★This book is authored by Peter Smithurst, who has served as the curator of the artillery department at the Royal Armouries Museum in the UK and the executive director of the American Precision Museum. It documents the entire manufacturing process of the French M1777, Russian M1808, and Enfield P1853 socket bayonets, from raw iron to the trenches.
★A hardcore manual that dissects the entire industrial revolution assembly line of bayonets, from raw materials to finished products, for you!

During the era of flintlock and rifled military firearms, the bayonet remained an integral part of the "weapon system". There are already many excellent works on the market that enumerate the myriad and sometimes bizarre types of bayonets from around the world, listing a large number of rare and even strange specimens. However, these books only focus on the appearance and collection of bayonets at the "end of their life", but do not trace their "beginning of life" - how to transform raw, almost primitive steel into qualified finished products. This book aims to fill this gap.

Some may ask: There are so many bayonets in the world, why these three? At first glance, they seem ordinary and far less flashy than some "exotic" varieties. But precisely because the firearms they were attached to have been thoroughly studied in the previous two companion volumes, and these three types of bayonets are the only ones that have left behind their manufacturing processes in contemporary literature. Moreover, they are related: the Russian M1808 is a direct copy, the Enfield P1853 is a modified descendant, and their common ancestor is the French M1777 socket bayonet - a milestone in the history of socket bayonets.

The mission of the socket bayonet was not glorious: to pierce the enemy's body in close combat. Early sockets were only held in place by straight or zigzag slots and the protrusions on the barrel, and were prone to unscrewing when the two sides struggled. The middle locking ring designed by Honoré Blanc completely eliminated this accident and became the blueprint for almost all socket bayonets before the end of the 19th century.

Peter G. Smithers graduated in 1968 with a degree in Chemistry and Biochemistry. He worked in chemical research for several years before following his passion for the history of industry and technology into the museum field. In 1975, he was appointed Assistant Curator of the Industrial and Technological Department at the Sheffield City Museum, where he played a leading role in the establishment and opening of the Kelham Island Industrial Museum in 1982. He was subsequently promoted to Chief Curator of the department. In 1994, Peter moved to the Royal Armouries Museum (Fort Nelson, Portsmouth) as Assistant Curator of the Artillery Collection; in 1996, he transferred to the new Leeds site to assist with its opening. In 2001, he took up the position of Executive Director of the American Precision Museum in Windsor, Vermont, which is located on the site of the Robbins & Lawrence factory where the Enfield 1853 rifle and other firearms were mechanized. In 2002, Peter returned to the Royal Armouries Museum and retired in 2009 as Senior Curator of Firearms, receiving the title of Honorary Curator, a position he still holds today. Before his retirement, he was appointed a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Huddersfield and in 2020 was awarded a PhD by the School of Engineering and Computing, with a thesis on the manufacturing history of the Enfield 1853 rifle-musket. In 2021, he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London. Peter has published extensively on subjects ranging from cutlery to steelmaking, with a particular focus on firearms and armour. His works include monographs such as "The Enfield 1853 Rifle-Musket" and "The Gatling Gun", as well as numerous articles on ballistics, artillery, firearms, ammunition, edged weapons and the history of arms manufacturing.