Buck Barrel Nut M9

[porterkids]

Here are some photos of a Buck prototype M9 that has a solid tang and utilizes a barrel nut to fasten the pommel. The corresponding article can be read at http://www.usmilitaryknives.com/bill_porter.htm

[Carlo]

Wow, very nice!!!
I was reading again Bill's interesting article, where I found this sentence "the tang rod that is utilized with the standard M9 design is completely eliminated, thus reducing the manufacturing of one complete component".
I would like to know: was the full tang design (just say, only one "piece" of metal from the tip of the blade to the attach for the pommell) introduced/experimented to reduce the manufactoring cost, only?
Or, were there faults with the standard M9 configuration (where you have tow "pieces" of metal, the blade and the tang rod), like the bayonet breaking in half under intensive use?

[Quarterbore]

From the pictures, the end of that tang that is threaded looks pretty darn small. I would be woried about a failure of that part...

Still, this is a very interesting knife...

Thanks for sharing Bill!

[porterkids]

At the point in time that Buck was working on this design (1996) they were looking for a way to reduce the manufacturing cost.

There are differing opinions as to which design is stronger; the solid tang or the separate tang rod. I believe the concept of the separate tang rod was to allow for some degree of flex that couldn't be acheived with a solid tang. When the USMC was looking into a new bayonet in 1993 they specifically wanted a solid tang. I do not have sufficient knowledge of knife making or metallurgy to have an opinion either way.

[Carlo]

I was looking again at the Finn 1989 patent 4,821,356 for the M9, which can be found here in this website
http://www.m9bayonet.com/library/04821356.pdf
and I found some answers to my questions.
Not really which one is better between a full tang and an a separate one, but still a good description on how the system was supposed to work and some great materials for speculations .





I don't understand anything on all these materials, but looking at the pictures and description it seems that the key is how the handle is made, and the fact that the tang "resiliency is greater than that on the blade".
I first thought this would not be achieved with a blade and tang made of the very same material, like in the full tang configuration

Seems I am wrong.
This is what the Buck Knives 1997 patent 5,594,967 says on the topic
http://www.m9bayonet.com/library/05594967.pdf