Were Enfield bayos ever this odd?

 

"Bubba" is an interesting charecter & has come up with some interesting "TFMs" but this may be a winner.

 

I don't have a picture & I'm not a collector, so I'm not a big (or small, even) expert in bayonets, so please excuse me if my terminology is "off".

 

Was there ever, anywhere, a version of a Lee-Enfield bayonet that was made by cutting the pointy end of a spike bayonet off, & welding (or brazing) the stub to the back of the handle of a #1 type batonet's handle tang?

 

I ask because I've been offered locally this "Rare! Unique!" Enfield bayonet.

 

It looks like a handled bayonet, with a #4 type stub attached to the back of it.

My one preference for the No1 rifles would be that they take a bayonet you can actually use to open a can of corned beef with.

 

it was  an experimental bayonet , it was developed in the late 30s , it was intended for the '.276 special [sniper] rifle' , the first of these proposed designs was a cruciform style #B263 [25.1.1939]with a 16+" spike , a later version with a P07 style #B264 blade went thru four types "A"-"D" , they differ in that the first two were weld-ons the second two were screw fastened , reuseing existing P07 blades , and they had varrying offsets of the blade from the bore axis ,

 

the type "A" was set at same offset dimension as the accepted no4 mkI to the no4 rifle , type "B" was set to the offset of the P07 to the no1 rifle , the type "C" was the offset of the no4 with three screws fastening a salvaged P07 blade and the type "D" used four screws and a tiny bit more offset , all were 16+" blades ,

 

there are questions as to wether all of these were actually produced or if some were only concept drawings , but some of at least a couple were , and obviously the first , in a shortened version becam the no4 bayonet , the blades would have taken more resources at a time when there were too few available to meet even the minimal demands , thus ..............

these were abandoned at outbreak of the war for simpler and shorter spike versions due to production constraints ,

Originally posted by Shamu   Was there ever, anywhere, a version of a Lee-Enfield bayonet that was made by cutting the pointy end of a spike bayonet off, & welding (or brazing) the stub to the back of the handle of a #1 type batonet's handle tang?   I ask because I've been offered locally this "Rare! Unique!" Enfield bayonet.   It looks like a handled bayonet, with a #4 type stub attached to the back of it.

This if I read you right is exactly what the film prop bayonets looked like.

 

 

 

 

Originally posted by A square 10 before you dismiss this out-of-hand , please note that there were such a thing ,   it was  an experimental bayonet , it was developed in the late 30s , it was intended for the '.276 special [sniper] rifle' , the first of these proposed designs was a cruciform style #B263 [25.1.1939]with a 16+" spike , a later version with a P07 style #B264 blade went thru four types "A"-"D" , they differ in that the first two were weld-ons the second two were screw fastened , reuseing existing P07 blades , and they had varrying offsets of the blade from the bore axis ,   the type "A" was set at same offset dimension as the accepted no4 mkI to the no4 rifle , type "B" was set to the offset of the P07 to the no1 rifle , the type "C" was the offset of the no4 with three screws fastening a salvaged P07 blade and the type "D" used four screws and a tiny bit more offset , all were 16+" blades ,   there are questions as to wether all of these were actually produced or if some were only concept drawings , but some of at least a couple were , and obviously the first , in a shortened version becam the no4 bayonet , the blades would have taken more resources at a time when there were too few available to meet even the minimal demands , thus .............. these were abandoned at outbreak of the war for simpler and shorter spike versions due to production constraints ,

I don't think these are what Shamu has described.

 

if the grip and crossguard are gone , the finished item would closely resemble a no9 - only with the P07 blade rater than the no5 blade [BTW there was a version of these with a M16 type blade as well] this would be what the experimental uniots looked like , long blade with a no4 socket no grip ,

 

it would be a rare one indeed tho as im not sure how many of the experimentals were made nor if any survived ,

 

Actually the only thing I can think this would have been made for would be to fit on an enfield #4 with it's fitting round the barrel. Otherwise why bodge up a perfectly functional bayonet for a #1 rifle by welding the butt end of a bayonet for a #4 to it?

It certainly doesn't help when using the bayonet for anything else.

 

The link is darn close to what I saw Imagine that socket, minus the ability to rotate, attached by welding to the back of a handle & you've got it!

 

Could it be some oddball sten bayonet?

It looks like it's really just a bubba job. No problem It kind of felt that way right from the beginning. I'll pass on getting whatever bodge this was. Like I said, I'm not really a collectorof bayonets anyway so it's no big deal for me.