Question for Carcano owners?

[THBailey]

I owned a 6.5 Carcano carbine many years ago, paid $10.00 for it at a gun shop. In retrospect I think I paid too much for it. It was, I think, a late war model that was pretty rough in looks and function. Even as a reasonably fit and able young man in my 20's at the time, and fairly experienced with bolt action rifles, there was no way I could work the action with the gun at my shoulder, and it was even much rougher to lift the bolt after firing a shot.

My question is this- Do any of you actually have a Carcano (especially a model 91/38 made circa 1940 at Terni?) that is smooth enough in function where you can put 3 aimed shots into a pie plate at 100 yards in 7 or 8 seconds?

Thanks.

[echo1]

How many years ago? That sounds like the pickle barrels full of milsurp days in the early '60s. Carcano's then were in the 5 dollar buckets, so you did pay too much.

Oswald's gun cost 20 bucks with the scope mounted. PAX

[THBailey]

Bought mine in 1970. The price might have gone up a bit by then, but they did throw in a couple of boxes of surplus ammo.

Ya, Seeing in the news that in October of this year the the previously withheld Warren Commission docs will finally be released, got me to thinking again. I used to offer my old Carcano as scientific proof positive that there had to be more than one shooter. And of the half dozen or so I have handled since, some were a bit better, but I have yet to see a Carcano that I think would have been sufficient make three reasonably well aimed shots in less than 8 seconds.


Thanks.

[THBailey]

Guess this one could get it done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80pRECh4RCg

[CGZ]

I've seen a few people on youtube doing well with them. I haven't shot mine enough to know how good it is. Also remember it uses a slightly larger 6.5mm projectile (.268 vs .264) don't know about commercial ammo back then, but today, the ones I've seen (well only PPU) use the .264.

[kramynot]

Funny because I'm now in the process of trying to get my Carcano's (M91 and M91/38 Cavalry Carbine) running well. I've had both for years but they just didn't feed well and I only worked up some semi-accurate loads. So, just a couple weeks ago I decided to try and figure it out.

On feeding, I had an issue particularly with the carbine. It seems, based on my internet research, that the culprit was the Norma brass I was using, which has a thicker rim (0.050) than specs (0.041). With the thicker rim, it was difficult for the rim to slip under the extractor when chambering a round. Fortunately I'm an amateur-hack-hobby-machinist and I have a mini lathe in the garage. So I chucked a few in the lathe and took off a few thou from the top of the rim with a very narrow lathe cutter. I loaded some dummy rounds to test and was surprised at the improvement. It feels similar to my mausers.

Now I'm working on accuracy. Many years ago I participated in a group buy on the castboolits website for a custom lee mold that drops a .269 140 grain bullet. I had some success in the past with this bullet over 8.0 grains of Unique, then better performance with 9.0 grains. So just yesterday I loaded some up with 10 grains, which is the max load based on the Lyman manual, and will hopefully test this week if I can get to the range.

[mike415stone]

Why are the rounds .264 rather then the .268 of the bore?
Where Italian WW2 ammo made in .268?

[CGZ]

Not sure why commercial ammo today is .264, mabey they though it would be safer? I've seen a few calbers like this (7.62 Nagant and Tokarev using .308 vs .310) That's why you slug your barrel. Hornady makes the .268 bullets and I've seen them avaliable on Grafs.

[THBailey]

Midway has them also, but they are .267:

http://www.midwayusa.com/product/974954/hornady-bullets-65mm-carcano-267-diameter-160-grain-round-nose-box-of-100

[xxINKxx]

There was a show like a 20/20 special or something years ago and they set up same height, distance, with a fake dummy body full of real meat and bones in a convertible to make it as real simulation as possible. And the shooter executed 3 shots in the exact time frame. Even hit the body at the same spots and the bullet traveled through both bodies exactly the same.

Pretty much squashed any conspiracy or doubters saying it couldn't be done.

Always wanted a replica carcano like oswalds. Just because its such an interesting time in history. Theres a guy on here somewhere who has one, and even the same exact real scope and mounts from the era oswald got his. Super neat. Im sure there was plenty of rifles that operated smooth

[M1NM]

You paid $10 too much. I got mine free when I bought a box of ammo (around 1968-69). Thought I was way ahead selling it for $125 with RCBS dies until I saw the dies are now $150. At least I probably only paid $20-30 for them when I bought them way back when. http://www.midwayusa.com/product/446...licher-carcano
I'm certain if more people were familiar with the quality of the Carcano rifle they would surely doubt that Oswald acted alone.

[Springfield45]

This guy seems to have a good running Carcono. The bolt runs smooth enough to work with. After doing some reading apparently Oswald was only 58 to 66 yards away when he shot. That is not very far away. And most likely he used the open sights and not the scope because the FBI could not get it to zero. Basically he was snap shooting as soon as his sight was on target as fast as he could.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMoaX5qsNVc

Sorry about the size. But here is the Klein's add for the 6.5 mm Italian carbine. The add says Fast loading and fast shooting.

[I Swan]

There was a show like a 20/20 special or something years ago and they set up same height, distance, with a fake dummy body full of real meat and bones in a convertible to make it as real simulation as possible. And the shooter executed 3 shots in the exact time frame. Even hit the body at the same spots and the bullet traveled through both bodies exactly the same.

Pretty much squashed any conspiracy or doubters saying it couldn't be done.

Always wanted a replica carcano like oswalds. Just because its such an interesting time in history. Theres a guy on here somewhere who has one, and even the same exact real scope and mounts from the era oswald got his. Super neat. Im sure there was plenty of rifles that operated smooth

I have an exact replica you are welcome to look at it sometime if you want. I'm eventually selling it but it will be very expensive as it has the exact correct scope many people don't realize the one Oswald has was an earlier version and even harder to find.

I even have the correctly marked clip somewhere from the right Italian arsenal and year it is mentioned in the Warren commission report. The correct ammo is hard to source too I had some but I sold it before I ended up with the rifle. I nevet did acquire the real or replica sling either.

[pitfighter]

Martin B. Retting were selling the mounts for a while - not sure if they still do.

http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?310424-Klein-s-(Oswald)-Carcano-Replica

I went there yesterday and it was a mess, they were so backed up with 2017 registrations they had extra staff working where the WW2 stuff usually is.

[dfletcher]

I have an exact replica you are welcome to look at it sometime if you want. I'm eventually selling it but it will be very expensive as it has the exact correct scope many people don't realize the one Oswald has was an earlier version and even harder to find.

My father bought from Klein's before the rifle became well known, scope included. Never used it much for obvious reasons but we still have it. I learned to reload primarily with the 6.5 Carcano, albeit with Hornady's .264 diameter bullets. My experience with even the undersized 160 grain RN bullets is that folks who called the rifle inaccurate probably never shot one. Not exactly a refined action or rifle though.

Regarding the scope, I was at an SF area gun store which specializes in older used guns, they have a "cheap stuff for sale" area that's populated with old grips, Lee hand held loaders, holsters and scopes. I saw "Ordnance Optics" on the side of what looked like a rimfire tubed scope, Hollywood address. I think they wanted $12.00 for it. I had a heck of a time convincing them what it was. Last one I saw sold for about $400.00 on EBay, they decided to do a bit of research & they ended up keeping it behind the counter.