Unusual smle bayonet

[4004757]

Can someone please identify the attached SMLE bayonet and blade markings. The quillion seems to have too much of a curl in it?

Information

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[bigduke6]

Its not a SMLE bayonet think its for a Japanese Arisaka rifle.

[4004757]

Not sure if you are right? I have attached an extra photo showing the attachment lugs which look very much like a SMLE although I can tell you it doesn't fit my No: 1 Mk 111?

[bigduke6]

Its Japanese, this link may help you find the year etc,

http://www.radix.net/~bbrown/japanese_markings.html

[Roger Payne]

I'm no authority on bayonets but I suspect Big Duke may be right. The interlocking circles are I think a Jap arsenal mark (no doubt someone will put me right if needs be). Also the height of the muzzle hole is far too high to fit a SMLE bayonet boss, but would I suspect prove right for an Arisaka. It certainly looks as though somebody has given it some rough treatment & it may look odd because it has been bent. The grips also look to be rather crude replacements. If it's any consolation, when I'm scouting round arms fairs at first glance on many occasion I have prided myself in finding a 'hookie' only to realise after a better look that it's an Arisaka bayonet. They are very similar & I think we (Brits) copied it from them (again, bayonet experts, feel free to correct me).

ATB

[4004757]

Well I never guessed that? Thanks for the info.

[browningautorifle]

This one was too funny. It doesn't fit my Lee Enfield, and you say it's for a Jap Arisaka but I'm not sure you're right...

[marysdad]

Definitely a Japanese Type 30 bayonet, which was used 1897-1945 with the various 6.5 mm. and 7.7 mm. Arisaka rifles. The lower quillion has been bent inwards. Your mistaking it for a P1907 "hooker" has some historical context, in that Britain purchased a quantity of Type 30 bayonets for "field trials," then closely copied the Japanese Type 30 bayonet when they developed the P1907.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

The "spirit of the pike" died hard in British service.

When the SMLE was engineered from the parent "long" Lee Enfield, it initially used a modified version of the Patt 88 bayonet.

Someone, somewhere, must have thought that losing five inches of reach with the bayonet would put young "Tommy" at greater risk. The Arisaka Type 30 bayonets that arrived around the same time must have given someone a brainwave and voila, as Lebel shooters would say, an ideal solution.

The French, of course had those long, skinny, pointy things that could just about reach across international borders, and that didn't do them much good in the trenches.

It is also interesting that the Patt '07 is called a Sword, bayonet: Brown Bess thinking in the Maxim / Vickers age.

[Beerhunter]

It is also interesting that the Patt '07 is called a Sword,

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