practical uses for the bayonet.

Walking through your house with a bayonet on the end of your rifle might be a little unsafe, at least if there is anyone else in the house who is supposed to be there. Remember, there's no safety on a bayonet, and you don't control it with your trigger finger. In the dark, the wrong person could easily walk into it.

However, if you live alone, and you want to put a bayonet on the end of your home defense rifle, go right ahead. Just be aware it has advantages and disadvantages
 
All of you are assuming the rifle was loaded or had ammo available. The OP says he bought the rifle as an investment, so I'm assuming he didn't have any ammo.

I'm sure it made a better weapon than a chair or lamp.
 
Bayonets are dull because they are thrusting tools designed to go in between ribs, spread them out and in general raise havoc with the insides of your enemy. The edge isn't ground for sharpening and they aren't tempered to hold a sharp edge. You could grind away and make a sharp edge and then you will break the edge the fist time you used it.

It was a multi-purpose tool as an improvised mine finder, digging a shallow trench, opening a can of oil or a can of beans, pry bar for opening a crate of goodies or snapping the bands on your case of ammo and you just happened to leave your shears in another foxhole.

If you had my favorite, the M17 it made a dandy short sword. 16 1/2" of blade and a 5" grop made a formidable weapon mounted on the gun or hjeld in your fist.

For those claiming it was just another hand hold to be used to take the gun away from you think again. Looking at the sharp end of a bayonet is pretty intimidating, maybe more so than the muzzle behind it. Not everybody is conversant with ninja moves and in the heat of the moment the man with the fised bayonet holds all the trump cards. It does make the rifle a little unwieldy indoors but in the open and out of bullets fighting hand to hand a spear was a wonderful weapon and so is a Springfield with 6 1/2" of steel on the front of it.

If a knife was needed for cutting that was what the Kabar sheath knives were for.

Told you I was a dinosaur. My company commander was a lawyer by training and worried about his troops cutting each other up in horseplay so he wouldn't let me issue bayonets. For 6 years that goody box of blades got hauled around everywhere we went but the only time it ever got opened was for inventory. We had some discussions about that but Captain trumps SSG. Sigh. What a waste.
 
Practical uses for a bayonet:

Opening MRE boxes and bags..... or T-Rats.

...... killing Jake, or any other critter that decides to take up resicence in your hole/guardshack/bunker.....

......with the addition of a rag affixed to the end if the grip (as a drogue), it can be used as equipment for a game of "Desert Lawn Darts"......
 
ED: baynetts, while many are knife size, are more of a sword weapon catagory, and as such do not need a razor sharp edge. I have a rather large collection of period correct "battle ready" swords (meaning full tang non-wallhangers) none of these weapons aside from maybe a katana have a razor/knife edge. infact they appear dull to the touch. to think of these as not as lethal or not as dangerous is follhearty at best.

they are lethal weapons designed with the primary purpose of killing.
 
I also collect period swords, and none of them are sharpened.

Nathan Bedford Forrest the civil war guerrilla, was severely criticized by his own side for ordering his men to sharpen their swords. It wasn't against the rules of war, but it was just not something a gentleman did.
 
Oh goodness.. I just saw a Mossburg M590A1 AGAIN at a pawnshop. I guess it was on lay-away and the guy didn't pay for it.

The M590A1, is the heavy barrel Mossberg 12 gauge 20 inch gun with a bayonet lug. Well I 'only' have three shotguns... so I really need one with a bayonet lug.

Deaf
 
Bingo!

Def nailed the #2 use a civilian has for a bayonet: A Selling Point- a reason to buy this gun as opposed to that one.

The #1 reason is to make Sarah Brady and Josh Sugarman cry.
 
just for you Deaf Smith


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590 with heavy barrel with accu choke . bayonet came sharpened.


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Russian & Romanian came sharpened
 
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theere(twice), nieghbor's, was woke up, wwas(typo likely).
"...wasn't in quotations..." Two different responses.
"...Mossberg 12 gauge 20 inch gun with a bayonet lug..." Mossberg M500's came with an 8 round mag, a parkerized finish and a lug for an M16 bayonet long ago.
"...Bayonets are dull because...they aren't tempered to hold a sharp edge..." Liability issues when sold retail and surplused. It's unusual for them to be sold sharp, but they can and do hold an edge. Poking/stabbing was not the only way they were used. Most of 'em were used to open cans and cut firewood. The biggest complaint about the No. 4 Lee-Enfield spike was that it couldn't do any of those tasks.
Have a book around here some place, 'Cold Steel', I think. (Not sure where it is or I'd give the author and ISBN) Anyway, it has a bayonet fighting chapter. Mind you, if a bayonet is the only thing you have, you've done something terribly wrong. Far worse than if you only have a handgun.
 
The primary difference between the Model 500 and Model 590 is in magazine tube design. The Model 500 magazines are closed at the muzzle end, and the barrel is held in place by bolting into a threaded hole at the end of the magazine tube. Model 590 magazines are open at the end, and the barrels fit around the magazine tube and are held on by a nut at the end.
 
um … not quite.
And some of the newer 500s have the long magazine tube and a different lug on the barrel than the regular "captured thumbscrew" one.
The thing is stamped 500A, just like the rest of 'em produced for years, has some sort of tacticool name, an 8-shot capacity (if I remember correctly), all black or camo, and the regular 500 barrels won’t fit it of course…
The biggest difference between 500 and 590 (imo) is that the 590 is a little beefier and made to resist abuse a little better.
imho, the extra cost isn't worth it.
 
Thanks noyes.

I just ran into a old M590A1, heavy barrel, at a pawn shop. It was there a month ago but I thought someone bought it as it's been gone from the shelves for almost a month.

Well the dang thing is back. Used but it's for $149. I need another shotgun like a hole in the foot (got a few in the head already.)

I'll go by there tomorrow and find out why it's back. Maybe the guy could not pass the background check!

Deaf
 
I am non military and have seen my share of bayonets...all of them dull, I don't think I've ever seen a sharp bayonet.
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Sharp bayonets (and swords) stick, thats why they are dull, you want to be able to pull it out quickly. Swords are the same, some sharpen swords but for cutting not poking.

You want a dull bayonet, with grooves (blood grooves) which aid in quick withdrawal.
 
Some bayonets were sharpened. Sword bayonets, which were intended to be hand weapons as well as attached to rifle would occasionally be sharpened.
In practice they were seldom used and so seldom sharpened.
btw sharpening a collectible sword or bayonet, reduces its value quite a bit.

During WWI the German's were issued serrated bayonets. The front line soldiers would grind the serrations off, because being captured with one was supposedly a death sentence.
Serrated bayonets tend to be more collectable than none serrated.

One of the odd bits of US military doctrine is that should your bayonet get stuck in the body of your opponent, you should fire a shot into the corpse to loosen the blade.
If you had a round for loosening the blade you wouldn't have needed the bayonet in the first place.
 
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