I purchased this at a gun show 30-35 years ago. I assume it is the M1905 and that it fits the Garand and M1903 Springfield, but I don’t have either, so never confirmed.

Does the date mark indicate when it was made? To my uneducated eye it appears to be in unissued condition, but if it was made in 1908, I would assume it would originally had wood grip panels. Were such bayonets ever refurbished/refinished?

Any comments would be appreciated.

Correct, on all accounts.

You have a very nice M1905 bayonet, made in 1908 at Springfield Armory. Originally for the M1903, but used with the M1 Garand as well.

Yours was refurbished at some point later in its life. It would originally have had a bare metal blade and walnut wood grips. The metal was refinished and plastic grips were added when it was refurbished around the WW2 era. But yours missed having its blade cut down into 10" configuration, like the vast majority of other M1905 bayonets during WW2 and post-WW2 refurbishing.

Thanks. You answered my refurbished question as I was adding it.

If you're interested in selling, member armored has a WTB ad for one in the Classifieds section.

https://sigforum.com/eve/forums...0601935/m/1000087974

(If that person isn't interested, I would be. )

Nice refurbished for WWII bayonet. Great find.

If it missed having it's blade cut down, what are the odds that it's an early war/transitional (refurbishment) model? It's always fun to find a piece in a series of things that wind up telling a big-picture story.

I'm no expert, but I'd say that remora is missing its shark.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
If you're interested in selling, member armored has a WTB ad for one in the Classifieds section.

https://sigforum.com/eve/forums...0601935/m/1000087974

(If that person isn't interested, I would be. )

I would be interested.

Not really interested in getting rid of it.

Although one would think that a “collector” would be more knowledgeable about such an item before asking about it here, I have a number of old bayonets and recent discussions prompted me to retrieve it from the box where it’s been hidden away for a long time.

Thanks again for the information.

quote:

Originally posted by armored:

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:
If you're interested in selling, member armored has a WTB ad for one in the Classifieds section.

https://sigforum.com/eve/forums...0601935/m/1000087974

(If that person isn't interested, I would be. )

I would be interested.

As would I.

It would be a nice addition to my Garand and A3-03

Why did they cut them down to 10 inches?

Seems way too short for a bayonet?

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Why did they cut them down to 10 inches?

Seems way too short for a bayonet?

Quite the opposite. (In fact, a 10" bayonet blade is even considered "too long" these days.)

The issue was that the 16" blades were actually too long and cumbersome to be used in more modern warfare, plus they spent most of their time stowed in a scabbard on your belt where the extra length got in the way. Starting in 1943, the US switched to the 10" bladed M1 bayonet, and began cutting down the blades on the earlier M1905 bayonets to 10" length. A decade later, they went even shorter when they adopted the 6.5" bladed M5 bayonet for use with the M1 Garand.


Long-bladed (~1.5 to 2 feet) "sword bayonets" were the rage in the mid-1800s through early 1900s, primarily as a means for massed formations of infantry to turn their rifles into a wall of spears as a defense against cavalry.

WW1's change to a more modern form of warfare proved that to no longer be necessary, but many militaries still clung to it for a few more decades. But in the WW2 era and especially into the post-WW2 era, bayonets began trending shorter and more knife-like. Nowadays, bayonet blades are typically no more than 6 or 7 inches long.

A knife that you can use as a standalone tool and occasionally affix to your rifle if needed is more useful these days than a quasi-sword that could be used to turn your rifle into a longspear but that mostly just got in the way.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Why did they cut them down to 10 inches?

Seems way too short for a bayonet?

honestly,,

cause they were too long,


then eventually they went the the M5, which is 6 or 7 inches,

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
Why did they cut them down to 10 inches?

Seems way too short for a bayonet?

Nobody’s engaged a mounted charge in quite some time.

Although I am hardly a bayonet fighting expert, I did receive formal training with a bayonet on an M14, and two things are obvious.

