If it's in good shape, and the scabbard also is in good shape, that thing could be worth upwards of 200-250 bucks. If you sharpen it, you'll end up with an unbalanced, crappy knife. For that kind of money, you could buy a really decent camp knife that will serve much better, as it's designed for the purpose.
Resharpening Milsurp Bayonet?
- Thread starter Drachenblut
- Start date
There are lots of inexpensive bush knives that are better suited to the job than a bayonet. And yes, as a knife that bayo is almost useless. I swear the blade on my leatherman is better suited! Bayo= unbalanced, too long in the blade for cutting {if it were sharp}, wrong type of blade for cutting. It would make a great "chopper" Me, I just bring a camp axe. way better for chopping than any knife or bayo could hope to be. My .02Something that can be VERY handy in the bush is a Kukri, given that you can find a decent one. Doon Steelworks in India makes pretty good ones. A decent Kukri can double as a splitting knife, hatchet, et cetera. Thing to know is that for heavier cutting, as with cutting suckers for a shelter, it is easiest to use in a rocking motion with the wrist relatively loose, letting the weight of that great unbalanced blade do the work for you.
The German/Swiss/Italian et cetera sawback blades were designed for Pioneer use; the saw back was for cutting up ammo crates, trimming duckboards and so forth. It was never designed as a "more 'orrible weapon", regardless of popular myths.
When I was a kid we had a neighbour named Sylvia Armstrong. She and my Mom got along very well because they both had training as professional singers and had had to leave off singing because of wars. My Mom built Hudson bombers in the Second War, Sylvia worked as a FIELD nurse in the Great War (which is where she met her husband, a gunner on 35-pdrs with 2 Div. Arty, CEF). Sylvia absolutely hated the Jerry sawbacks because of the horrid damage they could do to a man.
But to use a Pattern 1888, even a relatively-common Second Model, as a camp knife..... well, 75 years ago I could understand it but NOT today. They are likely the single most beautiful bayonet ever constructed, just lovely proportioning. Shame to disrespect a work of Art: sort of like calling the Venus of Melos a "nekkid woman".
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The German/Swiss/Italian et cetera sawback blades were designed for Pioneer use; the saw back was for cutting up ammo crates, trimming duckboards and so forth. It was never designed as a "more 'orrible weapon", regardless of popular myths.
When I was a kid we had a neighbour named Sylvia Armstrong. She and my Mom got along very well because they both had training as professional singers and had had to leave off singing because of wars. My Mom built Hudson bombers in the Second War, Sylvia worked as a FIELD nurse in the Great War (which is where she met her husband, a gunner on 35-pdrs with 2 Div. Arty, CEF). Sylvia absolutely hated the Jerry sawbacks because of the horrid damage they could do to a man.
But to use a Pattern 1888, even a relatively-common Second Model, as a camp knife..... well, 75 years ago I could understand it but NOT today. They are likely the single most beautiful bayonet ever constructed, just lovely proportioning. Shame to disrespect a work of Art: sort of like calling the Venus of Melos a "nekkid woman".
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