| Pictures (click to enlarge) |
Type | Description | Blade Length |
Overall Length |
Muzzle |
Markings | |||
| in. | mm. | in. | mm. | in. | mm. | ||||
    |
Brunswick Sword Bayonet | Sword bayonet for use with the .704 caliber Brunswick percussion rifle.
The Brunswick was Britain's first percussion rifle, replacing the Baker flintlock rifle. Originally designed with two-groove rifling that required a special round ball with a raised "belt." The Brunswick rifle entered production in Britain in 1836. The Nepalese Brunswick rifles and bayonets likely date from the mid-19th Century. ca. 1840–1860. The bayonet is crudely modeled on the Pattern 1801 Baker Sword Bayonet. Several hilt styles are encountered, including a steel-hilted variant. This and the following examples are all from a 43-ton cache of weaponry removed from the Royal Nepalese Armory, Lagan Silekhana, in 2003. In Kathmandu, the Armory housed more than 50,000 firearms; over 150 ancient bronze cannon; tens of thousands of bayonets; and all manner of tools and accessories. The Nepalese were thrifty in the extreme. From the 1830’s onward, it was as if the Armory threw nothing away. Read more about the "Nepal Cache" and my experience breathing new life into a Pattern 1853 Enfield rifle-musket. |
21.75 | 552 | 26.25 | 667 | n/a | Pommel: "361" in Devanagari script | |
     |
Snider-Enfield Socket Bayonet | Socket bayonet for use with the Pattern 1853 Rifle-Musket and Snider-Enfield breechloading conversion. A crude copy of the British Pattern 1853 bayonet.
|
17.50 | 445 | 20.562 | 522 | .780 | 19.8 | The markings are in Devanagari script-
Ricasso: ? over "8" Elbow (right): "236(8?)" Socket: "8" |
       |
Gahendra Socket Bayonet |
Socket bayonet for use with the caliber .577/450 Francotte and Gahendra rifles.
A crude copy of the British Pattern 1876 bayonet, with a larger diameter socket. The Gahendra and Francotte barrels had thicker walls than the Martini-Henry, making the outside diameter too large to accept the British Pattern 1876 bayonet. The scabbard is of British manufacture, for the Pattern 1876 bayonet, as evidenced by the War Department acceptance mark. The Nepalese “Francotte” copied an improved Martini-Henry design by Belgian maker August Francotte and dating to 1877. The Nepalese rifles used Francotte’s detachable trigger and firing mechanism, but without Francotte’s patented cocking indicator. The Nepalese Francotte rifles suffered from poor metallurgy and other defects, so were not a successful design. The “Gahendra” is named after its developer, Nepalese military engineer General Gahendra Shamsher Jang Bahadur Rana. The Gahendra rifle was based on an 1869 Westley Richards patented design, but incorporated its own detachable trigger and firing mechanism. The Gahendra’s distinctive underlever has a downward-curving loop and attaches to the action in front of the trigger. The quality of manufacture was improved over the Francotte, and was considered a successful design. The number produced is not known. However, a report dated 1906 indicated that 8,983 Gahendra rifles were still on hand. In addition to the rifle that bears his name, Gahendra also developed the Bira gun, a contemporary of the rapid-fire Gatling and Gardner guns. |
21.75 | 552 |
24.75 |
629 | .775 |
19.7 | The markings are in Devanagari script-
Elbow (right): “Ha • 1258 •” (Don't know what the letter Ha represents) Socket: "4" over "12" Scabbard (topmount): Scabbard (endmount): War Department acceptance mark |
| Back | Next | ||||||||
| Return to Bayonet Identification Guide Index | |||||||||
| © Ralph E. Cobb 2010 All Rights Reserved | Top | ||||||||
