AK-74 rubber bayonet

[ForestFighter]

I've been looking for an authentic bayonet that I can hopefully use in a game and I came across this;

 

http://www.hlj.com/product/ari50508/Mil

 

It's all 1:1, so it shouldn't be an issue fitting it onto a gun, the blade seems to be pretty flexible rubber based on other pictures of the assembled set, so it should all be fine to take onto the field, but it does require assembly as it looks to be a model kit. As such, I have no idea how robust it would be assembled, nor how easy it is to assemble in the first place, but I thought I would share this as the price is crazy low. I have seen this set advertised elsewhere for upwards of £45, excluding shipping, but this site seems to offer it for about £11, shipping to the UK included.

 

Might be worth a purchase for those out there looking for an authentic (well, maybe "authentic" with a bit of weathering and alteration to the bakelite texture) but airsoft-friendly bayonet for their 74s.

 

Thoughts?

[Chock]

If it is hard plastic, then you couldn't use it for airsoft as is, but what you could do is make the kit up, using all the bits other than the blade, then replace the blade part with one cut from 4mm black craft foam, using the kit part as a template, since the blade is a relatively simple shape; the bevelled blade edge would be easy enough to create with a scalpel or X-Acto blade.

[AirsoftTed]

In my opinion, if it's something you're set on it's worth buying it even if you just use it to make a rubber casting which can be used in game. You can get a rubber molding kit for circa £30 so it's not really breaking the bank. It's also worth considering that would mean you could produce a batch and sell them to friends.

[ForestFighter]

Ah, I meant that the body is plastic, but the blade is flexible rubber. Pic from another site is below. Sorry if I worded that in a confusing way.

 

[Chock]

That still looks to me like it is pretty stiff rubber, in that it's taking the person four fingers and a thumb placed on either side to bend the thing, and that is quite a point on the end even if it is plastic/rubber. You're not gonna kill anyone with it obviously, but it might still hurt someone if you jabbed em in the face with it. It looks a lot stiffer than my plastic M4 bayonet, you could put your little finger on the end of that M4 one and bend it in half easily. Still, it's difficult to be sure just off a picture, but if it did prove to be too stiff, then I'd simply make a blade for it from this stuff, which can easily be cut with scissors and bends really easily but is stiff enough to hold shape and look like a blade:

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Super-Thick-Coloured-Sheets/dp/B00LYXT7WO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1419430357&sr=8-3&keywords=4mm+craft+foam

[ForestFighter]

Perhaps you're right, yeah. Foam is a good shout. I've used that stuff for various projects before and it does hold pretty solid. (On a bit of a derail) What are the general rules regarding airsoft and bayonet/knife kills and such anyway? Of course, real knives aren't allowed and neither is anything that might cause someone serious harm, but what is generally accepted on the field?

[Ian_Gere]

It depends on the site. Recently @Skirmish The Stan i went into battle with a Cold Steel Black Bear training knife against someone with a Cold Steel tomahawk... killed him with a tap on the shoulder... and was killed by someone with the standard M9 plastic M4 bayonet...

 

I've seen 29.5" Cold Steel bokkens at Ground Zero and their gladius at Skirmish Woodland, Budby, where I have used a 2' hollow plastic machete. I've also seen a hollow plastic baseball bat at Tac House Spartan and taken a hard plastic telescopic lightsaber to MCG The Gaol. Weekend just gone Bottledtorment used a mannequin arm to get a kill at Combat Ready, Derby and before that he has used a bar of soap at MCG The Gaol, although the victim declined to take that hit. But some sites are very strict on the flexibility of any blade and the shape of any point. The rule is always that a kill is achieved by a light tap on the shoulder/some other part of the body and whisper "knife kill" whereupon the victim is supposed to put their hand up and walk off to regen silently, ie without shouting "hit!" and giving away the knife killer's position.

 

So since we are all wearing eyepro and nobody should be wielding it anywhere near the face, risking knocking someone's eyepro off, it makes sense that Cold Steel trainers are allowed, because although you could in theory hurt somebody with one, if you whacked or jabbed your victim really hard, you could do that to them with an AEG... my point being that that is not how you use an AEG and nor is it how you use a melee weapon in game.

 

Edit to add: thanks for the link. I ordered one, but they are not in stock they have to get them in so it will be 4-6 weeks and then they send an email with the payment details. in total it will be about 2700 Yen including Registered Airmail, or about £14.50 happy days!

[Chock]

Might have one when they get em back in stock.

 

As far as site rules go, frankly, I'd regard a bayonet as just a bit of pose value, a bit like the Real Sword Type 56 you can get with a folding spike bayonet, which looks fecking scary but is apparently not that hardwearing, although it does look good when you see one close up. If someone tapped me with an ordinary gun barrel with no bayonet on it and said 'bayonet kill', I'd take the hit as though it was a knife kill, although I might be tempted to do the Wilhelm Scream for a laugh. I've seen people use light sabres, stuffed toys, the palm of their hand, plastic axes and machetes and all manner of other daft things as their knives. At Trojan's mill site, one guy had them create a special rule where he used a stuffed toy furry dolphin, but the rule specified that he had to make a squeaking dolphin noise instead of saying knife kill.

 

I do carry an M4 bayonet and get that out if a knife kill seems a possibility, but to be honest it's mostly to make my get up look more authentic, and if it was a rush, I'd just do the shoulder tap, and have done that on four people once who were stacked up waiting to infiltrate a room when I came up behind them lol. Theoretically, I think the shoulder tap is more to point out that you shouldn't really go for jabbing moves, but rather tap people somewhere that it won't hurt with the flat of your blade, and I've done that too, at a site where a hit on the gun counted as a kill, I tapped the end of someone's pistol barrel and said knife kill as they sneaked around a corner, which i suppose replicates what i might have done if it were real life, i.e. grabbed their pistol barrel and dragged them around the corner onto a knife in the gut or whatever. As far as throwing a knife goes, every site I've been to has specifically said in the briefing that it is underarm throws only.