British Lee Enfield No. 7 Mk 1 Land Service Bayonet, Chromed Parade Model, by B.S.A.
Single-fullered bowie knife blade with clipped point. Black grips made of Paxolin (resin-impregnated paper, similar to Micarta, widely used today in circuit boards). Steel scabbard with brass throat, white leather frog with retaining loop. All metal parts of the bayonet chromed, the scabbard gloss black.
The blade is stamped on one side at the ricasso with ‘No 7 Mk1/L’ and the pommel is stamped with a broad arrow War Department mark and ’47A’, probably indicating manufacture by the Birmingham Small Arms Company (B.S.A.), which was assigned the dispersal code M47A during WW2.
The penultimate model of bayonet designed for the Lee-Enfield No. 4 rifle and Sten Mk 5 submachine gun, the No. 7 was an attempt to produce a bayonet that was equally useful as a utility/fighting knife and a mounted bayonet, by way of an innovative rotating pommel which contains the locking mechanism. 330,000 were produced between 1944 and 1948, but doubts about the rigidity of the mechanism under stress and its high cost of manufacture meant that the No. 7 was largely passed over for the simpler No. 9. The bayonet designed for the ill-fated EM series of experimental bullpup service rifles was essentially a strengthened No. 7.
