idonthaveamusketyet:|
.50 caliber
just as the title says 
Were bayonets sharpened in the American revolution?
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No, they were strictly for sticking and the point did the work.
They weren’t made to cut, the triangle made to resist bending or breakage, and result in a wound that the musket could have been twisted slightly to withdrawjust as the title says
Ouch! I'd rather be shot. Specially after a good shot of rum.
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made with a chisel point the tri cornered wound was nearly impossible to close.
That's gonna leave a mark.
Those triangle bayonets would have been devastating. As others have said, point did the work, not a sharpened edge.
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Yep, and the Geneva Convention in a later era specifically banned them, because the Triangular Bayonet (unlike a flat bladed Bayonet) inflicted a deep wound that couldnt be closed = INFECTION = SEPSIS et al.
Never the less Russia, China and their satellite countries including North Korea and a multitude of African nations still use the Triangular bayonets as fitted to their AK47's, SKS etc.
just as the title says
YES... answering the question as stated, the point was extremely sharp. As pointed out in previous posts, the sides did not have a cutting edge. It's not an equal triangle at the time of the AWI, but bayonets get more triangular and thinner in the 19th century.
The design shape gives you the strongest spearpoint for the weakest metal, and was made by swaging, making it easy to produce. Muskets were spears that shot, while today we see them as guns with a knife attached to the muzzle. The AWI bayonet was meant to be shoved into a chest, and when removed a lung would collapse, so man-down, and move on.
So by the middle of the 19th century with the better steel and thinner bayonets, YES, but... the huge triangle, tapering blade of the AWI bayonet, simply doesn't get stuck. One of the British reenactors that I know is road-crew for the state of PA, and one year his job was to drive around and collect dead deer that had been killed by auto impacts. SO..., As an experiment, he attached his Bess bayonet on the end of a wooden pole and used that on the dead deer. Never got it suck in the ribs, never.
This is an old "sort of myth"..., they are not really "chisel" points until the British Enfield bayonet of WW2. They were sword tips, very much like a gentleman's short sword or an epee. Now, while it may be impossible to close such a wound, (perhaps as a sword blade ) the idea of the Bayonet in the AWI was to have the opponent go down and be out of the fight. Whether or not he could survive the wound was not a factor. Now LATER, straight bayonets, were a lot smaller in diameter, as the quality of the steel was improved as manufacturing of steel made good steel cheaper, and by the ACW, there were guys surviving bayonet wounds, which is where the idea likely sprang...the same with twisting to remove the blade. Both are really 19th century things, and folks over time assumed it was for all socket bayonets.
AWI blade vs ACW blade. BOTH are "socket" bayonets, with the AWI very wide and tapers... no locking ring either, so not meant to be twisted, and not expected to "stick" or be "stuck"... but the ACW bayonet is much higher quality steel, very little taper along the length, and closer to an equal triangle in cross section.
LD
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and not a BIRTH MARK, EITHER!!
