bayonet

Joined
Jun 10, 2003
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Can anyone tell me the steel used in WWII bayonets ? I seem to remember 6150, which would be suitable but I'm not sure .
 
I don't know, but I've kicked a lot of WWII bayonets around. I would guess that they used a cheaper, tougher steel. I would think something more like 1050 or 1060 carbon steel. Bayonets are primarily designed to be thrust into targets with the weight of a 10 pound rifle behind them. They are often not sharpened at all and edge holding is much less important than toughness. I have used a lot of bayonets for knife throwing and they usually bend rather than break. I have also sharpened a lot of them with a file. I would say that most WWII bayonets are somewhere in the 50 to 54 RC range. I would expect simple 1050 to 1060 carbon steel to work well in that range. I would not expect that the government wanted to waste alloying elements on bayonets.
 
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