Phrobis III / Buck M9 Bayonet

[rcmodel]

Hardly a stranger story of U.S. weapons procurement could be imagined by a fiction writer then the real story of the Phrobis III M9 Bayonet.

I will cover as much of it as I can in pretty simplistic detail here.
A better and more accurate detailed history of the M9 can be found here if you are interested:
http://www.m9bayonet.com/development-m9.html

The M9 Bayonet traces its history back to 1986-87 and a small R&D company called Qual-A-Tec.
And an inventor / designer / entrepreneur named Mickey Finn.
Seriously? Mickey Finn??

The company was created by Charles A. "Mickey" Finn (known as Q in the black-ops weapons industry) to design and supply classified weapons systems to the U.S. government.
(And Rambo movie prop knives too?)
Witness the Buck 184 Buckmaster:



They later formed a new “cover” company, Phrobis III, Ltd, with lots of ideas, but no manufacturing capability, to submit a military bayonet design and later bid on the contract that ensued.

SO, after having the design selected, and bidding on and winning the contract for 325,000 M9 bayonets, they had to hire somebody to make them.
The company they got to do it was Buck.
That lasted until 1989, when there was a falling out and the two companies parted ways.

In the meantime, the business was forced to close when author Tom Clancy outed Mickey Finn and his Qual-A-Tec “black ops” company in the novel “The Cardinal of the Kremlin”.

After the Phrobis III bayonet contract was completed, rights to the M9 Bayonet reverted to the United States Army, and there were many later versions from other companies such as Buck, Lancay, and Ontario.

There is a lot more to the M9 story, and it is almost stranger than fiction.
But that is the simplified story of the Phrobis III company, and the M9 bayonet in the early years.









IMO?
The bayonet probably should have stayed in a Rambo movie.

It has several “features” including:

• Saw-tooth spine with a one side bevel and tiny file teeth that clog easily, and may or may not work to saw anything.

• A wire-cutter / screwdriver / bottle opener sheath that cuts soft wire fine, but might have problems with hardened steel military barb or razor wire?

• A 7/8” x 2” whet stone inlayed in the back of the hard plastic scabbard that is almost too small to use.

• A quick-release Bianchi sheath that sticks out from the belt about 2 ½” and gets hung up on stuff.

• A belt & suspenders approach to sheath retention. (Snap around handle, snap over guard, and a strong steel friction spring inside the sheath)
In all, it takes two hands and half a minute to get the bayonet out and put it back in again!

• And so many more other doodads they had to write a new Technical Manual to operate the bayonet!!

• But perhaps the worst “feature” of the M9 is, it is really heavy!
In fact, it is Twice as heavy as the M7 bayonet it replaced .

The dang thing is heavy enough to pull you under and drown you in a pool of your own GI issue sweat!!!

rc

 

[hso]

And some versions were prone to breaking at the guard. Every military knife collector should have one.
A bad solution in search of a problem.

 

[JimStC]

rc,
How did Clancy out him in the novel you mentioned? I have read many of his novels but finally was worn down by the minutiae of his writing style.
As a personal preference I'll stick with my Randall #18 Attack Survival. I probably would poke myself with that guard Of course I am referencing the first picture.

Jim

 

[kBob]

I got my hands on one in the fall of 1987 for a magazine review with CFV publishing in Ocala Florida......worst gun rags in the business and I worked for them.

I cut some one inch thick oak branches with the saw to make tent stakes,and hacked points on the other end cut agricultural barbed wire, feild fence and chain link with the wire cutter, cut a 110 volt power cord with a 60 watt lamp on it. and opened a Dr. Pepper or three with the bottle openner. It all worked. I still did not like it. I got on the phone to speak to someone on the design team who insisted it had been feild tested with high marks from the troops. I explained I was an ex -troop and questioned the broom handle grip that made indexing a bit slower in the dark ( you have to use your thumb to figure out which way the guard and ring are oriented or index finger to feel the blade, hopefully the side) compared to the M-5 through M7. I questioned the bulk of the thing and the value of that sheath with all the snaps, hooks and such on it. I was given some responses to the effect that this was the hottest bayonet ever made and that was that.

I did not have a AR15 at the time but put it on an AR-180 and lept about doing the old style and new "instictive" post 1973 style bayonet drill. It seemed a bit more out there than an M7 or a Stoner 63 bayonet. Dispite the crappy thin blade the Stoner bayonet worked as well in my tests as a wire cutter or saw but that thin blade sort of give me the willies when I think of depending on it as a bayonet. I could not say the "Probiscus" was not stout in the blade and that is for sure.

Appearently according to the publisher they did not like that I "messed the knife up" actually using it. ( I even carted it around with a CZ75 loaded mag n the accessory pouch for a bit and almost lost a Buck lock blade doing the same.)
Silly me I thought feild test and review meant more than look at a product and copy the manufacturer's brag sheet on it. You can see why I did not last as a "gun writer."

