SKS Blade Bayonets: What Kind Of Steel?

[fiddleharp]

Back in the '90's I picked up a fearsome looking blade bayonet for my SKS at a gun show. I figured it would be good for herding prisoners around during the inevitable upcoming revolution. After all, who can remember the last time anybody used a rifle-mounted bayonet in combat?
Anyway, the steel in this thing looked so pathetic that I ended up spray painting it a bright silver.
Is there any way on earth to make the original steel look like something someone would appear in public with?

 

[Technosavant]

The originals aren't for appearing in public with, they are for stabbing.

"Pretty" has its place, but the thing I like about the SKS is that the truckload of ugly screams "functional!" That sort of ugly commands its own respect, especially if its functional is matches with your own skill at using it.

 

[Cannonball888]

Is it a chinese SKS? If so, yeah, I think those 3-edge bayonets look like cheesey aluminum. However, the stainless bayonets on the russian ones are nice IMO.

 

[fiddleharp]

No, it's not a Chinese "spike" bayonet. It's a huge blade that came from somewhere.
The way I feel about bayonets from the last fifty years is that they are mostly for intimidation. Remember "Brotherhood by Bayonet", the forced desegregation of the high school in Little Rock, Arkansas, back in the 50's? Lotsa bayonets on display.

 

[MikeJackmin]

I always thought they were made of hardened aluminum, but I can't say I know that for certain.

Does a magnet stick to it?

 

[fiddleharp]

When you said aluminum, I thought I was going to have a Eureka Moment. I fetched the bayonet and a magnet. It sticks.

 

[bogie]

What kinda steel?

The cheap kind.

 

[mp510]

After all, who can remember the last time anybody used a rifle-mounted bayonet in combat?

There's several videos of bayonets being used in combat in Iraq. IIRC, British soldiers bayonetted an insurgent to death during a house raid.

 

[Hoppy590]

The [bayonets] aren't for appearing in public with, they are for stabbing.

new sig nline

 

[Technosavant]

new sig nline

Just glad I could oblige, Hoppy.

 

[CajunBass]

The ones on my Yugo's looks about like they've been spray painted with model car paint.

 

[mr hanky]

...God bless bayonets...what else to use for turkey in t-minus 24 days...?

 

[rcmodel]

I don't think anyone actually knows what kind of steel any of the evil empires bayonets are made from, except the guys that spec'd & made them.

I will say this though.
I had one of the Chinese SKS spike bayonets laying around for years, and finally decided to re-handle it into a knuckle-guard fighting knife type of thing.

What I found out when cutting it off is, it is very high quality high-carbon steel, properly hardened & tempered, and then matt-chrome plated for rust protection.

I was very impressed at how good it actually was!


rcmodel

 

[Hoppy590]

the chinese can make good stuff. just we want cheap stuff.

RCmodel i was thinking fo doing the same thing, howd you go about it? spike bayonets can be had for a few bucks and seems like it would make a good ice pick type thing. or tent stakes, or kabob's anything realy

 

[AndyC]

After all, who can remember the last time anybody used a rifle-mounted bayonet in combat?

Argylls fight hand to hand in Iraq
BRIAN BRADY
WESTMINSTER EDITOR
Sun 16 May 2004

SCOTTISH troops fixed bayonets and fought hand to hand with a Shi’ite militia in southern Iraq in one of their fiercest clashes since the war was declared more than a year ago, it was reported last night.

Soldiers from the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders mounted what were described as "classic infantry assaults" on firing and mortar positions held by more than 100 fighters loyal to the outlawed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, according to military sources.

At least 20 men from al-Sadr’s army were believed killed in more than three hours of fighting - the highest toll reported in any single incident involving British forces in the past 12 months.

Nine fighters were captured and three British soldiers injured, none seriously.

"It was very bloody and it was difficult to count all their dead," one source was quoted as saying. "There were bodies floating in the river."

The Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders were drawn into the fighting when soldiers in two Land-Rovers were ambushed on Friday afternoon about 15 miles east of the city of Amara. The soldiers escaped, only to be ambushed a second time by a larger group of militia, armed with machine-guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars.

Reinforcements were summoned from the Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment at a base nearby. "There was some pretty fierce hand-to-hand fighting with bayonets fixed," the source added. "There were some classic assaults on mortar positions held by the al-Sadr forces."

Official spokesman Major Ian Clooney confirmed the Mehdi army "took a pretty heavy knocking", but refused to specify tactics. "This was certainly an intense engagement," he added.

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/scotland.cfm?id=559592004

 

[rcmodel]

The one I did was quite a bit like the 1917-18 U.S Trench Knife.
I don't remember all the details as it's been a few years ago.

Seems like I cut it off as long as possible and silver-brazed a sleeved tang bolt on it. The knuckle-guard was flat steel with threaded "spikes" and a walnut handle.


rcmodel

 

[Cosmoline]

Bayonets are usually made with soft steel and don't tend to keep a very fine edge. They don't need to. With a rifle behind them, they'll penetrate easily. The big concern with using a higher carbon steel is that it makes the steel more brittle. They want the bayonet to bend rather than break, like an old Roman Pilum.

 

[AndyC]

Reminds me of a line from a character in Asterix - "I'll bet that my pilum is harder than your sternum"

 

[Ash]

I use the spike bayonets for tent-stakes (remove the locking ring handle and spring, insert a longish eye-bolt, tighten it down with a nut, and then bend the bolt down at an angle). They work very well but are heavy. I used to carry four on backpacking trips to anchor tents in rocky terrain where standard "wire" stakes would bend. But they are so darn heavy I abandoned their use and replaced them with good quality cast-aluminum stakes. I still keep the sks bayonets to use for regular car camping in deep duff where they grab well.

