Lan-Cay received it’s first contract for 30,500 M9 bayonets on 3/31/92 from the U.S. Army with an additional 21,500 bayonets added during the contract. In an effort to quickly supply the Army with new M9 bayonets after Desert Storm, Lan-Cay turned to General Cutlery as a sub-contractor to provide near completed blades for assembly at the Lan-Cay facility. All General Cutlery produced blades are easily identified as they are stamped on the ricasso "M9 / LANCAY / USA" in block letters of equal size. This form of marking was used only on the General Cutlery made blades and will not be used again.
These General Cutlery made M9 bayonets were produced in a very limited number and original General Cutlery assembled M9 bayonets are extremely rare. At least 300 examples, possibly more, were delivered to the Army and are passed inspection and put into military the supply system. Problems with manufacturing controls lead to the termination of this subcontract with General Cutlery but blades from the General Cutlery contract still exist in some quantity so buyers of General Cutlery LanCay M9 bayonets need to be cautious before buying what they believe to be an original and supply system General Cutlery M9 Bayonet. Things to look for in an Original General Cutlary M9 Bayonet include an unmarked pommel, screw driver at the end of the cutter plate on the scabbard and 1992 dated fastex connector. Late production GenCut LanCay M9s (non-original) will likely have Lan-Cay marked butt pieces (pommel).
At the same time that LanCay was getting blades made by General Cutlary, LanCay purchased it’s own machinery and tooling for the production of blades and was making first contract blades in house. These blades are marked with all capitol letters but in a different font size. The marking was as follows, "M9 / LANCAY / USA" with the "L" and "C" much larger then the other letters in the name. All LanCay M9 bayonet blades have been manufactured in house from this point forward.
It is also noted that all the bayonets produced up to this point were left in the natural or "white" state on the blades. This was the required milspec finish. The coloring variation between the Lan-Cay produced blades and the original Phrobis contract blades is due to the finish process. Phrobis bead blasted the blades while Lan-Cay used a heavier sand blasting procedure. Thus the Lan-Cay blades appear a little darker, almost a light gray. This was soon to change as an "ECP" (Engineering Change Proposal) was supplied from Lan-Cay to Rock Island Arsenal for approval. Another change that took place during the first contract stage was a reduction in the depth of the fuller. Because of Bureaucracy, it is easier to make a change in a specification then to eliminate one. A classic end run was found to this problem. The fuller design was set at a depth of .06 with a plus or minus of .06 !! The .06 was 50% shallower then the previous design. In total 350 M9 bayonets were produced with the shallow fuller before the change to eliminate the fuller was agreed to. This was to prevent the blade breakage encountered in some of the earliest Phrobis products. Come to find out later that blade hardening and tempering was the culprit not the fuller. Anyway this makes the half fullered blade amongst the rarest to be encountered today. It was also at this time that Lan-Cay switched from forged blades to laser cut blades. The unfullered blades mark the change over period to this new production method.
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