A Good Malay Sundang With One Piece Carved Horn Hilt

[Timo Nieminen]

Originally Posted by Maurice

Also the blades were very sharp, and most of them not so heavy as the average moro kris, but also very deadly in my eyes.

Originally Posted by Ian

I've often found the Malay kris to feel lighter and "faster" in the hand, and always very sharp. Perhaps that reflects a different style of combat comapred with the heavier Moro kris.

What kind of weights are we talking about?

In my limited experience, older Moro kris sit at about 600-700g, and are ergonomically nice (some, even beautiful) fighting weapons (approximately the same size and weight as a Roman gladius). Hard to see much benefit from going lighter than this. (Can't see it hurting much either, to be lighter than this. Won't cut quite as well, but wouldn't make much difference in practice.)

OTOH, some later Moro kris are rather sluggish in comparison. Heavier, and even slower in handling than the extra weight suggests.

My measured weights: http://www.vikingsword.com/vb/showthread.php?t=19137

Some thoughts on weight and length:
(a) Since you move hand and arm as you move the weapon, you don't get much more speed from a weapon being lighter once it is light enough.
(b) Some weight is useful for cutting weapons. Kinetic energy of the weapon is higher for a heavier weapon moving at the same speed.
(c) Longer weapons benefit more from being lighter. Moment of inertia matters.
(d) Longer weapons have more benefit from speed of the blade.
So to have a light well-cutting short weapon, you might want it to be heavier than the lightest well-cutting long weapons.