Well all the razors have been sent back to their owner & my test drive is complete. Well sort of. I ended up doing a trade & keeping the Slant. This Sledgehammer Slant has quickly & quite easily become my favorite DE razor. The R41 certainly edges it out on absolute stubble destruction, while the Slant excels in giving me the most enjoyable shaving experience & still provides the close shave I'm looking for. To be honest the FaTip kind of got lost amidst the other 2. If you like OC razors then definitely try to get a FaTip; nice & efficient with a nice feel. The hollow handle on this one wasn't my favorite but that can be easily remedied. I will most likely get an R41 eventually, but right now I just don't see myself using it much. The Slant will see almost all of my DE time (I still need to try a recently acquired Old type single ring); my nice new OCMM & shiny HFT will get most of my SE shaves. Don't you wish sometimes that you could shave more often?!
(....well Martin) broke one of my rules and bought a '04 that was newer than 1918! Saw a '04 M in a travel set that I just couldn't pass up. It was beautiful!! Aggressive? No, I'd say 'mean'! Tried it with 5 different blades: Derby to a Feather. Mean!! Can see why it looked new after 90yrs! My candidate is the Gillette '04 M.
