Foil Bayonette socket

I have been fencing with LP FBayonettes for 26 happy and successful years and wouldn't change for money.

Besides the grip it is the most reliable part on any of my foils.



Easy servicing and a smooth latch make it a select piece of fencing equipment I can't but recommend.

The only part of the LP care package that I recieved a year ago that just went -kerplunk- was their baytonet socket. Picture yourself here:



You have a favorite weapon, the cant is perfect, the grip is molded and shaped perfectly, the bend in the blade is jut right, it\'s jut flexible enough that you can control it as if it were part of your arm.



Now take a hard hit to the bellguard. Not by the opponent\'s bell, but by their -tip-. Your bayonet socket has now exploded, and your perfect weapon is replaced by the backup.



I got to watch, as the fencer I gave this part to experienced this, in the round of four. Mental game gone, chance at an A out the window.



Truthfully, this could be a fluke, or a manufacturing defect, as the connector performed flawlessly for ~8 months before exploding. Still, it shouldn\'t have happened, and was extremely unexpected from the part, as the socket being the last thing I worry about when fixing weapons.



I\'m disappointed, but not turned off. I\'d give it another shot, but this time, I\'m going to torture it, to see if it was just a fluke.

I have yet to have any problems with the genuine Leon Paul bayonette sockets. I have used them for 6 months and recommend them highly.

I started fencing with a 2-prong (Uhlmann) socket, and will stay with it. I've used Leon Paul's bayonette socket system, and had nothing but problems. They tended to come unclipped and had to be wrapped around your wrist to help stop this. They also tended to white-light, either due to poor connection, or to the fact that the body wire tended to get more abuse because it... well, sticks up higher than a 2-prong. I'm afraid I wouldn't recomend a bayonette system to anyone.

If you bought low-budget beginner foil equipment with a bayonette fitting, it was probably Chinese. And you will soon have while lights from your body cord loosening itself in the socket. The Leon Paul sockets use a better grade of plastic that lasts much better. There is a little tab inside the red plastic part of the socket that provides the twist-lock feature of the bayonette. On the non-Leon Paul versions, this tab wears down quickly.