Inexpensive Epee's and Pistol Grips related questions

[LastLeftyofEL]

I'm a cheap person. I won't lie. ANd I need to know where I can get a cheap, but quality Epee. Also, what is a canted epee?

Regarding pistols: What is the difference between insulated and uninsulated?

Sorry for the grammer failure in the title.

[forethought]

A "canted epee" refers to an epee (or any weapon) in which the tang has been angled to accommodate the fact that when you hold the weapon and extend your arm, the blade continues in the same line; uncanted blades will point up, and will require you to bring your wrist down significantly to put the point in line with your arm.

With regards to the grips, for epee you want uninsulated grips. The reason being is with epee (and foil), the guard is "grounded" so that when you depress the tip on the guard the box won't fire off a light. In epee, if you use an insulated grip, then the grip is not grounded, and if your opponent somehow hits your grip while going for a wrist/hand shot, it will register as a valid touch, which while the chances are slim of that happening, it's much easier (and cheaper) to go with an uninsulated grip.

The reason there are insulated grips is up until recently, in foil, if you touched your grip or bellguard to your lame then you could keep your opponent from scoring a touch, because the lame would then be "grounded", and no touch would register. Modern scoring machines have built in circuitry that no longer allows this, and a touch will still register if the grip or bellguard is touching the lame, but there are probably some older machines still out there being used, and it's still officially required to have an insulated grip for foil (technically, m.13 says only the "pommel or the rear extremity of the handle" must be insulated, but for pistol grips it's probably easier to insulate the whole thing).

[SJCFU#2]

It is still a good idea to insulate your grip in foil because if you ground your foil against you lame with newer machines a touch on your own guard will register as a valid touch (and since it's your own equipment that causes the problem you probably won't get much sympathy over having a dubious touch registered against you).

[KD5MDK]

More experienced epee fencers can disagree, but usually your hand (and thus non-conductive glove) cover the vast majority of the grip. Therefore, finding a grip you like is far more essential than insulated vs uninsulated for epee. That said, all things being equal go for uninsulated of course.

[DangerMouse]

If a significant number of touches scored on you are from hitting the insulated grip, you have bigger problems than the insulation on the grip.