened sword, but have no sword training or experience so I can't pretend to rate from that angle. I actually just figured it was an interesting thing to buy and it is cheap. Additionally I felt it would be nice to carry on my neighborhood walks with our Maltese puppy, since my neighbors cat was recently killed by a stray pitbull..

First off this thing is fairly flexible,,,side-to-side at least..Not to the point that you can feel it if you swing it, but it flexes fairly easy with your hands and you can easily bend it over your knee,however it does slowly bend itself back pretty straight. It also was a bit lighter than I hoped..The bokken itself seemed perfectly straight and very well finished..It comes with the plastic Tsuba,but I didn't put it on.
The blade has the general beveled shape of a katana, but is very oversized(as any bokken is)

At this point I was a little disappointed with the weight and flex, but for $30 not bad plus I do not plan to spar with it anyway. I figured that I may as well try a quick test to see how easy I could dent the blade since I read other reviews saying it would'nt dent(I didn't believe that, but I was to be suprized)..

I first hit a small crown molding board and obviously no damage..I figured this bokken only cost $30 so I decided to try and damage it. I have an old railroad tie in my back yard.. It is a bit old, but still is pretty darn hard..

It was dark out so I took the swings without checking for damage right away..first off I turned the blade sideways and hit the corner of the tie dead-on pretty hard..I then hit it 4 times on the tie corner with the "blade"..I hit it hard enough that after 4 hits my hands hurt too much to continue...I really hit almost full force and figured that the hard corner of the railroad tied was putting dents in the sword so I quit and walked in the house..

WOW,,there were NO DENTS or sign of any dings at all..The only sign of the impacts was scuff marks on the plastic..literally only scuff marks, no scratches could be felt or seen..NOW I WAS IMPRESSED..I got my flashlight and checked the railroad tie,,THERE WERE DEEP DENTS IN THE CORNER OF THE TIE !

So much for my worries..I now look at this thing in a much different light..It would seriously put a hurt on a person or a vicious dog..plus it does not look like a weapon and even if a cop looked at it it actually looks and flexes like a innocent flexible plastic stick..

It is not a "club" by any means and is light enough that it would not feel to dangerous, but this will no doubt keep the stray pitbull away from our puppy and could probably break ribs..plus it's light weight does'nt get to heavy on long walks.

I previously had some wooden Bokken's that did not last very long at all... They both broke within about 3 months of being used. This thing is awesome and takes hits like a champ. I will most likely be back to buy another one.

I am in no way an experienced swordsman, but I feel that this bokken is great. It is considerably lighter than an actual katana, but I think most bokkens are that way. It is very impact resistant to the point of being almost indestructible. Once I accidentally hit a support beam/pillar with full force (don't ask -_-) and I found no trace of damage on the bokken. The only flaw I see is that polypropylene is not as dense as wood so the bokken is easily damaged by sharp objects and can be cut by bladed weapons. This is not really an issue unless you decide to channel musashi and fight a katana with a bokken.

I use this for Kendo and I love it. I'm the only one in my dojo who has a plastic bokken and although it may not be traditional, it looks great, it feels great and I sleep comfortably knowing I can break other wooden bokkens with this, I might also get a white oak one just to please the purists.

I've only heard good things about Cold Steel and their I products. It's claimed to be indestructible under proper usage. I just received this product today. Shipped from Arizona to California much quicker than I expected.

It's all black, comes with a tsuba and retaining guard(be sure not to put it on backwards, first time around I put it on backwards and it got stuck halfway down). It's all plastic. What you don't see in the picture is the slim profile of this bokken's "blade". My wood bokkens are more blunt and rounded at the blade side. This one is thin resembles a katana better.

The handle is textured. The best way to describe it as "the texture of plastic grade school chairs". It won't slip if you have dry hands, but probably will if you are all sweaty. Wrap the handle with hockey tape, or if you want to go traditional; an ito, or some rope(I used parachord because that's all I got)

Now I'm a skeptic when it comes to it's "indestructibility". but I think it will definitely outlast my oak bokkens. I'll just have to spar with it to get an idea.

I am very pleased with the quality of this training bokken. Good weight, excellent tsuba that fits quite tightly. Takes and gives a strike with ease. I much prefer it to the wooden ones I have.

I'd been searching around for a good bokken for heavy contact, and after reading the reviews here and watched the testing videos, I decided to order this one.

I received a long box from UPS shortly after ordering, and inside it was my bokken along with a bag containing the tsuba and retaining ring. After getting everything out, I pushed the tsuba on from the tip of the sword up to the handle. I then pushed the retaining ring on, which took quite a bit of force. Only after everything was in place did I notice the retaining ring was backwards. It took more force to pull it off and put it on the right way, but I finally got it. Keep in mind that the flat end of the retaining piece should sit against the tsuba.

The Cold Steel bokken is black, the handle is slightly textured to provide grip, and it comes with a somewhat sharp tip. It measures 41 1/2 inches in total, the blade is 30 inches, and the handle is 11 1/2 inches, just like the description says. The tsuba seems a bit larger than a real katana's, the blade is thicker than a real katana (to provide weight and sturdiness), and it is somewhat flexible. The flexibility can be noticed when stabbing something like a straw bale, but mostly only when stabbing incorrectly. This helps its sturdiness and for me, provides feedback on an improper strike.

My sword looked very solid, and I was feeling confident that it would hold up to some abuse. I took it into the back yard and started slicing a straw bale (a few feet off the ground) with it. This was my first time using a bokken, but I was hitting quite hard, especially on the downward slash. After a bit of practice on the straw bale, I inspected the bokken. There was hardly a scratch. After some more practice I did accidentally swing it too far behind my head and hit the stucco wall, which sort of smashed the tip off, but now it's just no longer sharp at the point. Since then, I have used it to chop up about 10 pumpkins, a lot of fruit (which I fed to the goats), some mesquite wood, and that straw bale (which I'll have to be replacing soon!). The bokken has gotten a lot of visible scuffing on it, but only about 10 larger markings that can be felt. I'm thoroughly impressed with it, and I'm sure that by this point I would have broken quite a few wood bokkens had I not gotten this.

Soon, I hope to purchase the Wakazashi bokken, the O bokken, and possibly a real katana or other weapon from Cold Steel as I love what I have now. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants a good training sword.