Saturday, February 14, 2009

Y'know what's really calming to me right now?

That metallic *ka-chink!* as a bayonet locks onto its lug.

I opened my Big Box O' Bayonets, which has sat taped up since the move last year, and fitted pigstickers to the muzzles of... oh... say, fifteen or twenty rifles. The sword bayonets for Arisakas and Enfields are especially satisfying.

I think I'll continue my meditations by loading magazines.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree with you on the Enfield bayonets. The Mosin-Nagant pig sticker is pretty nifty, too!

BobG said...

"I opened my Big Box O' Bayonets, which has sat taped up since the move last year, and fitted pigstickers to the muzzles of... oh... say, fifteen or twenty rifles."

Getting ready for a wiener roast?

atlharp said...

Well maybe you can try'em out on some cats in the neighborhood! LOL j/k! Anyway, I find sorting brass to be the most meditative thing I do. I find my Chakra centered when the 9mm is placed in it's own little bin. OHMMMMMMMMM!!!

Anonymous said...

So long as the command fix-BAYONETS is on the books, I shall retain small-h hope.

Jim

Anonymous said...

You have a sawback Butcher Blade, right?

Heath J said...

Sadly, no bayonet.

But I do feel a little better after giving my FAL a hug :-P

John B said...

When you said Big Box O Bayonets, I got an image of the 64 box of Crayolas. With serious sharps instead of wax color pencils....
Do you have a sharpener built into the box, that'd be so kewl!!!!

NotClauswitz said...

It's especially satisfying to do it while watchin C-SPAN and thinking of Senatators and Congressweasles draped over barb-wire and pickets...
Krag, K-31, Garand, Carbine... The Krag bayonet makes the rifle almost as long as a Mosin-Nagant.

doubletrouble said...

Oh, my bad.

I thought the answer to the posted question would be "Hop Devil IPA", or some such.

WV: forkink- Where's my forkink box o' bayonets?

Anonymous said...

Once upon a time, I did a nasty. We all have at one time or another, but this was evil, at least from a collector's point of view.

I had a Schmidt-Rubin sawtooth bayonet, then about $20, and discovered that it only fitted on a 1911 carbine. I only had a 1911 rifle at the time, which is about .015 bigger at the muzzle.

So I polished out the hole in the handle and fitted it to my rifle, making a pike, or at least a spontoon, the Vatican's Swiss Guards might have envied. Useless of course.

Everything else being equal, the guy with the shorter bayonet wins. The dood with the long pig-sticker is at the end of a longer lever, allowing the other guy to parry his thrust and step inside his point. But damn, that was one eevul looking blood-letting machine.

Anonymous said...

Betwixt thou and I, this hideous Spendulous package has moved me closer to the 3% column than any recent gun control initiative...

Tam said...

pdb,

Word.

-T.

Rabbit said...

Heath,

Military Gun Supply in Ft. Worth has a box o' FAL bayonets with scabbards.

Now my StG58 feels whole.

Now to find a pioneer bayonet for my K31, and an affordable 16 incher for my April '43 Garand.

Regards,
Rabbit.

Tam said...

"an affordable 16 incher for my April '43 Garand."

You and me both, Rabbit...

Heath J said...

'Perciate it, Rabbit.

I'll warm up the Intartubes and see if I can raise a website, I'd be all over putting my FAL at EBR Critical Mass.

Laura said...

i recently purchased a Mauser, and am hoping i have disposable cash for a bayonet soon. can't wait!

Canthros said...

I picked up a crummy Chinese repro of the M1905 for my Garand. It's pretty much a piece of junk (the bayo, not the rifle).

If I could store it on the rifle, it'd be there right now.

Anonymous said...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v709/Vaarok/drawer.jpg

FxR said...

No bayonets, but I find that the klick-spin-klank of my balisong knife has a soothing effect on my nerves.

Anonymous said...

Was occasionally unlucky enuff to get tabbed for garrison guard duty, patrolling defunct WW2 bunkers in a remote firing range, a few klicks away from the kaserne in FRG, circa '69.

About two, in the nice wet cold fall AYEM, I hear "Sgt of the guard ...post nummer 3." Urgently repeated

Go out un-flappin my .45. The troop is a small, thin pale guy who is known to hang around the recreational chemicals clubz. And he's shaking.

"I killed it!!! Over there!!! It's some kinda monster!! Scared the shixx outa me. I killed it!!!!!"

"OK, OK." Over we go, and i flash my light over some animal about the size of a furry porky-pine, clearly inert, laying on a patch of torn-up, bloody mud. Not a monster, but the troop's eyes are still saucer sized in a white face.

"Hand me y'r rifle, I need to clear it." I hadn't heard any shots, but I was gonna feel better if I had that M14 away from him. He passed it over.

"Now tell me what happened,again, slowly".

And he did: "I heard something moving and yelled at it and it kept coming at me and i couldn't see what it was, but it was big and it wouldn't stop and I had to kill it."

"With what?"

"The bayonet on my rifle. Had to stick him a buncha times, too, until he quit moving." And he had. I just hadn't noticed the sheathless bayo in the dark, and connected it with said dead critter.

So -- for those 'first response' moments when y'r too surprised to even jack a round and pull, you can trust in that bayo for an instant 'short thrust', repeated as needed. NO MATTER, even if y'r seeing fire breathing armadillos the size of a hog, apparently.

I called for a replacement, and the guy got to go back to the guard hootch and stay in his bunk. Sorta figured every one was safer that way, all things considered. And, I just hated filling out unnecessary paperwork, anyway.

The big rodent or whatever it was, got disposed of in the dark, over the fence and down a steep ravine, with the whole thing dwindling into barracks small talk by the next relief.

Not REALLY exciting stuff, but my only exposure to a real life example of a rifle-mounted bayonet being lethally used in self defense.

KLICK!!!


J t R

J.R.Shirley said...

"Everything else being equal, the guy with the shorter bayonet wins. The dood with the long pig-sticker is at the end of a longer lever, allowing the other guy to parry his thrust and step inside his point. But damn, that was one eevul looking blood-letting machine."

I disagree. Oda Nobunaga took over Japan with all manner of military innovations...including longer spears. The "longer lever"...has MORE leverage.

Yeah, Tam, I love me some sword bayonets. Spear is my favorite manual weapon, because it's almost impossible to stop at close range. A mediocre spearman will eat a good swordsman's lunch will boring regularity.

John