"Nice choices good sir!

I'm thinking of the 'Warrior' Series of Katana blades by Cold Steel.
"

"Why bother when a machete has more use in non-combat roles?"

"OK, Here is a test and challenge, Please try to one shot cut a wooden hardwood dowel, approx 1" in diameter with a machete, be fair and make the cut approx, neck level, these dowels can be bought pretty cheap at Lowe's or Home Depot. Now this is a "vague representation of a spine". It would be more likley that the blade would hit the vertebrate directly on the bone than one the connective disk. Also try it with the dowel secure on something steady and then try it with the dowel suspended from a rope from a tree. The reason I suggest this is that talking about it is just that, I propose that we get some testing on board to back up our ideas or to help refine our suggestions and thoughts on a particular subject. I will try these tests myself and report my findings on another thread. We are just starting on the spine, we can add a skin, muscle, and ligament representative later as the experiment progresses. "

"While both of the previous statments are correct, I suggested the experiment to prove a point. Not all of us have access to ballistics gel and have budgets and equipment like the Myth Busters. This is a poor mans test and I ment the dowel to be more difficult to cut than a spine, since the spine is the goal after tissue and muscle have been severed. It is a presice cut that will remove a head, and I don't belive that the majority of us could do it effectivly and reapeatedly. The static cutting tests mentioned by Filadog are not trying to bite you and fend off the blade. So while this is a interesting subject to disscuss, I feel that decapatation is impractical and ultimatley a dangerous road to travel down. I still am going to do my test and look into a poor mans solution to ballistics jel, and further this topic, I have also done some gun drills with a handgun related to this subject that I will post on another thread. Make you own tests, line up a bunch of spines and heads and see how you do, the results will only help us all. "

"honestly if were going to go with deadliness and usefulness then i would have to say the crowbar beats everything else. a crowbar can do almost anything a machete can do, that and you don't have to worry about an edge being sharp or not. just smash, smash more, and then when all else fails, smash it again."

"Okay cool. So where is the brain on a tree branch? How about a dead deer?
A rope?

Most humans will ALWAYS protect their head and can in fact function with broken bones.

Edge trauma can cut through skin (I hope!) and sever muscle resulting in dibilitating wounds.

I am not saying that blunt trauma is not effective when youc strike the head.

I'm saying that a blade doesn't require such finesse.

Hit an arm with a strong swing and a sharp blade and that arm is out of the picture.

But as I illustrated humans can function through blunt trauma."