Help Identifying an American WWII Bayonet

Hi all,

So long story short, I'm in Hong Kong right now and I was browsing through a street vendor's wares and after a very brief Google search found what I thought was some kind of US military bayonet based on the marks, so I took a gamble on it and bought it for $25. After further research though, the specifics don't match anything else I find online. Could anybody help me find out more information on this bayonet and figure out if it is in fact an American made bayonet or a Chinese knockoff?

http://imgur.com/a/7YAod

Thanks in advance!

 

It looks kind of like an M1 Carbine bayonet but the blood grooves don't look right

 

For $25 it is neat anyway. What is the inside diameter of the muzzle ring? Rich A. in Pa.

 

The serious collectors tend to respond faster to this sort of query in the Militaria subforums. Not that it doesn't fit here as well and most check in here eventually.

 

The grip doesn't look right. I also thought of a knife, but that doesn't work out either U.S knive grips have a handle that looks like piled uo rubber roundels. Bayonets grips are almost smooth and they have one groove, not two.

 

Yeah, from my research thus far it looks like all of the real bayonets only have a single groove, even the newer ones.

I am not actually sure. When I get back to the states I will measure it with a caliper, or better yet try it on a few old rifles and see if it'll fit a Garand or M1 Carbine. That was my thought too, if it fits any of my rifles I won't be too upset!

Oops, thanks for the info! I'll know better for next time.

From what I looked up, the grips look similar to the M7 except without the two screw holes. Wonder if a Chinese guy bubba'd up a real one or just made a fake...
It seems weird though, there's a decent amount of rust and dirt and grit, and it kind of smells like it's milsurp if that makes any sense.

 

It looks like a typical Garand bayonet, except for the extra groove on the blade. I wonder if this is from a Chinese contract Garand for Chiang Kai-shek or something like that? American arms were going to very strange places in WWII and they sometimes wanted odd little changes.

 

Sorry to be pedantic, but they are not 'blood grooves'....they are simply grooves. No such thing as blood grooves....that's an Urban Myth.

 

"Blood groove", as used by Dave, does exist as a synonym for the term "fuller". The fact that the origin of the term is based on a mistaken notion of its purpose does not invalidate the term itself. However, I do appreciate the fact that you acknowledged up front that you were being pedantic.

 

I just had a second thought about this being a Garand bayonet sent to China during WWII. With the second groove (perhaps a manufacturing mistake), it may have been rejected by US ordnance, but then included with arms sent to Chinese nationalists fighting the Japanese.

The reason I think it may be real is the price paid. It's simply too much trouble to go through to be sold for market for $25. An original can be had for around $100, so there's no point in faking such an item.

 

A "double fuller" bayonet is something I've only seen out of China (People's Republic). The Chinese Type 81 bayonet had a double fuller. See pic below. This was introduced to service in 1971. There is a passing resemblance -- is it possible that an Type 81 bayonet blade has been [poorly] blued and then affixed to an M5-style handle? The UFH mark doesn't look right to me. I have no idea what the purpose would have been.

Still, its an interesting piece. Well worth 25 bucks in my opinion. Its almost like a "Khyber Pass" gun - frowned upon by most collectors, but still interesting and valuable in their own right.

 

You may have nailed it. I don't see a point in it, because Garand bayonets are not rare or expensive. That may be relative though, a Chinese guy with some miscellaneous knife parts might think those few bucks are worth the trouble.