BM 59 ?

[Ovidio]

Hello BAR, I'm picking at numbers I have in my memory, but the Garand was somewhere around 4.5 kg, while the BM 59 I remember at 5.625 with full mag, sling etc.
Might be a problem of memory and of the much more difficult mountains we had to go up further on during the course, but the FAL (as we called it, from Fucile Automatico Leggero) was all but "leggero" (light).
We loved it anyway, and although it is very expensive now, I'm looking for a very good one in pristine conditions, from the Carabinieri reserves. Then I'll buy the TA stock and the original compensator to make it as it has to be again.
I just have to find one that is really as new. Too many people are trying to make money selling junk.

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[browningautorifle]

Might be a problem of memory

It's not. It's just perception. I remember handing a man a metric FN and he immediately said "Wow, they're way heavier than ours!"... but they aren't. Another flinched when I handed him a Thompson SMG saying the same thing. It weighed just about a pound more. The BM59s that we saw around here were shorter looking by appearance and that makes one think, "That's a heavy little bast*rd!"... I found them robust and solid.

Anyway as you pointed out, they were superb and apparently you were ready to trust your well being to one in a fight...which is what's important.

[Bruce_in_Oz]

A few years ago, I picked up several interesting documents, (original and "copies"), covering the BM-59

One is a damaged, but readable, copy of something called: "Sinossi di Armi ed Appunto di Tiro", which has a small section on the BM-59.

The other one is a digitized version of a document produced by Beretta, circa 1966. This is essentially a "technical sales brochure" and has text in Italian, English, French and German and covers several variants, and includes excellent photographs, drawings and data tables.

It may even be available via the "library' associated with "milsurps" web-pages.

[Jason60chev]

Am currently having one of these assembled by Tim Shufflin of Shuff's Parkerizing.

http://i65.tinypic.com/65sc54.jpg