M/1956

Norway

Knife Bayonet Modified from M/1894(-43) to M/1956 for the M1 Carbine

After WWII a total of 31,000 M/1894 and M/1894-43 bayonets for the Krag Jørgensen rifle was modified to fit the M1 US carbine. The modification was ordered by the Hærens Våpentekniske Korps.

At 2. November 1956 the Norwegian army ordered 30.000 bayonets and later additionally 1,000 more. It is not known which company performed the actual conversion.  According to Walther Svendsen, Nordisk Våpenforum no. 3 1986 it should be a company in the Oslo area.

M/1956-SLK

For the bayonet to fit the M1 carbine three changes had to be done.

  1. The mortise on the bayonet was widened with 0.2mm to fit the bayonet lug on the M1 carbine.
  2. A part of the opening on the hilt was cut away, to make the bayonet fit better. As shown on the picture below.
  3. A slot was ground to create an opening where the muzzle ring was attached.

The bayonet to the left is an original M/1894-bayonet. On the bayonet to the right you can see where the metal has been removed.

The picture show that it was required to cut away metal at the end of the bayonet to get a tight fit.

The muzzle ring was installed in a slot that was grounded in the bayonet

The scabbard was modified by adding a frog in web fabrics. To the fabrics it is attached a metal hoop that fits the Nato belt.

There was an early attempted to convert the existing leather frogs to fit the new American style pistol belt. But the attempt was abounded. I have not seen any pictures of a modified leather frog, but this solution is documented on drawings (Source Walther Svendsen). This solution was simple to fasen the metal hook in the loop of the leather frog.

Both M/1894 and M/1894-43 bayonets was modified. The picture below shows a modified wartime produced M/1894-43 scabbard (at to top) and an older modified M/1894 (Steyr) scabbard (at the bottom)

At the top a wartime produced Krag-Jørgensen bayonet M/1894-43. At the bottom an older M/1894 bayonet.

The modification of the bayonets and the frogs was performed separately, therefore it is not common to find bayonets with matching numbers.

The Norwegian Airforce marked some bayonets with a yellow serial number. The bayonet on the picture is possible marked by the Airforce. But the M/1956 bayonet was mainly used by the Home Guard, so more research is required here.

Originally the M1 Carbine was not designed to be used with a bayonet. In 1945 it was made a new mount that would fit a bayonet.