Metal Bo Staff: Steel vs Aluminum

This week for Weapons Wednesday, we took a look at some of our metal bo staffs. We often get the question, "What is the difference between an Aluminum and Steel Bo Staff?", so I took a little bit of time to answer this question.

There are definitely advantages to both the steel and the aluminum bo staff.

The steel bo staff is much heavier than a standard wooden bo staff, so it's primary purpose is to build up your muscles when using the staff so that when you return to a wooden staff, you will be much faster with it. The steel bo staff is extremely strong. In fact, if you watch the video, you will see that we used all of our strength when striking them together, and the steel bo staff had virtually no noticeable damage when we were finished. In fact, you could just rub some steel wool on it to bring back it's original shine. The main disadvantage to a steel bo staff is that if you live in a humid environment, it may rust, so it is important for you to maintain it in the same way you would with a sword.

The aluminum bo staff looks very similar to the steel bo staff, but is MUCH lighter. In fact, the weight of our high-strength aluminum bo staff is very similar to the weight of a wooden bo staff. And, because it is aluminum, you don't have to worry about it rusting like a steel bo staff might. The main disadvantage is that it isn't quite as strong as a steel bo staff. But, you will see in the video that it actually holds up beautifully to a lot of abuse.

So to summarize, if you are purchasing a metal staff to build up your speed, go with a steel bo staff, however if you are buying one for looks, go with the aluminum bo staff.

In this video, I also show off the 3-Piece aluminum escrima staff. Customers are always asking us about these escrima staffs, so I wanted to show how they connect and give an up-close look at what they look like.

Here's the Video:



If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments below.