Cold Steel War Hammer

Product Description

A fully armed 13th Century Knight was a true power, capable of plowing through a multitude of opponents while encased in his state of the art plate armor that could shed, deflect or absorb the blows of many of his foes. Enter the War Hammer- an ideal weapon for use against an opponent who is encased in plate steel. The heavy hammer head could crush the strongest helmet or suit of plate armor with just a few blows and the back spike could rip through helm and plate like a modern can opener! In battle, the hammer side was usually employed first to knock down and stun an enemy. Once he was on the ground, helpless, the hammer was reversed and the back spike was used to punch a hole through the helmet and deliver the coup de grace. Now Cold Steel brings you an inexpensive, yet highly effective, recreation of this awesome weapon. Weighing a little over 21/2" lbs., our War Hammer is highly maneuverable and can be easily wielded with one or both hands. The head is drop forged out of 1055 steel and differentially heat treated. This means the point of the spike and enormous hammer face (11/2" x 11/2") are fully hardened so they can pierce and crush tough materials without failing while the rest of the hammer is left soft to absorb the shock of heavy blows. The handle of our War Hammer has been designed to be equally tough. Made of straight grain American Hickory and measuring 30" long it provides tremendous leverage so enormously powerful blows may be struck.

Features

• Head Width: 7 3/8"
• Handle: Straight Grain Hickory With Langets
• Overall Length: 30"
• Steel: Drop Forged 1055 Carbon
• Hammer Face: 1 1/2" x 1 1/2"
• Type: hammer
• Head is drop forged out of 5150 steel
• Handle: Straight Grain Hickory w/Langettes

Top Reviews

Not up to Cold Steel standards
by Amazon Customer (3 out of 5 stars)
September 14, 2016

I really like Cold Steel products and have many of them purchased over 20 years. While just about everything from them is high quality and really well made this item is just so-so. I say that for a couple reasons. First the side pieces are separate and more ornamental. I would have expected them to be cast as part of the hammer so as to provide support and strength. Second while putting in the screws, after pre-drilling a hole for them, one of the screw heads snapped of a couple turns from being all the way in. I was using a small screw driver by hand, not a power driver or drill so the fact it snapped off tells me is was not a very good quality part. All in all I wouldn't recommend this product.
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Decent quality, the langettes might be mostly for show.
by Chess (4 out of 5 stars)
September 25, 2018

The finish on the metal, paint I assume, is pretty thick and rough. The wood handle is still kind of rough in spots. Easy to sand smooth and I'm staining it a reddish brown and will finish with some Danish Oil. I might strip the hammer portion and blue it, or do a "patina," type finish. Or maybe just a smoother application of paint. Or I might just leave it. Functional just not pretty.

I need to research more on the langettes, but I believe that most of the ones I've seen in books and museums seem to have them as part of the hammer (or axe) itself so that it strengthens the portion of the handle closest to the head. With these just screwed on as they are, there still seems to be a weak spot at the space between the head and langettes... yes, even if you butt them up tightly that will still not be as strong as if they were one piece. If I had the skill, I'd weld them to the hammer head.

As most have stated the tiny screws are garbage. Very easy to break and serve no real purpose. I could see the screw heads shearing off if there was any force applied to the langets. Get some better screws or nails.
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the hammer looks great and looks like it could smash some sh**
by chris (4 out of 5 stars)
March 29, 2018

ok first, the hammer looks great and looks like it could smash some sh**, however i am yet to test it. the wood handle fit the hammer head well, but make note that the metal side panels are separate pieces and come with very small screws to attach them to either side of the handle. the screws are crap; every single one broke while i screwed them in, which i did by hand so i didn't over-torque them. after the first two broke, i took the smallest drill bit i had and drilled out a pilot hole. this didn't help and all the remaining screws broke too. so i took a slightly bigger bit, drilled out the broken screws and bought larger stainless steel screws and using yet another bit, bored out the screw holes so i could use the bigger screws. that worked great. also before you set the protective plates on the handle, be sure to really get the hammers head on good and tight otherwise you will likely get a gap between the panels and the head causing the head to wiggle.

otherwise this thing is pretty gnarly. .
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Just BAD-ASS....
by Customer (5 out of 5 stars)
March 10, 2019

Ready to go Medieval???? You definitely can with THIS. Typical of most all CS axes, hawks, and other pole-weapons, the head is a bit ill-fitting out of the box. This can be fixed easily with a little sanding and filing. I polished the black coating off the head and langettes to leave a matte-steel finish, then fully sanded and stained the Hickory handle. Now, affix the head onto the handle by pushing it as far up as you can by hand. Then, with a rubber mallet, whack the top of the handle down even further until you can't move the head by hand. Throw the set-screw in the trash and use a 1" nail. Drill a short pilot hole first though. Now the langettes: As with the set-screw, trash the screws they give you. They are worthless. Get better quality screws at the hardware store or use short nails. Glue the langettes on first and let dry. The rest is up to you. Add leather wrap or friction tape to make grips, carve or wood-burn the handle, add metal studs....get inventive! I get a big kick out of people who review these products and cry and moan because they think it's broken or otherwise defective. They have obviously no experience with tools and damn sure don't need an edged weapon. In short: Buy one, modify it to suit, get to hammerin'....You won't regret it, and the neighbors will stay in their yard. : D ........M.
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If you buy only one war hammer this year...
by jd williamson (5 out of 5 stars)
February 26, 2015

I have no idea why I bought this. It serves no legitimate purpose. It's not as good as a regular hammer for hammering things. It's not as good as an axe for chopping things and it has no practical function that I can determine. Unless of course you consider making you feel like a total viking warrior badass as being "practical".

