Mashoonga Saber

Mashoonga is a Trademark of Revel King Inc.

The Mashoonga Saber by Revel King was first launched in 2007 as a sword play product for teens and tweens.  Jim Bogner noticed his 13 year old son was making noodle swords for himself and friends.  He thought kids love them and decided to go into production. 

One gets the impression that Revel King has not been able to keep up with the demand for the product and has had difficulty getting it to market. I saw the product for the first time in December 2010 (three years after its introduction) in the Learning Express toy store in Fort Collins, Colorado.  Up until this point I was only vaguely aware of the existence of this product. They were being sold in packages of two (green and black) at a price of $24.95.

Materials and Manufacturing

The construction of the Mooshoonga is described in the Revel King press release as:

The foam tube of both the saber and the bo staff is soft, flame resistant polyethlylene (1.3 psi), with an additive for strength and durability. The polycarbonate core tube is light weight and flexible, yet nearly indestructible. The soft Vynafoam™ hand grip is made of durable rubber compounds. The saber and bo staff come in six colors: black, red, blue, orange, green, and pink. Product images and game rules accompany this release.

Specifications

• Overall diameter = 2 1/2 inches
• Overall length = 33 1/2 inches
• Blade length = 26 1/4 inches
• Blade foam thickness = 7/8 inches polyethlylene closed cell
• Core material = polycarbote tube
• Core thickness = 3/4 inches
• Core wall thickness = 1/10 inches
• Punch protector = polycarbonate cap
• Rip resist = none
• Tip padding = 7/8 inches polyethlylene closed cell
• Handle length = 7 1/4 inches
• Handle material = Vynafoam rubber
• Pommel diameter = no pommel
• Pommel length = no pommel
• Cover material = elastic fabric sock
• Weight = 8.9 oz

Durability

Essentially this is a noodle sword.  The real question is how much the “additive for strength and durability” really makes the foam superior to any off the shelf pool noodle. I purchased four of the swords and immediately put them to use in the ½ hour sparring that my son and I perform each day. It only took about a week and I had the first tear in the surface of the foam (after about 4 hours of use).

I suspect that this will likely be a common occurrence for these weapons.  The sock cover (which I think is nice) just cannot provide the durable skin necessary to keep the foam from tearing when it strikes on hard edges.  This does not speak well for using these weapons in battle game scenarios with heavily armored opponents.

To remedy this situation, I suggest any Mashoonga owner remove the cover (which is very easy) and apply one layer of clear tape to the entire surface of the blade the same way one would when building a noodle sword.

Overall, I have not yet broken a core through direct use. This was the major complaint on the Amazon.com reviews about the swords.  I believe any previous issue with the core in early versions of the Mashoonga must have been remedied by Revel King. I attempted a break test on the Mashoonga sword and found that the core was unbreakable in any combat style shot.  Overall the Mashoonga did bend substantially when put under extreme power blows, but it did not break. I believe that the current product does justice to the marketing literature that says “The polycarbonate core tube is light weight and flexible, yet nearly indestructible.”  I did manage to break the weapon in a forced break test.

Forced Break Test

I broke the Mashoonga in a forced break test where the sword was levered between two steel bars and then bent. The result showed that the Mashoonga would bend about 120 degrees before the core finally suffered catastrophic failure and gave way sharply.  The Mashoonga retained the bend after the core failure.  This is a good feature in my opinion as it makes it quite easy to identify a Mashoonga which has had a core failure. 

Further examination of this forced failure turned up the following information:

• When broken the hollow core folds in on itself and stays folded
• Forcing the weapon straight will break the core cleanly at the fold
• The noodle comes loose when broken.  I believe this is caused by the lateral movement of the foam relative to the core when the core folds over on itself.

A few other interesting items found when examining the core:

• The core showed no white cloudy areas indicating plastic fatigue.  This was good news because this weapon had been used for about 15 hours of heavy fighting and I had expected the clear plastic core to show signs of fatigue, but it did not.
• The adhesive used to hold on the noodle was not evenly distributed on the core.  There were several small areas with no adhesive.

