One of the most silly aspect of the federal assault weapons ban is the inclusion of a bayonet lug on the list of “evil features”. (OK we could call the whole AWB stupid, because things like a “Pistol grip” is just the physical way you can hold a rifle with an inline stock compared to older guns where the stock drops below the bore axis, and “Grenade Launchers” in the AWB sense is just an evolutionary dead-end that only existed for a short period of time before most nations all seemed to agree that center-fire grenade launchers *which are NFA items themselves* work better than rifle grenades…eh bah its all dumb, but let’s talk about bayonets!)
The media has been nuts recently over “hi-capacity” magazines, and “Assault weapons”, and other such crap. But it seems with all this mayhem all these nuts seemed to have forgotten to fix their bayonet! Its almost like the days of the Bayonet are over. Hell the Army thinks so.
I remember from back in my anti-gun days a school shooting in California where a bayonet was mentioned to be mounted on the gun. A little Google search and I found this. It notes that his rifle was a Chines Type 56 rifle. For those who aren’t seeing where this is going, a quick Google search again brings me here.
You’ll note that these rifles are essentially the Chinese copy of the Russian AKM rifle, but unlike their Ruskie counterparts they don’t have the lug system for an AK bayonet, instead they use a fixed folding bayonet system that is very similar to the Chinese copy of the SKS. (more images here)
So there’s a good chance that while there was a bayonet attached to his gun, he likely never even deployed it. Certainly nobody got injured by it…of course when you’re staring down the barrel of a gun, you might not be as concerned about weather it has a knife sticking off of it or not.
Just something rattling around in my skull.
During my tours in the Southeast Asian War Games I never saw, nor used the bayonet for anything but a knife. The few times we ever hot into the hand to hand stuff it was rifle butts, entrenching tools and bashing a head in with the steel helmet. Never the bayonet. Something else… When I put the bayonet on my M-14 it shot around a foot low.I never could figure out if that was due to the weight effecting recoil or the change in barrel harmonics. I suspect it wasn’t the recoil for I could never tell the difference in my shoulder or in the muzzle rise. What do I know, though, I just shot the gun.
Since the lug is right on the barrel, I suspect it was Barrel Harmonics. I know all my guns have a different Zero with and without the Bayonet. My M44 only shoots to point of aim with the bayonet extended, so that’s how it gets shot, My SKS shoots low with the bayo extended, so I keep it stowed. My various Mosin Nagant infantry rifles tend to shoot off when the pig-sticker is attached, so they stay at home.
Never patterned my Mossberg 590 with the knife on and off to see if it shifts the zero. I actually might be surprised if it did because nowhere does the bayonet touch the barrel, its completely attached to the magazine tube.
I’ve heard people recommend you don’t tighten up your shooting stance by using the sling of a standard FAL, as the front sling point is a ring clipped around a ferrule in the barrel. (ferrule around the barrel…say that 10x fast!!!) I haven’t experienced it, but I can see how adding tension directly to the barrel could shift the zero point…
Yeah Bayonets were REALLY useful when guns were both slow to reload and REALLY big. A musket or flintlock/caplock rifle made PERFECT sense. If the enemy was close you might not be able to reload and fire before you were overwhelmed, and given that your gun was over 6′ long with the blade attached it was a DAMN fine weapon. Even the WWI and WWII infantry rifles were pretty huge, and the bolt actions needed to be fed with chargers to reload. Not sure how much use the Garand bayonet got used, but even reloading the 8-round clips could be a bit fiddly in the heat of battle…especially by a soldier who’d had his thumbnail split by the action slamming shut.
But now when we have infantry rifles that are downright TINY. Look at an M1 Carbine with an M9 Bayonet fixed. You don’t get much more reach or leverage from just holding the blade in your hand. Plus it adds weight and a hazard to other soldiers. (I can’t imagine it would be good to be crouching in a foxhole with your blade bayonets fixed and have the guy you’re shoulder-to-shoulder with get wounded).
The AWB dropped the incidence of drive by bayonetting from nothing at all to zero!
One place the Army found the bayonet to be extremely useful; it’s outstanding for herding prisoners. They got a lot of use in Iraq in this fashion. You’ll note they aren’t going to stop issuing bayonets or ask for a rifle that cannot take one; they’re just no longer going to teach someone how to use it in combat.
ARRRRRRRGH!! M9 bayonet is an M16/M4 bayonet. M1 carbine uses the M4 bayonet.
And they don’t make a rail adapter for the M9 pistol to accept the M9 bayonet! Dumb numbering system!
ISTR a British unit performing a bayonet charge in Iraq.
And, frankly, I’ve always figured a bore spear or equivalent is a great zombie apocalypse weapon.