early Springfield 1903 rifle bayonets

[RCS]

The Springfield 1903 was adopted in 1903 with the ram rod bayonet and soon after President Teddy Roosevelt sent a letter to the Sec of War with his objections to this type of bayonet, production of the rod bayonet was halted. In May of 1905 a new 16 inch blade knife bayonet was adopted for the 1903 rifle.

During the later part of WW1, the bright blade of this bayonet had a finish applied and production ended a few years after WW1 only to be started again during the early years of WW2. Many of these bayonets had the blades cut back to ten inches starting around 1944.

The ram rod bayonet in my photo is original and in excellent conditionAttachment 106093Attachment 106094Attachment 106095

Information

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