Back in 2007, I was a soldier going on my third deployment. I had this idea to get a cold steel Laredo Bowie fitted to be a bayonet. I did it because at the time the Marines had gotten a new bayonet issued to them with an 8 inch blade. I figured it would be funny to pull out an EVEN BIGGER bayonet just to mess with them. I was a single E4 with no dependents so I had the money at the time to blow on something stupid like that.
Knife/Bayonet maker and Sci-Fi Writer, Michael Z Williamson (www.michaelzwilliamson.com and www.sharppointythings.com) modified a Cold Steel San Mai III (VG-1) Laredo bowie with a new handle, sheath, crossguard/quillion, and bayonet lug fitting. The result was a near ridiculous, almost stupidly beefy, potentialy totally overbuilt, bayonet that correctly and properly fits on M16/M4 rifles. It will also fit on the civilian clone rifles that have the proper lugged gas block position and barrel length combination.
To my knowledge no other maker has ever made a Laredo Bowie into a bayonet for anyone else. As well, Williamson never created any others like it either. On top of that as of this writing, the San Mai steel variant of the Laredo Bowie itself, is also discontinued.
This Bayonet is truly a unique, one-of-a-kind, item. There are no others like it in existence. There might never be another made ever again.
Probably for a good reason, it was kind of a dumb Idea in the first place, but here we are.
Anyway, that was a long LONG time ago, and it's been with me through my time in the Army and a few stints as a contractor. It was always horribly impractical and I never really found a good use for it in my particular case.
Something like this is really made for bushcraft/fieldcraft and there just wasn't much need for that where I was and with what I was doing. That aside it was a great conversation starter in the smoke shacks. Unfortunately, times are kinda hard right now and I need to free up some funds. So as much as I love this ridiculous F*!king thing, I'm forced to sell it off.
I think someone, somewhere, will also really love this kind of ridiculousness too, and it'll find a good home in their collection