Wood Gripped Johnson Bayonet

[porterkids]

Has anyone seen or does anyone know anything about a wood gripped Johnson Bayonet?

[joem]

I have a original M1941 Johnson with bayonet and it has no wood. Sounds a bit strange.

[porterkids]

I'm disappointed. Bruce Canfield shows a wood gripped bayonet in his fantastic book "Johnson's Rifles and Machine Guns" on pages 31 and 38. I was certain that someone here could shed some additional light on the subject. Anyone?

[joem]

It might have been for a light machine gun. The rifle bayonet does not have wood grips.

[Jim K]

The pictures are clearly labeled as prototypes, and that includes the bayonet. Johnson first tried that style bayonet, but ran into a problem because the short recoil action imposed a pretty strict limit on the weight that could be hung on the barrel. Alternatives were tried (see Page 46), but the end result was the skimpy bayonet actually issued with the rifle. Johnson well knew that the military preferred a bayonet that could double as a utility knife (or vice versa), but the laws of physics won.

Jim