The first is that a shorter extension is faster to maneuver, and second, it’s easier to close with and “get inside” an opponent’s longer blade. The latter maneuver has its own dangers (i.e., butt stroking), but is a consideration nevertheless. As RogueJSK mentioned, long blades were valuable to present a forest of spears in the days of single shot muskets and horse-mounted cavalry, but when both changed, longer wasn’t better.

My father was a career soldier who received three Purple Heart medals in the European Theater. He was in the combat engineers during the war and his weapon of choice at the time was the bolt action Springfield, probably because he had more confidence in it for precision shooting; he was on various rifle teams later. Years later when I was in my teens, he expressed his philosophy about bayonets:

“The only time a bayonet on a rifle would be of any use is if you’re out of ammo and the other guy is out of ammo [and you both want to continue fighting].” In particular he ridiculed the guidance he had received at one time to fire a round if one’s bayonet got stuck in the enemy’s body. The point being, of course, why would we try to stab someone with a spear when we could shoot him? I never tried to enlighten my drill sergeants in basic training with that observation, but it did stick with me.

There are accounts of military forces supposedly using bayonets well into modern times, but they were obviously used against mostly defeated opponents, and—I suspect—were ordered more for the sake of someone’s being able to say it had been done rather than any good tactical reason.

quote:

why would we try to stab someone with a spear when we could shoot him?

The ammo loads at the time were such that in combat you wouldn’t want to waste a shot on someone close enough to stab when there were also a lot of guys trying to kill you from a distance that you couldn’t stab them from and needed those cartridges for, so he was wrong but you’re not right either, although I do get your point as far as a response to him.

quote:

Originally posted by P210:
he was wrong

Alas: He’s no longer with us, so I cannot explain how your knowledge and experience is superior to what his was. I am sure he would have been grateful to learn that he didn’t know what he was talking about. Thanks for setting me straight, but I am a little vague on one thing:

When we’re running up to try to stab someone with our spear, what will keep him from just shooting us? Will he recognize that we’re trying to conserve ammunition so we can pick off his buddy in the second line trench and wait until we get close enough to duel it out in the manly man way with our blades rather than bullets? I always teach my students to deal with the closest, most immediate threat first, and what if he doesn’t get the memo?

If someone is trying to kill me at close distance with a pistol, knife, broken beer bottle, or bayonet, he is the one who will get my attention, and my bullets, even if it’s my last one. I won’t be worried about saving ammunition for a later engagement.



Or was your comment intended to be a joke and my impaired sense of humor betrayed me once again? If so, please forgive me.

I had what, as best I can recall, a Korean War era bayonet which I never liked. It was a rattler when mounted on my M1s. The 16" ground to 10", was further ground to 6" or a tad shorter. What was originally a hansome rifle mounted sword was now a chubby, rattley fixed blade knife. The latter M5 is simply a higher quality bayonet. Question for Rogue. Was there a frog to cover the 16" scabbard? Seems to me there was. Sigfreund may like to have one to complete his nice piece of history.

quote:

Originally posted by David Lee:
The 16" ground to 10", was further ground to 6" or a tad shorter.

That was likely a Korean-modified bayonet. The US never cut their M1905s or M1s down to below 10", but the South Koreans did. A decent number of these Korean-modified bayonets showed up on the collectors' market a while back.

quote:

Originally posted by David Lee:
Question for Rogue. Was there a frog to cover the 16" scabbard? Seems to me there was. Sigfreund may like to have one to complete his nice piece of history.

No, frogs weren't needed, as the bayonet scabbard attached directly to the belt through the use of the metal hooks.

You may be thinking of the early M1905 and M1910 scabbards, which were made of wood covered in leather and canvas. But again, no frog, since the scabbard attached directly to the belt.

Thank you Rogue. Yes the leather covered is where my thoghts had me confused. I believe your top picture shows the Alice clip attachment. I had both bayonets with plastic and wood grips.