Actually called “sparring swords” on The Knight Shop site [External Link], these synthetic wasters are intended to take the place of metal swords – blunt or otherwise. They’re quite heavy but only a proportion of the weight a real basket hilt would be.
Basket Hilt Wasters
I bought them to try them out as sabre replacements. While someone with small hands (i.e. me) can just about use them for this purpose, they are fairly adaptable anyway, due to the modular design The Knight Shop / Dave Rawlings has come up with. I intend to buy the parts to make these usable as both single-handed and bastard swords (i.e. possibly suitable for longsword training) as well.