Originally Posted by
Claven2
It's been a while since I've had a Carcano, a few years back I sold the handful I had to a fellow collector to fund something else. That being said, there seems to be a bit of a resurgence in interest in these rifles starting, perhaps b/c they are among the few affordable WW2 milsurps left, and perhaps also due to more ppl getting into reloading as other once-common calibre's dry up.
Anyhow, I bought this one sight unseen apart from a couple grainy photos off a classified ad. I'm rather pleased with what turned up, a decent FAT42 that looks to be un-messed with since being refurbished at Terni in 1947.
The rifle came to me really dirty with grime and dust from likely being in a closet a LONG time. Not import marked. The only mechanical fault was that the 2nd stage of the trigger was not working, the sear was tripping prematurely. This turned out to just be a stacking of tolerances issue, no doubt related to less then ideal mating of parts in '47. In the end, I had a couple extra WW2 era cocking pieces in my spares bin, and the last one I tried had a sear engagement that was a hair on the long end of tolerance, which restored the 2nd stage perfectly. I ALWAYS pays to have spares at times like this - lol.
The bore looked pretty awful when I got it, but as it turns out, somewhere along the line someone shot a bunch of cast through it that filled up the grooves. After more than a few soaks in foaming bore cleaner, some brush scrubbing and lots of patches, plenty of crisp rifling with minimal wear greeted me. The lands are sharp and shiny, the grooves are a little frosted, but not too bad. Probably above average for most carcanos I see.
Still have to shoot it, but I still had a good many reloads from my last Carcano on-hand. Graf brass loaded with .268 Hornady 160gn pills backed by 27 grains of H4895 and WLR primers. Should be fun to shoot. I still have a handful of 1930's dated brass carcano chargers here as well, which helps :)
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