Indian 1A Long Blade SLR Bayonet

[peregrinvs]

Just a quick thank you to Geoff / bigduke6 for refurbishing my Indian 1A bayonet. It looks fantastic and you are very kind.

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Information

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[HOOKED ON HISTORY]

Nice work indeed.

[browningautorifle]

Very nice...

[Peter Laidler]

Very nice. He does make a good job. I think that the catch should be the short one but a simple modification to make. The later ones were a casting so VERY hard to file initially! Unless someone in the UK happens to have a more common UK short type spare one in their spare parts tin......... Just a dob of black paint on the screws and it can go back into the armoury.......

[Brian Dick]

I reckon I better fit the grips to mine!

[Peter Laidler]

Here's an idea Peregrine or someone equally skilled, that would make a good interesting and informative pictorial montage/thread. Especially with your photographic and compu'a skills wot I ain't not got.

What about a photo montage of the UK L1 type bayonet, No5, Indian long (and short - although not really necessary) to show them relative to each other. Blade lengths, grip types, screw/rivet hole linear relationship etc etc.

[Flying10uk]

pergrinvs, is the scabbard an original long Indian example or a standard length No5 scabbard that has been "stretched"? I think that I may be able to see a possible weld scar in the pictures in post 1???

I recently saw a suggestion that the reason that the No7 bayonet was stopped from being issued for front line use, and relegated for ceremonial use only, is because there was an incident/accident of a bullet hitting the muzzle ring. I am slightly sceptical of this claim but I don't really know if there could be any truth in it or not?

[Peter Laidler]

No truth in that nonsense whatsoever. It was just FAR too expensive to produce, totally unreliable and the blade, that was rivetted to the grip tube just behind the crosspiece, would become loose while you were looking at it!

Added a bit later to this......... Someone suggested somewhere along the line in the distant past that the No9 short blade part of the No9 bayonet t(hat's just rivetted into the socket part don't forget.....) could have originated from the remaining un-made short blades from the No7 blades. I just throw this in. If anyone had a stripped down No7 bayonet, perhaps they could verify the veracity or likelihood of this being a reasonable theory. It's always been well known among the old 50's and 60's era of Armourers that the No7 bayonet was nothing but trouble.

If the blade theory is or could be correct, it opens up the possibility that a replacement blade for a broken bladed No7 could be replaced by a suitably modified No9 donor blade - and cheap too.

Regarding the Indian 'long' scabbards. I seem to remember refitting one out with a new spring and mouthpiece for someone at work several years ago and seem to recall that the 6BA(?) mouthpiece screw hole didn't even remotely align with the screw-hole in the new UK spring and brass mouthpiece that I was fitting Re-drilling and threading the brass mouthpiece was simple enough but the hard spring was difficult to mark and drill! Did it eventually of course. But just another of the little differences between the UK standard and Indian long scabbards. Never seen or maybe never noticed one of the Indian standard No5/L1A1 scabbards. Is the screw hole positioned lower on their standard scabbards?

[Peter Laidler]

Just had a long conversation to the former Chief Examiner and technical writer regarding the No7 bayonets of the era about whether the bullet could ever in reality, strike the crosspiece. It couldn't unless it was a 'set-up' trial. BUT he did concede that it was always suspected that the muzzle blast from a No4 rifle fitted with a No7 bayonet would definately strike the crosspiece which definately COULD and WOULD loosen the crosspiece which was fixed to blade which was in turn, rivetted to the grip tube. And once the rivets were re-tightened it became an unfixable lost cause!

This blast effect would not affect the integrity of the bayonet when used on a Sten gun. From this you can understand that while the bayonet looked good on the No4, to shoot the rifle with it fixed was the death knell for the bayonet.

Interesting if you think about it.

Added later: Parts list picture of bayonet stripped shown in back part of Sten Gun book

[browningautorifle]

whether the bullet could ever in reality, strike the crosspiece

It would simply take a bite out of the ring and that would be it.