Australian bayonet ID Needed

[gbalke]

Can any one on the board ID this Australian bayonet? The seller was unable to answer my question, but did tell me there were no mfg. marks on the blade.



Thanks,

Gary

Information

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[breakeyp]

For the .308 Australian LIthgow produced FN FAL autoloading rifle.

[Peter Laidler]

I'll let you into a little secret about these bayonets. Maybe it ought to be on the bayonet forum too.............

When we were in Malaya, we had huge mixed Ordnance stockpiles so you really just got what stores came from Ordnance. We were used to the different short (UK) or long (Aust) bayonet catches and so on. But, if you look at the Australian bayonets, the groove is rounded, milled or ground with a rounded cutter. On the other hand, the pom bayonets (that's 'English/UK' for you non antipoideans.....) have a flat bottomed groove, cut with a squared grinder or milling cutter.

When it came to scabbards you ran into problems because the mouthpiece spring for the Brit/UK/Pommy scabbards has a square/flat profile that would seat into the groove and hold the bayonet in place, in the scabbard. That gives the slight 'check' you feel before you finally pull the bayonet out of the scabbard. However, for a long time, these were the only springs we could get and as the springs internal retaining profile was square, it wouldn't slip down into the groove. That meant that you couldn't push the Australian round groove blades into the UK/pom square profile springed scabbards because the spring remained opened and would bind between the blade and scabbard even before the blade got 2" into the scabbard!

Vice verca, it was different. You COULD use Australian scabbard springs with rounded internal springs either way as the rounded internal part of the spring would slide into the squared off groove. It was chaos.................... There was no answer except to back load all the Aust bayonets for British bayonets or back load the scabbards for Australian scabbards................ Or what..... I don't really remember what the answer was except to try to interchange until they all fitted or scrap the lot and start again. That was OK until the blanket stackers at Ordnance started on their antics again.

Happy days. Another little bit of useless 'Enfield' knowledge hat few know about! But you do now and that's the answer to those who have proper bayonets and proper scabbards that don't fit!

[browningautorifle]

These little things( like the scabbard springs) must have made life painful at times.

[Peter Laidler]

I used to say that these little variations from the standards laid down by the interchangeability committee were all very well until you came up against pooled Ordnance supplies. The other was we'd get the short British bayonet catch for our long catched, unrecessed Australian bayonets so you'd have a job to operate the catch. That was easy to overcome as we'd just use a round nose cutter to modify our Australian made bayonets. But you see what I mean.....................

[browningautorifle]

It would make happy hour happier...