my Albacete Dagger

[Jim McDougall]

Originally Posted by fernando

In a way, yes; but not forgeting that hunting and military (and countries) had distinct paths when dealing with such problematic.
In any case, even the military only mount the bayonet when instructed to expressly atack with it... and the sae goes for hunters in their context ...if i am not talking nonsense.


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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).

[Interested Party]

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).

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.

[kronckew]

Jim, a plug bayonet grip would fit rifling if the inner bore diameter was less than the grip diameter.

Rifle bores were generally less internal diameter than musket ones. The early UK Baker rifle of 'Sharpe' fame had a 0.625 in. bore. the Brown Bess smooth bore musket of the same era had a .75 in. bore.

As rifles and powder improved, rifle bores got smaller, the American Pennsylvania ((sometimes known as Kentucky) rifle had a bore around .36, and the similar Plains rifle was ~.45. This bore size is getting too small for a stable dagger tang & grip. Even the ubiquitous American Civil War Springfield rifle only has a .577 in. bore for it's Minié ball & cartridge rifles of the mid 19c were trending towards .45 and late 19c to .30. Flimsy Rat tail tangs would be required!