As for people who say the machete is better compared to a pressure washer, isn’t this the classic “don’t bring a knife to a gun fight” scenario? I’m not sure at what distance a pressure washer (say, this 4200 PSI model) can incapacitate, but if it’s at a greater range than a machete can, it seems to be a better bet.
That’s unwieldy and not much use when your opponent steps inside the radius. I’d go with the machete or the billhook.
No love for the Pitchfork?:dubious:
Assuming I can’t get water for that pressure washer, I’d use this: http://www.homedepot.com/p/Fiskars-X27-6-3-lb-36-in-Super-Splitting-Axe-78846935/202681680
I’m pretty strong, and to be honest, I’ve always wanted to chop someone into mushy pieces.
I appreciate the creativity of the pressure washer, wasp spray, and blowtorch.
The pressure washer has the disadvantage that I’m not sure how it works or, more importantly, what range and effective it is, so lack of familiarity would prevent choosing it.
Wasp spray is interesting, and it makes a great emergency home pepper spray for push in robbers. However, I think a motivated person could put up a hand to help block the eyes, hold their breath, and charge in fast to close for the kill. You’d have to maneuver hard, and then you run into the problem that you quickly fill the room with hornet spray, becoming secondhand effect on your own breathing. Not ideal.
The oxy blowtorch is scary, but in a death match, I’d be willing to risk closing to cut the lines.
I don’t really like the polearm options, because of unwieldiness. Too easy to get inside the pointy bit.
The 6 foot schedule 40 pipe is just going to be a nightmare to handle.
I haven’t handled the nailgun, but I’m told you can hold the pressure plate down and it will fire. Might be hard to hold, though, and no real time to rig a catch.
The chainsaw seems scary, but I’ve had enough fun with throwing blades that it might be a risk, and gas chainsaws tend to be a bit heavy. One good sweep and then maneuver inside, especially with a metal tool to help block.
Sledgehammer is right out. I mean, in the 1632 books, it totally makes sense when one of the characters promises that if he’s ever challenged to a dual, that’s going to be his pick of weapon. He’s a football player who can bench press a car (okay, that isn’t actually stated, but that gives you an idea of his description). Whereas for me, it’s got the same unwieldiness issue.
The steel security door is not going to be much use if it doesn’t have straps to help hold it. While you’re approaching me with your door, I strike at your fingers that you have wrapped around to hold it up.
The chain has promise. It can entangle your opponent and their weapon, you can bunch up a knot and use it as a flail, and a length of it can block. Or wrap around an arm to make a quick shield. But you might not have the prep time.
The long knife from the knife set is tempting. Long enough to be useful blocking, light and short enough for quick reactions.
Like Chronos, I have some experience with a 6 ft closet pole. But it’s not really my first choice. Unless you really train, it’s difficult to actually strike with it. Too easy to pull the strike, or block yourself.
I’m hard pressed to beat the machete. Simple, effective, long enough to reach around some objects, short enough to work in close and not get pinned out. Maybe not balanced the best, but still pretty effective.
A couple of the “pole arms” have a shaft of 3’ or so which seems like something you could choke up on if necessary. The big tree pruners would be right out.
I think our next step is to get our hands on a bunch of those gel torsos they used on “Deadliest Warrior” and a Home Depot charge account.
This is certainly true, but then, I suspect that it’s probably true of all melee weapons. Given the choice of a quarterstaff that I’ll instinctively pull my strikes on, or a machete that I’ll instinctively pull my strikes on and don’t even theoretically know how to wield properly, I’ll take the staff.
Which is not to say that I’m an expert at bo fighting, or anything of the sort. My training is really quite minimal. But something is better than nothing.
I use a six pound splitting axe to chop firewood. It’d make a terrible weapon. Sure if it connects it’ll do a lot of damage but once you start a swing you’re committed to it, and if you miss it’d be easy for your opponent to knock it out of their way and go to town on you. The billhook looks a lot lighter and may be more viable, but I think I’d go for the machete.
I’m going to hire one of the guys hanging out in the parking lot to do my fighting for me.
After going to the Home Depot and swinging some metal around (don’t worry, I had a legitimate need to be there – this just made bathroom repairs easier to swallow) I’m going to go with either this axe or this one. The machetes felt okay but they were also heavy and a bit unwieldy. The first axe gives me most of the benefits of the machete’s chopping action but with less weight. The second axe would make it easier for me to just flail back and forth.
Let’s face it: I’m not going to be parrying and shit like a pirate with my machete-cutlass. I need something I can just hack effectively with without throwing myself off balance.
Unfortunately, my local Home Depot lacked the bill hook or scythe-looking brush tool so I couldn’t get a feel for those.
Garden netting and a hoe for the gladiator trident and net combo
Or grab a trash can top for a shield and hammer.
