Estoc Screwless Epee Point

I've been using Estoc points for almost a year now. They tend to have both good and bad points.



Pros:

Once they're set-up, they will last forever without the need to make any kinds of adjustments.

No screws means no screws to lose, and no tightening before/after every bout.

As was mentioned, you can have multiple tips set up for quick switches should something happen to one.

Action is incredibly smoothe.

You get great confused looks from directors who have never seen them before.



Cons:

Take a while to set-up.

Contact Spring typically requires a drop of glue to stay in place.

Thread-lock compound isn't required, but is suggested.

Standard size contact springs are too long and need to be cut to fit.

A bit on the expensive side.



Now, even with these drawbacks, I still swear by these tips. The "set and forget" tendencies of these tips far outweigh the setup time and hassle. I'd rather spend 5 extra minutes once when I wire a blade than spend 30 seconds grabbing a screwdriver and tightening screws after every bout. On top of this, the points are incredibly smoothe. Not quite to the extent of the Leon Paul tips, but pretty close.

I too sought out these tips afer becoming disenchanted with the tiny screw issues. These tips are:

- very smooth

- are able to be set up in advance so you can swap in a new tip and it\\\'s ready to use.

- do require special attention to install the contact spring correctly - with glue so it doesn\\\'t shift.

- do require thread compound to not unscrew.

- a little bit heavier than a regular German tip. You will notice a difference in the balance of your weapon unless you add some weight at the grip or pommel to offset it.



However of the four tips I installed about 6 weeks ago, two have broken their plastic collar, which split acreoss the middle. They still work fine, but would be at a ref\\\'s discretion as far as passing at a tournament.



And despite using glue on the contact springs I\\\'m still having some issues with the contact setting changing.

I have installed this tip on many weapons in the last 3 years or so and had little to no complaints come back. My measurement of this is solely from feedback of the fencers. When you work with many different parts on weapons, and see how they are made and how they wear and tear, you get a good feel for how they are going to last. This tip is a keeper in my opinion. The workmanship of this tip is top notch!

I ordered this tip from swordmasters with a leonpaul fie blade, and have been happy since. I like seeing the judges looking all around my tip, then finally realizing there aern't any screws and ending with the comment "its about time they made these." Im rather brutal on equipment, and this barrel has recieve massive amounts of hits, beat attacks and so on, but the compression action is still the smoothest ive ever felt, due to the thinner(i haven't been able to bend it either) and isolated tip spindle. On the occasion i do forget to put loc-tite on the tip to barrel threads which can result in the contact spring not being able to reach the wire block. my best advise is to soften your pressure spring, due to shorter inside barrel length, and put loc-tite on your threads. Also you can get away with cutting your contact springs in half.

I heard about these points just after an epee tournament in which I lost nine screws in the course of the tournament. AAARGH! They seemed like a lightning bolt from above at the time.



After ordering these points I found them easy to install. Not being a great armomrer I was able to get them in and the wires set and all that really easily. Setting them afterwards I had the same problems as mentioned earlier, that the springs can come out of adjustment easily. I did some eperimenting and found the superglue did the trick to solve this. I have been told by a local armorer that the springs are a little longish and can be modified to be less tempermental.



What I liked the most about this tip is how quickly and easily it went together. I could adjust for a flakey shim test while on deck and still have time to watch the end of the preceding bout.



I had experienced the same point unscrewing problem in practice when I first installed these points. The fix here was to screw the tip half way in and then put a dab of blue (not red) locktite on the threads. That gave it enough grip to stay in the barrel yet still smoothly disassemble later.



I have not had a chance to do hundreds of practice bouts with these points, but think they will wear well. Time will tell if the nylon bushing is prone to wear and binding, or the point shaft which is much narrower than other epee points is succeptible to damage. Both concerns I had putting them together.



In the end, there are problems with this tip, but none of them show stoppers, and easily surmounted. The benefits far outweigh these little burbles. As the use of these points matures I think they will prove dead reliable.

I started installing this point on my son's epees about three years ago (before I became a supplier). At first I was having the same problems as Veeco, the contact spring would not stay in adjustment. But after talking with the manufacturer I learned that if I would put a very small drop of super glue where the spring screws onto the point it would cure this problem. I have installed this point on several blades and as long as you follow this procedure you will have an epee point that not only does not have micro-screws, but also a frictionless point that will not ingest dirt. The only other problem I have had is that sometimes, depending on how a fencer uses it, the point tip can be ejected from the part that screws into the base.

One of my club members, whom I armorer for, fenced at Summer Nationals with the same blade, with the Estoc point on it, from pools all the way to through DE's in three events. The weapon never failed shims the entire time.

It just goes to show you that some times it is not the equipment that is faulty, it is the way you install it and use it!

The screwless epee points have made some waves in the fencing world. Imagine not having to replace screws after each bout, a point that you set in place, tune up, and then forget. Quite possibly every epeeist's dream.



Well keep dreaming, because this one is not going to solve the problem. I bought one blade from Estoc and it came with the screwless point mounted on it. The lady checked the point in front of me, in the store, for weight and shims. I took one lesson with the new blade, and the next week-end headed for a tournament. During my warmup I checked all my blades, and to my dismay I found that the point was not passing shims anymore. At this point, I tried to fix it, but you need a special wrench of a different size than the standard barrel wrench size. Luckily for me I had one of those variable crescent wrenches, so I was OK.



Once the point was open, I realized that there was no easy way to test if the spring was correctly sized, because you need to put the tip back in, and to do that you need to screw the tip head back into the barrel. Getting it right basically requires a lot of screwing and unscrewing of the tip head, followed by adjustments on a tiny spring on the tip head. Oh by the way, if you do get some of these points, the springs that control the residual travel of the point (the one you adjust for the shim test) are not the same length than the Uhlmann or Prieur springs. So you need to make sure you've got spare parts.



So basically, when I went home that night, I rewired my blade with a German epee point. Works great now!



It's a pity that such a good idea (screwless epee point) could not be executed better. I guess that in the future screwless epee points will improve and be worth investing in, but for the moment I'll stay away from them until I hear better opinions.