Quote:
Originally Posted by Jim McDougall
That does make sense, as once a gun is fired, it is spent until reloaded, and a wounded animal (if your shot was not true) charging at you would be deadly, your only resource would be a bayonet (as in effect polearm with gun length).
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Or a hunting sword, or knife (the old heavy bladed English type for example). My understanding is that they were both used to finish animals after less than perfect shots. The blade was inserted near where the windpipe meets the heart. Central Americans had a socket dagger that could be mounted to a pole to get more reach. I have even seen late nineteenth century cartridge boar rifles that were designed to use in combination with a hunting sword (an example with Mauser 88 action comes to mind). They had extractors but no ejectors. This made saving your brass to reload easier, but there was no quick second shot. The penalty for bad marksmanship was to wade into the brush after a wounded animal. I always appreciated this ethic. My understanding is boar hunting with dogs uses a very similar wound from a blade to kill the pig. A little off topic but I think still relevant as background to the subject.