Thank you for your entry Ausjulius! You are an intrepid soul to venture into this complex and perplexing subject matter. For those of here in the west, these topics are daunting with the lack of resources in English, as well as the many misnomers, errors and presumptions issued by western writers in the recent centuries. These 'chestnuts' have become so entrenched in the literature that it is hard to pursue serious study on the ethnic and historical character of the many peoples actually involved.
For example the ethnonym Tatar, which is so broadly applied it has become almost cliche' in many cases. When trying to study the weapons used by these people, this factor presents many challenges.
The case of the needle point sabers we know in general as 'ordynka' or czeczuga are one such example. These are the sabers with the sharp point generally regarded as 'armor (Mail) piercing, and with the similar type point seen on pesh babz, and various of the other daggers in these contexts.
These needle points were obviously for thrusting, and deemed armor piercing as presumbably the narrow point would enter the mail in a link, spreading it to allow penetration. The thing is, while that effect with mail seems likely, even more so it was to penetrate the heavily padded garments which served not only against cold, but as formidable armor to guard against arrows and slashing cuts from swords.
Clearly the advantage to these edged weapons with these needle points was well known and existed broadly in the arms throughout Central Asia, and with these sabers in Poland and the Caucusus, with these ordynka sabers.
Getting to the situation with the needle point stiletto, this is a far different example than any of these needle point weapons well known as Central Asian as well as Caucasian and Polish as far as the sabers...with most of the daggers of this character more to Central Asia and India.
As far as I have discovered thus far, though the stiletto (needle point dagger) was developed in Italy in the early 16th century, the form was not known to be used as such in Central Asian contexts despite the obviously well known needle point edged weapons in other forms.
In "History of the Fighting Arts" , G.K.Panchenko, Moscow, 1997, Vol. 3, p.305 he notes that the 'czeczuga' comes from the Tatarian people Chechan that lived in the Caucusus". and notes the subgroup Adyghe Bzhedukh tribe, Charcheney.
Images of these needle points from "Weapons of the Caucasian Nations", Emma Astvatsaturyan show these as used from 14th into 17th c. and they certainly carried further well through 18th.
The single image is from
Bron i Uzbrujenie Tatarow (Arms and Armor of the Tatars)
J.Gutowski , and of c. 1600
The term ordynka= horde.....refers to the diffused Tatar tribes which were united into the Mongol hordes.
the term czeczuga = sturgeon, the fish hide used often on the hilts of these swords, as loosely explained.
Most of this I retrieved from a 2006 post here using 'search'.
These topics have been discussed many times over past two decades, and we have remarkable resources archived here which we can rely on.
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