That's an insane amount of butter for one piece of toast...just sayin'

Penn and Teller are the new Mythbusters?

Actually, that was pretty cool. Might consider a title change, gives the result away when the video itself is slightly more cagey about it.

But did you enjoy watching it being mashed repeatedly into the same spot on the bread? I felt like my throat was closing over.

They were using non jacketed lead rounds, of course it was going to split it. Try it again with a standard 230gr copper jacketed round next time.

My thought exactly jimnms.

Just about any well made sword could do what that sword did, in fact probably do it better because samurai swords are so thick on the end they aren't that great for cutting, let alone piercing, no matter how sharp they are.

It's just that samurai swords (called that because they were a symbol of the class, but rarely ever used in actual battle) has this mythical air about it. But they aren't actually that great a sword.

I'd hazard that it doesn't make much difference how thick the sword is as long as it has a reasonable edge angle made of something harder than the bullet. I'd contest that Katanas aren't good for cutting (weight of blade + curve), but yeah, the whole mythos about them being extraordinarily more sharp than other swords is bullshit. I've read that the reason for blending high-carbon steel with softer steel was more a matter of scarcity of high-carbon steel than deliberate design.

Heh, that's exactly what I thought, too. Although Penn is all skinny now, so this must be an old video.

The last bit of faith I had in the ways of old is now gone. All that steel hammering and for what? Stamp out a sword from cold steel.

That's my cyberpunk samurai. A disillusioned samurai in a not too distant future 3D prints a sword out of plastic and kills robots made out of martian alloy.

His faith is restored when he realizes it is not the sword that makes the samurai, but the way of Bushido which allows man to overcome the tyranny of martian robots. That and a moderate amount of armor blessed by the spirits of earth and infused with the wielder's chi, such that to break earth's samurai defender's armor would be to shatter his very soul. Split a bullet with a glance.

All I could think of was what a stupidly large amount of butter they were spreading. I think my arteries clogged just looking at that.

Actually blade thickness has a lot to do with cutting power. Having a nice sharp edge at a good angle helps with the bite of the blade - and a host of medieval and ancient swords had that - but blade thickness impacts how deeply a cut can go, the thicker the blade the harder the hit will have to be.

It's why your kitchen knives are measured in milometers. Beyond that thickness of a blade has a large impact on its weight (katanas are a shorter blade but heavier than most longer swords), how long the hilt needs to be (and katana hilts were significantly longer than the remakes of today) and more.

One might think the thickness is there for durability and certainly the blades were durable, it's why there are still some of the originals around today, but the real reason is Japanese steel wasn't very good and full of impurities while at the same time the Europeans were mass producing steel of a significant higher quality. I hear the Japanese folding process vaunted as the height of sword-making but the real reason they folded the steel wasn't because it was a superior process - it wasn't, pattern-welding was and it was used in Europe as far back as a millennium earlier - but because it helped spread those impurities throughout the steel. That extra thickness helped keep the impurities from ruining the blade as well.

The katana... it's beautiful, fun to wield, unique looking, has a treasured past but it just.. isn't.. a very... good.. sword.