Carcano Carbine

[rtfd338]

Hello I am trying to find out what I can about my Carcano carbine. I just picked it up for a $100 dollars not knowing much about it because I thought it was cool. It has been converted to fire the German Mauser round and has a 7.9 on the rear sight. It says Carcano Italy on the barrel and CALST AL B VT under that. The serial number is 4224 the stock has a matching serial number on the side of the butt. The action has an R with an S above it. Any help or information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[Aragorn243]

The barrel markings are the import mark so it is not a wartime bring back. The S signifies "spitzer" round.

Chances are your rifle was put together post war by speculators believing they would sell better in 8mm. A lot wound up as training rifles in Egypt and other middle eastern nations. There are no clips for them and they are single shots unless you alter an original clip to fit the 8mm. This can be done with a dremel tool.

There is some question on safety, get it checked before attempting to fire it. Head space seems to be the biggest issue and a lot of the imports to the US have had their firing pins clipped to prevent them from being fired.

[Bruce McAskill]

After Italy surrendered to the allies, the Germans who still controlled the northern half of Italy needed rifles to support fascist troops still fighting against the allies. There was little or no ammo for the 6.5 and 7.53 rifles so they had Beretta make up the Carcano's in 8x57. But the problem was there were no clips made for them and they never got them into action. The Carcano action is strong enough to shoot the 8x57 round but without the Mannlicher clips as Aragorn said they are single shot rifles. Recoil I have heard is substantial and I think the idea of them using the 8x57 round was a lot better on paper then in reality.

[Aragorn243]

The German conversions don't have matching serial numbers. Barrels were renumbered on all known examples. Recoil was bad on the regular Type 38 conversions. On the Cavalry Carbines it was really bad.

[rtfd338]

Thanks for the help.