Sometimes guys just buy something for fun. Because it tickles that little 12 year old boy part of our brain that loves weird 12 year old boy stuff, like bows and arrow, machetes and um, war hammers. Sure we could make up some half baked reason for why something like this might come in handy one day, zombie apocalypse, alien invasion, etc...but the truth is we just want to play with stuff like this when our wives or girlfriends aren't home.

If you're like me and you can't help but picking up tools at Home Depot and secretly assessing them for weapon-ability then just treat yourself to this man-toy. Why not you only live once. Why deny yourself the childlike joy of having a cool weapon? Whether you want to actually smash things with it like the toothless hillbillies in war hammer youtube videos or you just want to hold it your hands in front of the mirror and imagine caving in a zombie's cranium you won't be sorry you bought it.
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Awesome.
by John Bradford (5 out of 5 stars)
February 8, 2017

Exactly what I wanted.but the screws that it came with are garbage. I knew I would be modifying it when I got it. So my advice...have fun with it. I've just begun to make my changes.
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My badass head basher build!
by michael james fox (5 out of 5 stars)
January 20, 2019

This has been a blast to make, very nice as is aside from the tiny crappie screws. Definitely doll a bit bigger and use better screws. Me, well...I sorta have some spikes left over from some other weapon rebuild projects and thought that they would look bitchin on this thing. Well I had a bit of a time figuring out how to put them on so I drilled the langet holes plus a couple extra to fit the 4mm screws that went with the spikes and also drilled small holes to put in the tacks that will hold the langets in place. Then I glued the spikes and screws into the places on the langets where I wanted them to be permanently. After they were dry I put contact cement on the back of each screw and on the wood where they would contact, let that dry around 15 mins. Then put them in place and clamped then down. The next day I drilled out the tiny holes in the langets for the tacks to seat and hold the langets in place. Put glue on the tack shafts slid them in the previous drilled holes and hammer them the rest of the way in. Between the contact cement and glued and hammered tacks, those langets are pretty secure. Then I wrapped the handle in 80 grit tape, measured the placement for the handle tacks marked them drilled them then glue set the tacks in place and hammered them home. One thing to note if you want to do my method,make sure you offset the tacks on each side so they don't hit the ones on the opposite side. Hope you like my build, personally I think it's just scary looking. But hey...all my weapons are...!
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Read all the comments to see if assembly is required.
by PSzombie (1 out of 5 stars)
March 23, 2018

The hammer looks cool in the product image. The details they give about the hammer to sell the product make it a great hammer. The reason I put this one star review is the lack of information they give. When I ordered there was nothing about assembly required. For your average person sure this is probably no big deal, but I have severe arthritis in most of my fingers. Due to this working with small instruments like the screws they give are rough. But I decided this is cool enough to spend one of my not so bad days to do.

Took a month but finally had a day were my hands were up for the challenge. First the instruction says before putting the screws in, drill 1/32 holes. Now those screws are defiantly bigger than 1/32, probably bigger than a 1/16 bit, which is what I increased the holes to after the first screw broke to a little pressure. I'm not a carpenter but I do know a little and a screw should not break so easily. So I took it to 1/16, and for a couple screws they work but do not go flesh the langet, will try hammering those in later. However the hammer now has 3 broken screws and two okay screws in it.

This has taught me to read comments as in them I would have seen that this required assembly. Had the screws not broken this would have gotten a 4 maybe a five as it is cool looking, and was fun until the screws. If you are good at building these, then great buy, nice weight, strong handle.
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Great Hammer for the Price - Assembly Required
by Tom T. (4 out of 5 stars)
February 26, 2015

Excellent quality. I was surprised that the head was not attached and the instructions were not that clear on the proper procedure or the use of the hex screw to help secure the head. The screws provided with the languets are too small and twist off easily. I had better luck using some heavy adhesive then hammering in small nails. A little hammer work on the heads of the nails gave them a more authentic look.

I also created a grip using black paracord and the rubber tape that adheres to itself. When all was said and done, the hammer looks great and seems extremely durable with an excellent balance. Fine finish on the steel parts and the hickory handle is smooth, straight and free from any defects. My four star rating is because of the extra effort required to complete assembly - those with limited shop access may find it challenging to assemble.
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This is no toy. It comes un-assembled. You ...
by william j kennedy (5 out of 5 stars)
November 17, 2016

This is no toy. It comes un-assembled. You slide the hammer head on and screw in the allen wrench in the handle. Then you counter drill holes for the wood screws for the side handle plates that takes 5 min. Then you put in the wood screw holding the side plates. It takes about 15 min. assembly time. Then your done with a mid-evil war hammer at the fraction of the cost. For under $50.00 this is a serious weapon for self-defense.

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