Quality

I like the overall quality of the construction of this weapon.  One thing that Revel King got right was surface contact between the blade and core.  The core is properly sized to the foam tube so there is no wiggle room.  Wiggle room can be very destructive to a noodle sword.  In addition, the adhesive used to attach the blade is of good quality.  I have seen no sign of any blade twisting or slippage on any of my working Mashoonga swords.

The custom sock covers are great. Far more durable than cotton tights, they are a breeze to slip on and off of the sword.

Finally, I love the feel of the Vynafoam rubber grip.  This feels great in the hand.  A problem I have found with this grip: It is press fitted and will slowly slide of the handle over time.  And of course, there is the problem that this sword has no pommel.

Compatibility

Since it looks like a noodle sword and feels like a noodle sword, chances are you will not get it by any hard core Belegarth or Dagorhir referees.  In addition they fail to meet the 12oz minimum wight required for these games.  From the tests I ran here, they swords certainly can handle the heavy hitting style when they are new.  How long they can hold up under these conditions has yet to be seen.

As for The Warrior Code, Amtgard, or High Fantasy Society combat, this actually is a great starter weapon.  At just under 9 oz, the weapon is completive enough for the high speed light combat of Amtgard.

The one missing component to the weapon is a pommel. The lack of a pommel is not a problem in one on one sparing.  Occasionally, my son has hit himself with the handle end, but not much of notice.  Pommels really show there necessity in tight fighting such as a meat grinder or gate battle.  In these situations, the back end of a sword can easily end up in someone’s face, so I recommend you add a pommel to the Mashoonga sword.  The pommel will be required if fighting Warrior Code, Amtgard, or High Fantasy Society.

As for padding, the weapon falls just short of the Warrior Code specs.  It comes up short by 1/8 inch for minimum padding of a blade and blade end.  Overall, I do not see this as a serious problem; almost all noodle swords these days do not meet the 1 inch minimum closed cell foam requirement.  The overall quality of the manufacture and materials makes the 7/8 inches of padding suitable for both light and hard contact battle game fighting.

When it comes to thrusting tip, the sword does have a punch protector in the form of a polycarbonate end cap and there are 7/8 inches of closed cell foam over the end.  This fails to meet The Warrior Code’s requirement for compressible elastic foam on a thrusting tip.  It does come close (once again 1/8 inch under the 1 inch minimum) to the requirements for Amtgard touch thrust.

Price

I know from past experience running Action Armor that almost all small, short, and long hand made weapons from new parts have about $9 of materials in them.  If you scrounge for a free core, you can probably get the price down to about $4 dollars. With that statistic, at $12.50 the Mashoonga sword is priced well.  When given the choice of shelling out four more dollars to get a pre-made sword or spending an hour making one, it seems like a no-brainer.  The real question is can you find one locally. If you have to factor in internet shipping, the price is not as appealing.

As for what Revel King is paying per unit, I have not asked them, but I would guess around three dollars.  That assumes that wholesale cost is about $6.25 (half retail) and that manufacturing cost is about half of that.  Of course there is the shipping form China.  They are going to need to sell an awful lot of swords to get rich at those price points.

Appearance

Although the swords are of a clean looking style, they have nothing special to offer.  They are simple circular weapons with no hilts.   The Mashoonga will never qualify as a sword in a group like Darkon where the rules indicate that swords must be sword shaped.

The saber comes in variety of bright colors. The idea I am sure is to appeal to Star Wars fans.  In the Warrior Code rules sword will classify as a normal hacking weapon which is demark with blue tape.  Therefore I would recommend either the purchase of a Mashoonga with a blue or black cover.  The other colors will only confuse players since the Mashoonga saber does not qualify to be demarked with those colors.

Recommendations

Click here to find Mashoonga products on the Internet.