diff --git a/akka-actor-tests/src/test/scala/akka/serialization/SerializeSpec.scala b/akka-actor-tests/src/test/scala/akka/serialization/SerializeSpec.scala
index 01181d57aa..5f9a3418ec 100644
--- a/akka-actor-tests/src/test/scala/akka/serialization/SerializeSpec.scala
+++ b/akka-actor-tests/src/test/scala/akka/serialization/SerializeSpec.scala
@@ -180,6 +180,10 @@ class SerializeSpec extends AkkaSpec(SerializeSpec.config) {
       }
     }
 
+    "use ByteArraySerializer for byte arrays" in {
+      ser.serializerFor(classOf[Array[Byte]]).getClass must be(classOf[ByteArraySerializer])
+    }
+
   }
 }
 
diff --git a/akka-actor/src/main/resources/reference.conf b/akka-actor/src/main/resources/reference.conf
index 6c023ba6dd..bdd45c9dac 100644
--- a/akka-actor/src/main/resources/reference.conf
+++ b/akka-actor/src/main/resources/reference.conf
@@ -314,6 +314,7 @@ akka {
     # Entries for pluggable serializers and their bindings.
     serializers {
       java = "akka.serialization.JavaSerializer"
+      bytes = "akka.serialization.ByteArraySerializer"
     }
 
     # Class to Serializer binding. You only need to specify the name of an interface
@@ -323,6 +324,7 @@ akka {
     # To disable one of the default serializers, assign its class to "none", like
     # "java.io.Serializable" = none
     serialization-bindings {
+      "[B" = bytes
       "java.io.Serializable" = java
     }
 
diff --git a/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/actor/DynamicAccess.scala b/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/actor/DynamicAccess.scala
index 2929032dc5..4370bba23b 100644
--- a/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/actor/DynamicAccess.scala
+++ b/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/actor/DynamicAccess.scala
@@ -65,7 +65,7 @@ class ReflectiveDynamicAccess(val classLoader: ClassLoader) extends DynamicAcces
 
   override def getClassFor[T: ClassTag](fqcn: String): Try[Class[_ <: T]] =
     Try[Class[_ <: T]]({
-      val c = classLoader.loadClass(fqcn).asInstanceOf[Class[_ <: T]]
+      val c = Class.forName(fqcn, true, classLoader).asInstanceOf[Class[_ <: T]]
       val t = implicitly[ClassTag[T]].runtimeClass
       if (t.isAssignableFrom(c)) c else throw new ClassCastException(t + " is not assignable from " + c)
     })
diff --git a/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/serialization/Serializer.scala b/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/serialization/Serializer.scala
index f6300ca998..5670ba61ba 100644
--- a/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/serialization/Serializer.scala
+++ b/akka-actor/src/main/scala/akka/serialization/Serializer.scala
@@ -133,3 +133,18 @@ class NullSerializer extends Serializer {
   def toBinary(o: AnyRef) = nullAsBytes
   def fromBinary(bytes: Array[Byte], clazz: Option[Class[_]]): AnyRef = null
 }
+
+/**
+ * This is a special Serializer that Serializes and deserializes byte arrays only,
+ * (just returns the byte array unchanged/uncopied)
+ */
+class ByteArraySerializer extends Serializer {
+  def includeManifest: Boolean = false
+  def identifier = 4
+  def toBinary(o: AnyRef) = o match {
+    case null           ⇒ null
+    case o: Array[Byte] ⇒ o
+    case other          ⇒ throw new IllegalArgumentException("ByteArraySerializer only serializes byte arrays, not [" + other + "]")
+  }
+  def fromBinary(bytes: Array[Byte], clazz: Option[Class[_]]): AnyRef = bytes
+}