Displaying Your Bayonet Collection
I've been running ideas through my head for perhaps a year on what to do with my bayonets. I've been storing them in a pile in the base of a cabinet and not liking it much. The problem is, you get a lot of them, they are going to take up a lot of space, to display them, not keep them in a pile.
I've looked at various images on the net and while some look great, they didn't seem to suit my needs much. I don't plan to really show them off much but want easy access to them and an easy way to remove them for storage quickly if I need to. Like when we have guests and don't want a lot of "blades" hanging on the wall where they will be sleeping (guest bedroom).
What I came up with worked really well for the majority of them. I'm not ready for photos so bear with me on this. I got a heavy piece of decorative trim. Not door casing but a heavy 5 inch baseboard type. I drilled a hole along the top of it every 1 1/2 inches and inserted a spent 45 casing in the hole with about 1/2 inch sticking up. I can now store bayonets with muzzle rings simply by hanging them on the 45 casings. The 1 1/2 inch spacing seems perfect for all models and they will hang on there in their scabbards. The length I had space for allows me to display 47 bayonets, I believe it is just under 5 feet long. If I need to take them down, I can do so in a few minutes.
Problems: US late models and other makers without muzzle rings won't fit. British spike bayonets wont fit although Soviet Nagant bayonets will. Some Mauser bayonets with short muzzle ring lengths will not fit. If I had more carefully thought this out before drilling the holes, I could have solved the mauser issue by drilling them closer to the front. I can solve the British Spike problem by inserting longer casings than 45's in the holes but I have to find something first. I believe having the casings closer to the edge may solve the spike bayonet problem too but I'll have to work on this a bit more. 45-90's may work but as they are rimmed, I'm not sure. One further issue is the few bayonets that have screws or a sight above the muzzle ring. These won't fit and can't be modified to fit unless I build out the wood trim.
To visualize this, imagine them hanging on a rifle barrel upside down. You view them looking at the edge of the blade, not the wide portion. The tips of the bayonets almost all rest on the wall where they are hanging. The widest of the scabbard hangers that I have are the US models with the brass hooks. They have about 1/4 inch clearance to the next scabbard. The only exception to this is my Krag scabbard and I solved that by putting it on the end.
I did learn that I have a lot more bayonets than I thought I did. I have 5 open spaces and probably 20 or so that won't fit on it for various reasons.
I could probably drill holes in the face of the trim and insert dowels to hang the modern bayonets with hooks or belt loops. Again, the idea is not so much as a display but as easy access storage first, quick storability second and display third so this may not be a good solution for everyone.
Any other ideas would be welcome. I have nothing invested in this. The trim was a leftover and the casings can still be recovered and re-used.
