1870/87/15 Vetterli Carcano

[bob q]

Lets see I have a custom rifle making shop , develop wildcat rounds and have a ballistic lab with pressure measuring equipment , the video guy has a fat chick . A friend and I have test fired over 5000 military rifles with many different loads , in the 100,000 range of rounds fired . I am sure we have more experience with that than anyone in the county . His info was based on one of the bad articles I stated . I know one of the guys that wrote one of the articles , he can't work a screw driver well ., The rifles were used in WWI . Look at the rifles being dug up in the latest alpine front area , at the front line . They have been found with ammo in them , empties around them , they were used . Also none have been found blow up . They used Carcano barrel blanks and other resources to make them , which would have taken AWAY from Carcano production . Use common sense , if they were not meant to be used , WHY even spend the time to convert them to front line usability ? Of course top rate units got the best weapons , but there were many secondary units at the front lines fighting . How is the metal different in my 1892 Carcano and my 1892 Vetterli made at the same plant different ? Since your car motor could blow up the next time you start it does that mean it is unsafe to use ? Other than a bad lot of ammo , how was the Gew-88 unsafe? It fired 100's of 1000's of S ammo in it's service life . Many of the 1889 rifles are still in firing condition with their original barrels .

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[Eaglelord17]

The rifles were used in WWI . Look at the rifles being dug up in the latest alpine front area , at the front line . They have been found with ammo in them , empties around them , they were used . Also none have been found blow up . They used Carcano barrel blanks and other resources to make them , which would have taken AWAY from Carcano production . Use common sense , if they were not meant to be used , WHY even spend the time to convert them to front line usability ? Of course top rate units got the best weapons , but there were many secondary units at the front lines fighting . How is the metal different in my 1892 Carcano and my 1892 Vetterli made at the same plant different ? Since your car motor could blow up the next time you start it does that mean it is unsafe to use ? Other than a bad lot of ammo , how was the Gew-88 unsafe? It fired 100's of 1000's of S ammo in it's service life . Many of the 1889 rifles are still in firing condition with their original barrels .

Yes they were used in WWI, as were Gewehr 88s, etc. The issue isn't the barrels, I personally am pretty confident in the method they used to line them based off what I have seen a 1/2 thou fit over a long length hold (plus they had a lot of experience with their Salerno method). It is the action itself. The action is weak for that cartridge. There is a reason it is a M70/87/15, because it is a 1870s design modified over the years. Could later examples have used better steel than earlier examples? Yes, it is possible. That being said like many things manufactured in that era, standardization of materials, processes, and engineering was questionable. There is also a thing where sometimes when you have a adopted standard they possibly use lower grade materials than what is available because it is already accepted/you have the materials on hand. Like your 1892 Carcano and 1892 Vetterli example, they might just be made with two completely different grades of steel because the specifications allow for different grades.

I don't have exact numbers for the pressures involved with the 10.4mm cartridge but based on what average black powder cartridges generate it would most likely be in the 20k-30k psi range. 6.5 Carcano runs around 41k psi. Thats a minimum of 30% more powerful than the 10.4mm and at maximum double the pressure. So basically, much more than a proof round with each shot of 6.5 through it. That doesn't give me a lot of confidence considering it isn't the beefiest of actions to make up for the potential lack of steel quality (guns like the Martini-Henry or Remington Rolling Blocks benefited from this when converted to smokeless powder).

Just because a rifle was acceptable as a substitute standard doesn't mean it is a good substitute. The reason why they converted them was logistics based. Basically, they didn't want to restart 10.4mm ammo production and instead wished to focus on 6.5mm production. Logistically it was easier to convert the rifles which they didn't intend to really use much than to reopen production lines on ammo they didn't need. Taking away from the production of ammo they certainly were using. It doesn't mean it was a extremely safe conversion, it means it generally worked and could be reliably counted on to fire a few rounds down range if needed.

My point mentioning Gewehr 88s was more to do with how there was a severe lack of understanding of smokeless powder and how to properly build firearms when it first came out, which lead to some unsafe conversions. There was many modifications done to the Gewehr 88s to make them safe.