SOG BAR15 Bayonets

[Big Frank]

My SOG BAR15T, T for Tanto Bayonet should be here Saturday. They also make a BAR15C, C for Clip Point Bayonet in Black only. The BAR15T comes in Black, FDE, and OD Green. The black and FDE were on sale at GovX, and the Flat DARK Earth is a really light tan. I didn't like the looks of it so I ordered the black one. I'd rather have one with an OD handle instead. It was on sale too, but I didn't want to pay $5 more for it. The only review at GovX said, "Heavy and Unbalanced It was foolish to put bayonet fittings on this wood-chopping, extreme wilderness camping knife. The blade is massively thick and the knife weighs far more than any other M16A1 bayonet I have in my collection. Hanging this on the end of a rifle would be insane. The knife is definitely blade heavy, so would seem to be best suited for chopping bamboo or using to split small wood into kindling." I went to Ontario Knife Company's website to compare the weight of an M7 Bayonet like I already have, and was (rarely) issued in the army. It weighs 1.15 pounds (18.4 ounces) and the BAR15T weighs 19.2 ounces (1.2 pounds). So it's only 0.05 pounds (0.8 ounces) heavier. Suck it up Buttercup, it's only 4/5 of an ounce heavier.   As my dad would say, Far heavier, my @$$!

https://www.sogknives.com/bar15t-tanto-bayonet/#

https://www.sogknives.com/bar15c-clip-point-bayonet/



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLVoDR5P06o

[Big Frank]

GovX has a deal where you can buy the patch of the month for $7.50 and get free $7.95 shipping. It's like they're paying you 45 cents to get it. I didn't know about it until this order. I wanted to get the patch of the month last month before I knew about this. I thought I'll get it with my next order but didn't oreder anything until this month and it was too late. I don't remember what the patch was, only that I wanted it more than this one.

Last month Olight had a free St. Patrick's Day Coaster, but I missed out on it. The First Batch: 450 pieces was gone before I knew about it. The Second Batch: 1,000 pieces (Expected Arrival: March 22nd - March 25th) went while I was doing something other than checking their site. I also missed out on something even more recently. They had a new WML for half off for WML experts too evaluate. They said something in an email like available 8 pm tomorrow, but I probably slept a day and half after being up a couple days. I saw pictures of it on their site but the final product might not look the same way. I'm not supposed to talk about it, but when it comes out we can all see the production version.

[Big Frank]

Here's my new bayonet along with my M7 in an M10 scabbard. When I was in the army we had M7s in M8A1 scabbards. The old one was made of a composite plastic material made from a combination of layered cotton ducking and Tenite cellulosic thermoplastic material. By heat treating the combination, it could be pressure molded into a solid shape. The M8 scabbard came without a steel tip at first but all of the M8A1s I saw had the steel tip to keep the end from wearing down. The M10 is molded from good old ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) plastic and so far has seemed to be very tough.

I took the camo wrap off the old sheath and put it on the handle like the other one, and covered the front of both scabbards with a piece of camo Duck tape. The Hi-Helix flash hider is too small at the rear where the bayonet ring fits over it. You can get a good look at it on the Next Level Armament site. I'm thinking about wrapping some friction tape around it to take up the slop. The new bayonet flops around too much, but the old one fits better. The camo wrap around the middle of the handle touches the barrel and helps keep the ring centered over the flash hider. The new one is sharp and can be used like a knife. The old one is just a dull, stabby thing with no real edge to speak of. If you cut yourself on one that hasn't been sharpened it must take a lot of effort. I really like the sheath with a Fastex type of buckle on it. If you get hung up on something you can pop t loose. The belt loop has a flap with Velcro on it so you can slide it under your belt, over the top, and fasten it. No need to take your belt off, thread it though the scabbard, and put it back on. It took me awhile to realize I don't have a bayonet lug on my 20" AR to put my new bayonet on. If I don't find something else online I'll order a Universal Bayonet Mount from AGP defense.

https://nextlevelarms.com/product/hi-helix-flash-suppressor/

https://www.apgdefense.com/product-page/universal-bayonet-mount

Now USPS says I can expect my other knife from this order to arrive Tuesday instead of Monday. They're even slower than expected. It's a Kershaw Hatch. The cleaver style blade is D2 tool steel 3.15 inches long. I'll probably grind the end of it more vertical to square it up and get it down to <3 inches. It's a mid-lock with a thumb-stud and reversible clip. The handle is GFN (glass-filled nylon) reinforced with steel liners underneath. I have another package coming Wednesday that's not a knife. I'll tell you what it is when I get some pictures of it.

https://kershaw.kaiusa.com/hatch.html

P.S. The retention straps on both scabbards are tight. They won't fit over the camo wrap. That's why the handles aren't fully covered.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYEPMX1akMQ

[Big Frank]

This is the problem area, and the temporary solution. I say temporary, because the 3M Temflex Friction Tape 1755 is designed to withstand a temperature range of 15 to 176 degrees F. If my barrel gets boiling hot the tape won't hold up, and if it gets hot enough to cook bacon, the tape will probably catch on fire. I might be better off with plain old masking tape, which really stinks when it burns. But you don't have to take my word for it. Go ahead, burn some and see.   3M makes high temperature tapes for things like masking off the gold fingers on circuit boards before they're dipped in solder. I'll probably have to pay $25 a roll for it and it won't be black. All because Next Level Armament wasted time machining the rear of the flash hider undersize. I can't figure out why they would do that, unless they wanted it to be less compatible with bayonets, which seems like a stupid idea.

[Big Frank]

My Kershaw Hatch 3.15" blade is now about as close to 3" as it can be without being 3" or over. It looks like it's between 1/32" and 1/16" under 3". Like 2 61/64". But it's hard to be sure when all I have is old rulers to measure with. I ground it off and stoned the end of it and put the tiniest radius on the corner. Just enough to knock the point off and keep it from digging a hole in my pocket. The 3rd pic shows about how much I ground off but it seems like less. It was only 1/8" or so.

[Sponsor]

[Big Frank]

This why I put an APG Defense AR-15 Bayonet Lug Extender - Adapter on my 16" upper. Carbine length gas systems were made for 14.5" barrels since the early '70s, on the 651, 652, 653, and 654 M16A1 Colt Commando carbines, so when you put a bayonet on a 16" barrel the bayonet ring is 1 1/2" too far back. It's on the barrel instead of the flash hider, and the skinnier the barrel is, the more it flops around.

[Big Frank]

What kind of bayonet do you put on a rifle with a short barrel?