It was normally carried with a loaded magazine and empty chamber until the soldier was engaged in combat, though the rifle's firing mechanism could be blocked by raising the bolt handle. The MAS-36 carried a 17-inch spike bayonet, reversed in a tube below the barrel. To use the bayonet, a spring plunger was pressed to release the bayonet. It was then free to be pulled out, turned around, and fitted back into its receptacle. The initial implementation of this bayonet design has a distinct (although, uncommonly encountered) disadvantage: with a bayonet stored in one rifle and the other empty, the top of the stored bayonet could be locked into the empty bayonet tube of the second rifle. This obscures the release button on the bayonet and results in permanently (at least up to destructive disassembly) mated rifles. In post-war use the French updated the bayonet storage design by drilling a hole in the bayonet, which allowed the locking catch to be depressed through an already-drilled hole in the bayonet cap. Like the Lebel model 1886 rifle, the MAS-36 featured a stacking hook offset to the right side of the barrel for standing a number of the rifles (usually a trio) upright.