Product reviews for Man-at-Arms Swiss Halberd

Incredibly heavy once constructed, with a very head-heavy construction.  This thing just wants to fall head-first into anything.  Mine weighs 5.4 pounds assembled(!).  It actually takes some effort just to keep the thing from falling forwards when holding it.

Now, the heavy construction is a trade-off.  It's actually quite unwieldy, compared to the Sergeant's Halberd by the same manufacturer.  It would take some training and practice to be able to use this fluidly in battle.  However, it also makes very, very sturdy and well-built, once assembled.  If you want a very authoritative halberd then this is the way to go.  the nimble, more historic one then look to the Sergeant's Halberd.  This image shows mine, next to each other - note the much thicker, stouter pole that the Swiss Halberd uses:

https://imgur.com/0oqmbMs

The pole is actually slightly too thick to be natural for me, but doesn't render it unusable.  

Overall, this is a great value piece BUT assembly is tricky.  You'd think it would be simple to just put the pole in and add the screws (not included), but the pole is significantly too thick to fit into the socket, so it has to be planed or carved down.  ALSO, the pole comes with an offset angle at the top - I believed that this was to help it fit within the socket, BUT that angle actually doesn't fit within the socket.  Careful examination showed that this was because the socket has a big bar in the middle of it - maybe the blade during the assembly process (?).  This interferes with the pole, so you have to make a weird L-shaped joint (a U-shaped joint would be even more secure) to get part of the pole around that bar, OR you have to just accept that the socket will only be filled about 2/3 of the way by the pole - not a very secure construction.  This required considerable effort - it took me about 3 hours or so (?) to figure all of this out and get the thing mounted up.  Worth the effort, but it's an effort - and much more of one than I had expected.