Live steel

Live Steel is an reenactment term for actual edged weapons. Typically this means a sharpened sword, knife, spear or axe, but blunted weapons such as hammers or maces may fall under this category.

Live steel is rarely used in SCA combat events, but is featured in some other reenactment groups.

In the SCA one is required to state "clear!" when drawing live steel. Otherwise, all live steel must be sheathed safely at all times: this includes sheathes for spear- and axe-heads, whether such sheathes were period or not.