I have some experience with basic bo, including teaching.
I also did some playing around with a buddy using padded swords, and we made up a bo version.
My experience using the bo was that I blocked myself with my arms and such and couldn’t even get the strikes to land, even without the opponent blocking the strike. Theoretically, I should have been able to hit one side and quick reverse to the other to out maneuver the sword. In practice, it wasn’t that easy.
Which is not to say a machete against a machete would go smoothly for me. He and I were fairly well matched, he had a bit more experience from days in SCA, but not so much that I couldn’t keep up. A lot of times were double eliminations.
Those hatchets are interesting. Small enough to wield quickly. Still, I like the machete.
Most tools seem to be made of fiberglass or similar light weight materials. I think weight is the key component when dealing damage. A sledgehammer or a steel shovel for digging gravel are the best choices.
I once heard a story from a WW2 veteran where he had been ambushed when digging a trench with a folding shovel. Cut the other guys arm clean off with it.
From most of the posts I’ve been reading, I’m thinking most of you are making the classic blunder of treating your repurposed DIY tool as THE thing that you’ll be using for all of your attacks and defenses.
Wrong!
To misquote River Tam: I can kill you with my brain.
More to the point, it’s important to be able to think beyond the weapon and understand that everything – even the floor and walls of our 30x30 room – can be used in combat even when there’s a “weapon” in your hands.
And if we’re allowed to get anything that Home Depot sells, we should think beyond tools.
So go ahead and choose your garden variety pole-arms and hand-weapons, your chainsaws or backpack sprayers, even your steel door. I’ll spend some time keeping my distance or dodging or moving erratically while you lug your stuff around and/or expend ammunition. I’ll have to rely on my glasses to avoid direct hits from that sprayer, and I guess I’ll just use my long sleeve to wipe away any chemical that hits my face. Just to piss you off, I might get daring once in a while and slip inside your zone to give you a feeble tap behind the knee or clout on the ear, maybe a punch to the shoulder or a whack to the back of your head. You can bet I’ll rip out the hose on a backpack sprayer sooner or later, but my main objective is to get you pissed-off enough to commit yourself to your attacks.
After dragging your stuff around and/or flailing wildly at me for a while, you’re bound to get weary. I’ll keep things going a while longer just to make sure you’re tired and not just faking it.
At that point, I may or may not disarm you. It depends on just how weary you appear to be and which side of you I can approach and what you’re using.
Then I’ll apply this, which I’ll purchase as a 25-foot length, separated into two ten-foot coils and a five-foot straight section, then take up 18 to 24 inches on either end of the straight section to wind around my coils. That should leave me with about 12 to 18 inches of straight section between two coils that I can use as handles. Furthermore, I can twist those coils to reduce their diameters so they’ll fit not-too-uncomfortably on my wrist, semi-concealed up my sleeve. That will leave my hands (and feet) free to deal with you and your shenanigans for a while and the whole thing will be relatively light. To employ it, I really only need to pull one of the coils off my wrist at the proper moment. The other coil can stay on my wrist; I don’t need it to be in-hand to gain leverage.
If we’re very unlucky, the worst case is that I’ll loop my weapon around one of your limbs, tighten tremendously, and drag bits of muscle off the bone. I might have to repeat that a couple times, because the TV audience will probably get bored with watching you bleed to death. If we’re lucky, I’ll loop around a joint and the tightening effect will go through cartilage, as well. I might have to do the loop, drop the coil, step on that dropped coil, and use my whole body to pull the line straight. In either of those cases, the show’s producers will want to zoom in on your face at the crucial moment. If we’re very lucky, I will be able to be merciful and the joint I find will be between C3 and C6 of your upper spine…
–G!
Pitchfork
Stabbing, reach, blocking and disarming all in one.
What about the case where you try to dodge the initial attacks, but get clobbered on the noggin on the first swing? What about the case where you try to loop your cable around someone’s limbs, and they instead just yank on it and pull you off balance? What about the case where you just can’t get it around anything?
There’s a reason why armies equipped their soldiers with swords and polearms for thousands of years, and why none of them ever equipped them with cable.
Thing about the door is that it is 6 feet in length: you are not required to hold it vertically, you can use it like a ram of sorts. But the 75lb model might not be the best choice, I would go with a slightly less heavy door that would be easier to swing around.
But I am disqualified because I do not go to Home Depot.
I’ll go with a fireaxe. Can’t go wrong with a two-handed axe. If it’s good enough for a Viking, it’s good enough for me.
Nineteen razor blades on a long stick. I know I’ve seen one with an aluminum handle, too, which I’d rather have than wood.
Yeah, have fun pretending that you’re just going to nimbly avoid axe/machete/hammer blows as you cuff people’s ears and tire them out. Only takes one hit to end that in a hurry 