Ash

 

[rcmodel]

The big concern with using a higher carbon steel is that it makes the steel more brittle. They want the bayonet to bend rather than break, like an old Roman Pilum.

It's swung both ways through the years.
Some of the old European bayonets were high-grade steel and tempered like a fine sword.

The U.S. has always leaned toward the cheap & soft school up until recently.

The new U.S. Phrobis M-9 wire-cutter bayonet, and the Com-block wire-cutters for the AK family are high-carbon, tempered, and Harder Then Woodpecker Lips once again.


rcmodel

 

[CajunBass]

I use the spike bayonets for tent-stakes

I haven't done it in years, but when I was a kid growing up in the Cold Harbor/Gaines Mill area of Hanover County, Virginia, my grandfather was a big Civil War relic hunter. He had a big box of old Civil War bayonet's he'd dug up and just tossed aside. We used them for pup tent stakes, and candle holders on "kid camping" trips. I would imagine it wasn't the first time they'd been used for those purposes.

Melted minnie balls down to make fishing sinkers too. They were all over the place.

 

[kBob]

"The U.S. has always leaned toward the cheap & soft school up until recently."

rcmodeler,

I do not know diddly about metalergy. As a kid my "camp" knife was an Imperial M5A1 bayonet in an M8 sheath. The thing would take a razor edge if I wanted it to and hold it quite a bit. I usually used a less polished and severe edge on it so it would not curl in chores like cutting limbs or spliting kindling. I had it from 1964 to 1984 when it was stolen. It never occured to me it was cheap or soft steel as it never did show signs of too much sharpening and what wear there was was regular.

It was the Bayonet I used in Highschool when I started learning the bayonet drill with the M-1. After I brought it to school (and no one freaked) and started using it other guys brought M5s and some one found a source of the 10.5 inch WWII Garand bayonets. I bought one of those (and still have it) to be uniform with the color guard. The color guard thought a "live blade" more appropriate to guarding the colors than those chome plated jobs from MS Meyer and the like, dispite the white gloves, polished white helmet liners, white rifleslings and web gear and white gaitors over low quarters. I still have it and it is a cut down I believe. It is boxed away at the moment. It too took a very fine edge when it was asked of it.

One of my Highschool Mil sciences instructors used the bayonet in both WWII and Korea. It was his opinion that folks that thought it best not to sharpen a bayonet had never used one in combat either on the rifle or in the hand. He express that the "don't sharpen the bayonet" thing came from a fear among some COs of trusting privates with sharp objects.

Once I went in to the Infantry myself among my additional duties was using the hand powered grinding wheel in the arms room to keep the M7 bayonets sharpened. The tool actually had two guides, one inteneded to put the proper edge on the entrenching tool and the other any of the M3 blade types. Some of the M7s did have the stripes left by bad grinders in manufacture., some did not. Both types would take a working edge from the grinder. I found that some of the striped blades responded well to a bit of stone work.

We also sharpened the "false edge" as per the TM our armorer had.

Once on a dare I sharpend a WWII Ames entrenching tool (we had not changed to the finger eating useless tri folds yet) to have a razor edge on its sharpened side and both sides of the point. Once I demonstrated it on my arm hair the looser was forced to use it to shave with. Remarkably he only had one small cut, but it was a lousy shave.

I think GI cutting impliments have been much maliagned over the years.

I was sent a M9 for review early on and was underwhelmed by the americam AKM bayonet. WHile the old Stoner 63 bayonets by Eikorn and such were no prize winners either I though the only advantages over them the M9 had was the thicker blade for use as a pry bar or steel band breaker and the bottle opener slots. (and I thought the frontsight tool in the Stoner 63 bayonets trap door were supper spiffy and useful) At one point befor the M9 came along some one was making a version of the M7 that featured a wire cutter sheath and lug hole in the blade. If they could have simply added the bottle opener to that I would have been happy.

My attempts to use the M9 saw back were not that good, maybe others had different experiences, but foe me it was largely a waste of effort. Perhaps the saw might be more suited for escaping an aircraft by sawing through the metal skin of the vehicle much like the old air crew survival knife.

I did cut some two strand barbed wire with the M9 and some "hurricaine fence" I could not get it to work on barbed tape worth a darn. Although Phrobis folks told me on the phone that they made test models with grips like the M-5 through M7 bayonets, the troops reported more favorably on the round grips in troop trials. The round grips were among the first things I noted that I disliked, so no accounting for taste.

I wonder if all the added features of the M9 have made it worth its weight to Joe Snuffy with his body armor, batteries, water and gear in SWA?

-Bob Hollingsworth

 

[George Hill]

Getting back to the original issue of making it look good...
Get out the Dremmel and start polishing.

 

[rcmodel]

I wonder if all the added features of the M9 have made it worth its weight to Joe Snuffy with his body armor, batteries, water and gear in SWA?

IMHO: No, I don't think so. I think a GI would be much better served with a field knife that is really a good GP field knife, like a K-Bar for instance, and a good multi-tool. Combined, they would still weigh less then the M-9 + 1 pound sheath & related clips, harness, hanger, etc.

The M-9 is neither a good bayonet, or a good field knife, certainly isn't a multi-tool either. And it weighs as much as a small pistol.


rcmodel

 

[Limeyfellow]

They are all made from steel.

The Yugo ones are covered in that paint because they had little chromium deposits. It is the same reason when they don't have chrome lined barrels.

The others are chromed, and then covered in a matte coating or polished.

Not sure how strong the steel is. It a little depressing having to test one and screw it up.