After around 2,000 FG 42s were made by Krieghoff, the manganese steel that many important parts were made from were moved away to be used for other things. This meant that the weapon had to be redesigned to use stamped steel. Soldiers using the FG 42 asked for many small changes to be made to the design. These changes can be seen on later FG 42s. The FG 42 also had a simple bayonet under the barrel. It was hidden by the bipod. In the later version of the FG 42, the bayonet was shortened. Before the update, it was . Afterwards, it changed to about .