Recommendation? How Best to Sharpen a M7 Bayonet?

[Bco-Bearcat1/32-7thID]

Not sure if this applies to you or if you even care but this is my real life experience.

Being a knife guy since I was 7....while in the US ARMY, I would always sharpen my bayonet till it would shave hair. Yet during our gear inspections, they took mine on 3 different occasions. I finally asked a SP5 who had seen heavy combat in Vietnam why they kept taking my bayonet and giving me dull ones ? He laughed & said he did the same thing & it almost cost him his life. He said bayonets are not supposed to be sharp because they will cut into the ribs/bones in the chest & you may not be able to get it back out quickly. Not sure if this is true but it is what I was told in 1981. Who'd a thought !

The reason you don't sharpen a bayonet is because you wanted to do more damage on the Slash stroke… You want it to Tare and Rip.
"back in 81" (and previously) you had a full length m16 rifle still. Not the newer car versions. so anyone who got a bayonet stuck in a rib cage in that time would've had plenty of leverage to have gotten it out by forcing down turning to the side putting a boot on the persons chest and jerking it out. (...Sorry sucker it was you or me!!!)

if that person talking to you was doing so in the 90s with a car version or M4 then I would slightly understand it but back in the 80s and previous we were taught how to remove a bayonet with leverage… That was part of Basic before AIT

 

[000Robert]

The reason you don't sharpen a bayonet is because you wanted to do more damage on the Slash stroke… You want it to Tare and Rip.

I just don't see the logic in that thinking. A dull bayonet will push arteries and internal organs aside. A sharp bayonet will cut them.

 

[Bco-Bearcat1/32-7thID]

I just don't see the logic in that thinking. A dull bayonet will push arteries and internal organs aside. A sharp bayonet will cut them.

nevertheless that was what we were taught at the time… And the bayonet even in its doll form is sharp enough to do a hell of a lot of damage on a slash stroke on the end of that rifle… Thrust doesn't need anything sharper than the point that's there… And ribs move when you twist and lever that joker out

 

[Bco-Bearcat1/32-7thID]

nevertheless that was what we were taught at the time… And the bayonet even in its doll form is sharp enough to do a hell of a lot of damage on a slash stroke on the end of that rifle… Thrust doesn't need anything sharper than the point that's there… And ribs move when you twist and lever that joker out

Oh and… In that time I didn't see the logic in it either and I was going to sharpen my bayonet and was told not to unless I wanted to be buying another bayonet to replace it go figure

 

[000Robert]

nevertheless that was what we were taught at the time… And the bayonet even in its doll form is sharp enough to do a hell of a lot of damage on a slash stroke on the end of that rifle… Thrust doesn't need anything sharper than the point that's there… And ribs move when you twist and lever that joker out

Maybe so. I'm glad that I never had to find out the hard way.

 

[Bco-Bearcat1/32-7thID]

I just don't see the logic in that thinking. A dull bayonet will push arteries and internal organs aside. A sharp bayonet will cut them.

just had another thought that I feel is pertinent to this subject… My dad currently an 85 year old woodcarver always kept his knives razor sharp… And I was taught as a small child that you never want to get cut with a dull knife. The reason for this is that a dull knife doesn't cut well it tares instead and a sharp knife wound heals much faster than the torn type of wound... so I can imagine the early military thanking on this was similar to why you want a bullet to pass through someone without killing them… A wounded man takes two more men to take care of him and spends time in the hospital with other people taking care of him… Someone who is torn up and requires a lot of work to save if they live at all is a burden on the opposing forces... there's nothing humanitarian about FMJ bullets for example… The mindset Is attrition on the enemy

 

[000Robert]

just had another thought that I feel is pertinent to this subject… My dad currently an 85 year old woodcarver always kept his knives razor sharp… And I was taught as a small child that you never want to get cut with a dull knife. The reason for this is that a dull knife doesn't cut well it tares instead and a sharp knife wound heals much faster than the torn type of wound... so I can imagine the early military thanking on this was similar to why you want a bullet to pass through someone without killing them… A wounded man takes two more men to take care of him and spends time in the hospital with other people taking care of him… Someone who is torn up and requires a lot of work to save if they live at all is a burden on the opposing forces... there's nothing humanitarian about FMJ bullets for example… The mindset Is attrition on the enemy

That was the thinking behind the M16, or so I was told.