AK47, AKM ad AK74 Bayonet Types

AK47 Bayonets

These have no bayo lug and use the true AK47 style bayonet

AKM Bayonets (Type One, Transitional, Type Two)

AK74 Bayonets (Type Two, AK74)

This Type Two attached to the grenade launcher

Other Bayonet Types

Plug Type - Early bayonets were of the "plug" type. The bayonet had a round handle that fit directly into the musket barrel. This naturally prevented the gun from being fired.

Socket Bayonets - At the end of the seventeenth century the French introduced the socket bayonet. This contained a sleeve fitting round the barrel and was locked into place with a slot and stud. This enabled the gun to be fired with the bayonet firmly secured in place. This type of bayonet was adopted by nearly all the Europeans armies.
   Many socket bayonets were triangular in order to privide sideways stability of the blade without much increase in weight. This design of bayonet did not include a handle to use the blade apart from the gun.

Folding Bayonets - As the bayonet turned from being primarily a defensive weapon to being a personal offensive weapon the difficulties of a fixed bayonet in battle led most armies to adopt permanently-attached bayonets which folded above or below the barrel of the rifle.

Knife Blade Bayonet - Modern bayonets are often knife-shaped with handles and a socket

Needle Bayonet - Many bayonets are triangular with cross-sectional blades permanently attached to the rifle as with the SKS

Saw-Bladed - Many Warsaw Pact bayonets have a saw pattern cut int the back of a knife blade for use as a tool and as a more effictive weapon.

Other Bayonet Facts:

• The push-twist motion of fastening the modern bayonet has given name to several connectors and contacts including the BNC ("Bayonet Neill-Concelman") connector.
  
• In the Geneva Accords on Humane Warfare, triangular and cross-sectional bayonets were outlawed because the wounds they produce do not close easily, and were said to be inhumane. Despite these limitations, all modern bayonets have a blood groove, which is a concave depression in the blade designed to prevent the elastic properties of the human body from thwarting a successful bayonet thrust. Such a groove also facilitates removal of the bayonet after insertion, although this does nothing to help in cases where the blade is jammed in bone