Carcano M41 safety problem

[Ced1942]

Hi everyone so i just aquired this late war terni M41 and when i did my first look around i found out the safety does not entirely work.
I mean that when i engage the safety the sear does not disconect from the cocking pieces, so when i pull the trigger it still clic and release foward. Then i have to fight to put the safety back in its original position in order to unlock the action. Dissasembled the bolt everything looks fine, even swapped the bolt with another carcano and it works fine. Any idea what could cause such issue?

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[Aragorn243]

Really hard to tell from your description.

I rank the Carcano safety only slightly better than the Mosin Nagant and I'm not sure I wouldn't switch that view fairly easily.

I just went up and worked the safety on three different Carcanos. I don't think I replicated what you describe with any. All three lift the bolt up when you try to put the safety on so it is a two handed operation. One to move the safety, the other to hold the bolt. All three have a very strong spring that hold the firing mechanism back so not sure how yours is releasing forward. Two functioned fine. Pull the trigger nothing happens. Return the safety to fire and they fire. The third is a real pain to get back off. Nothing clicks or moves when the trigger is pulled but the safety just wants to be cantankerous and not move forward and back to the right until I manipulate the bolt just right.

If I were to hazard a guess, the spring on the safety may not be strong enough to hold the firing mechanism back. Since you have two bolts, try swapping the spring from the other and see if that solves the issue.

[Ced1942]

Really hard to tell from your description.

I rank the Carcano safety only slightly better than the Mosin Nagant and I'm not sure I wouldn't switch that view fairly easily.

I just went up and worked the safety on three different Carcanos. I don't think I replicated what you describe with any. All three lift the bolt up when you try to put the safety on so it is a two handed operation. One to move the safety, the other to hold the bolt. All three have a very strong spring that hold the firing mechanism back so not sure how yours is releasing forward. Two functioned fine. Pull the trigger nothing happens. Return the safety to fire and they fire. The third is a real pain to get back off. Nothing clicks or moves when the trigger is pulled but the safety just wants to be cantankerous and not move forward and back to the right until I manipulate the bolt just right.

If I were to hazard a guess, the spring on the safety may not be strong enough to hold the firing mechanism back. Since you have two bolts, try swapping the spring from the other and see if that solves the issue.

Mine work fine but when i engage the safety the sear is still connected so when i press the trigger it release foward like it would to fire but with the safety still engaged and then move freely like it should. Then to allow the rifle to cock again i have to press the safety and disengage it even tho the rifle is uncocked. Kinda hard to explain too

That was my plan for tomorow, swap part until one change something because i can swap bolt for both gun and they work fine in each other, only this particular rifle with his own bolt does not want to work properly.

[Eaglelord17]

The safety on the Carcano has nothing to do with the sear/striker arrangement instead releasing spring tension off the striker preventing it from moving forward when the trigger is pulled. If you squeeze the trigger and push on the cocking piece it will go forward, just without spring pressure. Honestly it is a very poor safety design and realistically they would have been better doing what the French did and simply not have a safety instead of having that poor system. The only worse system I can think of is the Mosin Nagants, but at least those don't have the potential of firing when on safe (even though with a Carcano you would have to try to do it, you can still do it).

Unless it is going forward under spring pressure the safety is working as it was designed.

[Ced1942]

Unless it is going forward under spring pressure the safety is working as it was designed.

It does

not with the same force that when it fires but it sure has some spring tension. Like i said it does not allow for the trigger to be pressed freely as the sear is still in contact and under pressure when the safety is engaged. If i press the trigger the whole thing tries to fire only to be stopped by the safety lever still in the safe position. I understand that on working bolt if i press the trigger the whole firing pin assembly should be able to move foward and come back freely by either hand force or simply gravity.

That little tension that make it move foward also prevent me to pull the cocking pieces manually and hang it back over the sear once it was released but only for the last few millimeter as it move freely like it should once released from the sear. I have to put the safety off on the uncocked bolt and recock to re engage the safety

[Ced1942]

Well after trial and error and switching every single pieces with the other bolt, it appear the faulty part is the bolt body itself! Switching part made no difference as the issue was still there until at the end i took all the pieces from the faulty bolt and threw them in the second carcano bolt body and it ended up working perfectly. Still dont understand how the body itself could cause this issue as it work nicely in other rifles