Hand-Forged Winged Spear

It is a spear, and at 47 inches overall it sits in the short-spear class rather than the polearm class. A polearm in the proper sense means a head mounted on a long shaft, five to eight feet, meant to be used in formation with both hands and a lot of ground between you and the other man. This piece has 30 inches of haft. That puts it with hunting spears, boar spears and the shortened half-pike, weapons carried and used at conversational distance, often with one hand.

We list it under spears and polearms because that is how buyers search, but we would rather tell you the reach up front than have a seven-foot weapon arrive in your imagination and a 47-inch one arrive in the post. If you want true polearm reach, we forge the same head on a longer haft. Ask in the order note.

They are decorative, and it is worth being exact about why. On a genuine winged spear, the medieval Flugellanze, the wings are lugs set at the socket and standing out at right angles to the plane of the blade. That geometry is the whole point: they stop the head driving in further than you want, and they give you something to bind an opponent's shaft against. The boar spear does the same job with a crossbar, for the blunt reason that a boar will otherwise walk up the shaft to reach you.

On this piece the flanges are forged as part of the blade plate, lying in the same plane as the edges and sweeping forward rather than out. They quote the winged form beautifully and they do not do its job. If you want working lugs set perpendicular to the blade, we will forge them at no extra cost. Put it in the order note.

Because the mass is in the haft, not the head. A 47-inch spear with an ash or hickory shaft comes in nearer a kilogram, and much of that is the head. This one runs about half as heavy again, and the extra is distributed along the length of the grip rather than out at the point.

That is a real trade and we would rather you knew which side of it you are getting. What you gain is a weapon that will not split, will not take a set, and does not care about damp. What you pay is fatigue: 1,560 grams held out at arm's length gets heavy faster than 1,000 does, and the piece is slower to start and slower to stop. If low mass matters more to you than an unbreakable haft, say so and we will build it differently.

Further back than you might expect from the photographs. The head is broad and looks like it should dominate, but 30 inches of dense haft behind it pulls the balance well down toward the middle of the weapon. In practice that means it handles more like a heavy staff with a point than like a top-heavy chopper: quick to bring back on line, less authority behind a committed thrust.

We do not publish a single balance figure for this model because hand-forged pieces vary and a number that is wrong by two inches is worse than no number. If it matters to your use, ask us before dispatch and we will measure the actual piece we are sending you, from the collar, and send you the figure. Our sword balance guide explains what the measurement means and why it is worth asking about.

Yes, and at no extra cost. A straight-grained ash or hickory haft will bring the weight down substantially, will flex slightly under load in the way a traditional spear is supposed to, and will feel warmer in the hand in cold weather. It is the historically correct choice for almost any spear you could name.

It is also the one that can break. A timber haft can split along the grain if it is levered hard or struck across, and it moves with humidity. Neither is likely in normal handling or display, and neither happens to steel. Tell us which you want in the order note and we will build to it.

Yes. The head is the fixed part of this design; the haft length is yours to set. Buyers ask for three broad things. Around 47 inches, as built, for a one-handed short spear or a piece that fits a wall without dominating the room. Around 60 to 66 inches for a hunting or boar spear that still fits through a doorway. Around 72 to 84 inches for genuine polearm reach.

Two practical notes. Longer hafts add weight along the whole length, so a 7-foot version of this spear in steel is a serious lift; that is the length where we will usually steer you to timber. And anything over about 60 inches ships as an oversize freight item, which changes the cost and the transit time. We will quote both before you commit.

5160 high-carbon spring steel, the same stock we use across the range. It is forged to shape, quenched, and then tempered back by hand as a separate operation. That second step is what takes the brittleness out; a blade that has only been quenched is hard and will chip or crack, and tempering trades a little hardness for the toughness that keeps a long thrusting point in one piece.

5160 is not stainless and is not meant to be. It rusts if you leave it wet, and it takes and holds an edge better than any stainless we could sensibly forge. We do not make pattern-welded or Damascus blades at all, by choice, so nothing in this range is laminated or folded.

Yes, unless you ask us not to. The standard build ships with both edges and the point sharpened and ready to use. On a spear that mostly means the point, since the edges on a head of this shape do relatively little cutting work.

Two alternatives are available at no extra charge. An unsharpened build leaves the edges blunt from the grinder, which some buyers prefer for display or for shipping into jurisdictions with awkward rules. A stage-combat build gives you a deliberately rebated edge and a rounded tip, balanced for the work. Add the note "Stage combat build — rebated edge, rounded tip" to your order and we will build it that way.

The head only. It is a stitched black leather cover shaped to the blade, with buckled retaining straps that close over the flanges and hold it on. It exists so that the sharpest and most fragile part of the weapon is protected in transit, in storage and while the piece is being carried or moved, and so that you are not handling a bare 17-inch point every time you take it off the wall.

It is not a carry rig and it is not designed to be worn on a belt. If you want a full-length haft cover, a shoulder sling, or a wall mount cut to this profile, those are custom forge items and we will quote them.

No, and we will not pretend otherwise. The head borrows the silhouette of the northern European winged spear and something of the broad hunting-spear profile, but the combination here — integral forward-swept flanges, a haft of this construction, a forged ring at the butt — matches no documented type from any period or region we can point at. It is a modern design that reads as historical, which is a perfectly good thing to be as long as nobody calls it something it is not.

If you want a documented type, we forge those too, and we would rather build you the right thing. A Viking-age winged spear, a Migration-period lancehead, a Japanese te-yari, a Chinese qiang with a proper butt spike: name it and we will work from the surviving examples rather than from a catalogue photograph.

No. Do not throw this. It is not balanced for flight, the haft is not designed to survive impact with the ground, and a 1,560-gram weapon landing badly will bend, mark or damage the collar joint where head meets haft.

Throwing spears are a different weapon built to different rules: lighter, balanced well forward, with a head made to be sacrificial and a shaft made to be cheap. If that is what you want, ask for a javelin build on the custom forge page and we will design it for the purpose instead of adapting something that is wrong for it.

Nothing is held in stock. Every blade we sell is forged after the order arrives, which is why the customisation costs nothing extra — we have not already made the standard version. Standard builds dispatch in 2 to 3 business days; anything genuinely custom runs 4 to 6 weeks depending on the queue and what you have asked for.

The spear ships in a rigid tube or a braced timber-cornered carton, head sheathed and lashed, haft padded along its length. It goes by DHL or FedEx with tracking, typically 7 to 14 business days from Kathmandu. Long items occasionally attract a surcharge at the destination; if that applies to your address we will tell you before we take the order rather than after.