Inexplicable Wounds made by Special Bullets

[Bob Prudhomme]

Italian military ammo for the 6.5mm Carcano was mainly manufactured by the company Societa Matallurgica Italiana, and the letters "SMI" can be seen on the headstamps of vintage Carcano ammo. For decades now, gun experts have warned against using military surplus SMI Carcano ammo as it has a reputation for being very unreliable.

This unreliability shows up in several forms:

1. Hangfires - a situation where the shooter pulls the trigger and the firing of the rifle is delayed for up to several seconds.
2. Misfires - a situation where the shooter pulls the trigger and nothing at all happens. Rangemasters just LOVE these.
3. Short shots - a situation where the shooter pulls the trigger, the rifle fires but the bullet lands far short of its target due to a severe drop in muzzle velocity.

The main cause of the problems with the SMI cartridges was in the primers used in these cartridges. For those not in the know, the primer is the little detonator seated in the base of a rifle cartridge. The bolt's firing pin strikes it, setting it off and the primer then ignites the gunpowder inside the cartridge.

A composition of chlorate and mercury fulminate was used in the manufacture of these primers, and this compound proved to be highly corrosive. This problem was made worse by the "triangular" neck crimp used to seat bullets into the cartridge casings. Unlike the full crimp into a cannelure, often seen on military ammo, this triangular crimp did not provide a very good seal, and poorly stored SMI ammo often had deteriorated gunpowder.

Further compounding the Italian's problem with SMI ammo was the fact that most of their 6.5mm ammo was made in the 1920's to satisfy the needs of their African campaigns. However, Italy had no intention of using the 6.5mm calibre round in WWII, and introduced the 7.35x51mm cartridge for the all new M38 short rifle design in 1938, with the intention of completely abandoning the 6.5mm round. The reasons for this change are another story altogether but, suffice it to say the 7.35mm bullet had "secret" features (slavishly copied from the .303 British Mk. VII bullet) that would once and for all put to rest the moniker of "Humanitarian Rifle".

Adolf Hitler changed all this by jumping the gun and going to war years before the date he had promised Mussolini. Italy wavered reluctantly for months but finally, in June 1940, gave in to Hitler and declared war on the Allies. This left Italy unprepared for war and, partly due to ammo supply problems, the 7.35mm rifle program was halted in 1939, and the 6.5mm round was re-introduced, as there were still large inventories of 6.5mm cartridges. The problem was, though, that a great deal of this ammo was almost 20 years old by this time. In well manufactured ammo, this might not have been a real problem but, given the primer and crimp problems of the SMI cartridges, long storage only made the problems worse.

Next: How the reputation got worse after World War Two