-kBob

 

[rcmodel]

How did Clancy out him in the novel you mentioned?

I have not read the book myself.

My understanding is however, that Clancy actually named Mickey Finn and his Qual-A-Tec company as a supplier of government spooky stuff in the book.

-kBob
Thats funny stuff right there!
I can imagine a publisher getting his panties in a wad over something as simple as actually testing a product!!

I used to write for a Model Airplane magazine and had a similar experience to yours when I told it like it was once too often.

rc

 

[JimStC]

Thanks rc. I didn't want to suffer through another Clancy novel.
Nice pics. Thanks for them too.

Jim

 

[hso]

How'd you know about the closing and Clancy if you didn't read the book?

I read a much darker history of Finn and the closing that had to do with what could be considered bad business practices and fraud.

 

[rcmodel]

How'd you know about the closing and Clancy if you didn't read the book?

Boy! Tough crowd here!

I knew about it because I have spent most of my adult life collecting knives & guns, buying books, and reading about them.

Pretty sure it's probably on the interweb somewhere too.

Is it true or not?
I don't know that either, but I thought it makes a great story!!


BTW: Did you know Mickey Finn went on to start a new company and designed and sold golf clubs?
http://www.mickeyfinngolf.com/mickeyfinngolf.asp

Finn died in 2007, but his golf club company is still in business.

See, it just keeps getting stranger & stranger like I said!!

rc

 

[hso]

I played at collecting the things for a while and ran down a lot of information that lead me to the more unseemly story. It made for an interesting, if prosaic, story about the end of the company, just not as exotic as the one you read.

 

[jeepnik]

Oh heck, let's just add more fuel to the fire. Do soldiers still need bayonets, at all? When was the last bayonet charge? Wouldn't military personel be better off with nothing more than a good multi-tool?

Heck, the M-16 I was issued had such a wimpy barrel that if you used it with a bayonet you'd likely bend the barrel.

Now with all that said, my personal opinion is that a good 5.5" fix bladed knife, with the "option" (though by no means it primary intended use) to affix it to a rifle makes very good sense as an issue "tool'. Small enough (think of WWI & early WWII bayonets) to be used as a "camp" tool, yet still sufficient to stick someone pretty good should the need arise.

 

[hirundo82]

Cardinal of the Kremlin, the end of chapter 24 (p 469 in my copy):

Clark was busy, too. Obviously a careful man, Mancuso noted as he watched, he was laying out and checking all of his equipment. The man's clothing looked ordinary, though shabby and not well made.

"Bought in Kiev," Clark explained. "You can't exactly wear Hart, Schaffner, and Marx and expect to look like a local." He also had a coverall to put over it, with camouflage stripes. There was a complete set of identity papers—in Russian, which Mancuso couldn't read—and a pistol. It was a small one, barely larger than the silencer that sat next to it.

"Never seen one of these before," the Captain said.

"Well, that's a Qual-A-Tec baffle-type silencer with no wipes and a slide-lock internal to the can," Clark said.

"What—"

Mr. Clark chuckled. "You guys have been hitting me with subspeak ever since I got aboard, skipper. Now it's my turn."

Mancuso lifted the pistol. "This is only a twenty-two."

"It's damned near impossible to silence a big round unless you want a silencer as long as your forearm, like the FBI guys have on their toys. I have to have something that'll fit in a pocket. This is the best Mickey can do, and he's the best around."

"Who?"

"Mickey Finn. That's his real name. He does the design work for Qual-A-Tec, and I wouldn't use anybody else's silencer. It isn't like TV, Cap'n. For a silencer to work right, it has to be a small caliber, you have to use a subsonic round, and you have to have a sealed breech. And it helps if you're out in the open. In here, you'd hear it 'cause of the steel walls. Outside, you'd hear something out to thirty feet or so, but you wouldn't know what it was. The silencer goes on the pistol like this, and you twist it"—he demonstrated—"and now the gun's a single shot. The silencer locks the action. To get off another round, you have to twist it back and cycle the action manually."

"You mean you're going in there with a twenty-two single-shot?"

"That's how it's done, Captain."

"Have you ever—"

"You really don't want to know. Besides, I can't talk about it." Clark grinned. "I'm not cleared for that myself. If it makes you feel any better, yeah, I'm scared, too, but this is what they pay me for."

"But if—"

"You get the hell out of here. I have the authority to give you that order, Captain, remember? It hasn't happened yet. Don't worry about it. I do enough worrying for the both of us."

The book's worth a read. It's early Clancy, before he got full of himself and started putting his name on any spy novel a ghostwriter turned out.

 

[rcmodel]

Thank you for posting that from the book quote hirundo82!

rc