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Cutting a Sword Revisited

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The Myth

THIS MYTH WAS FEATURED IN...
Episode Title: Episode 64: More Myths Revisited

Original air date:10/25/2006
Myth Title: ----


Myth Description: According to myth, a samurai sword can cut a gun barrel.


MythBusters on the bust: ----Kari, Tory, Grant


Hypothesis: ----


Procedure/Experimental Design: ----


Results: ----


Conclusion: ----


Busted or Not Busted: Busted
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  • Although i agree that cutting the gun barrel is most likely a bust. I'd compare this myth to the bullet through the sniper scope problem. This should be a myth that has more to do with technique than raw force, or physical conditions i am afraid. First of all, the sword swinging machine was setup so the blade made contact with the gun barrel at a perpendicular angle. ie: NOT A SLICE. Ask any swordsman and they will tell you that you couldn't cut through wood in that manner. This test needed the sword blade to make contact at something like a 33 degree angle from the direction of force so the blades edge could have a chance to do what it was designed to (you can't shave your face by pressing the blade into your skin alone... it has to slide across.) I comend grant on makeing the swinging arm "superhuman" but that right there makes this a waste of time for me. And although i can't site this at the moment, I have it from a trustworthy source that high level samurai sword skills include a specific technique for cutting metel which requires mastery of the art. Not ever gonna be satisfied with this one till i see real master take it on... just like the sniper scope myth.

    PS: Tone down the firearms guys, the show is turning into a cartoon version of future weapons, there's lots of cool stuff to test that isn't designed to kill or recruit soilders. Water heater rocket for the win.


  • The primary problem with this is that they're testing a "ki + good blade vs cheap/old gunbarrel" situation, without replicating the conditions:
    Try punching through a brick wall.
    Some martial-artists can.
    You can't: the "bone is smashed by the collision" rule rules you, but not them.
    That is because of "ki", or "coherency".
    Try getting a $1k thousands-of-layers cutting-practice katana, handing it to someone as good as Charles Daniel, & having him cut through an old rifle.
    He'll do it, but you can't.
    Same "trick" as the cards punched into the watermelon: Ki + technique.
    Fail to replicate the conditions, & the *busting* is busted, instead.



This is DEFINITELY not busted by the methods shown in the episode. They show that a samurai sword makes a poor axe, at least poor enough to be unable to chop through a gun barrel. Of course, they do not demonstrate that a sword cannot SLICE through a gun barrel. Analogously, I could demonstrate that my ginsu steak knives cannot chop through a two inch porterhouse steak, although I can demonstrate that the same knife slices through the steak quite readily.

In the show, the attempt to cut the metal was made using solely normal forces (the blow from the sword was entirely perpendicular to the surface of the barrel.) This used a very small section of the blade and was essentially an attempt an a microscopic level to break apart the strongly bondeed atoms of the gun barrel metal by forcing the harder materiall of the sword into the gap and driving it in like a wedge. This action requires enormous force to succeed and such action will blunt the blade since the same section of the blade is being used to break bond after bond after bond. By moving the sword along the blade as it strikes (a slice) it adds two very important advantages: (1) it adds shear stresses to the gun barrel, making it easier to break the metallic bonds, and (2) it brings more edge of the sword into play, which keeps a sharper cutting edge in contact during the action. The right combination of the lateral motion and the normal motion is required. This is one of the keys skills involved in mastering the art of the sword. I have seem demonstrations done by masters to show the significanty advantage of the slicing over the chopping motion, although I have never seen someone slice through an object like a gun barrel.



See Also

Related myths: ----

Related resources and reference pages: ----

  • Keegan, J. (1993). A history of warfare, p45-6. Vintage: New York. Quotes another historian named Perrin, who claims that there was a film in Japan of a machine gun barrel being cut by a sword made by Kanemoto II.









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