Inexplicable Wounds made by Special Bullets

[Bob Prudhomme]

While there were adequate supplies of imported surplus SMI 6.5mm Carcano ammo and 6.5mm Carcano WCC ammo available to shooters, these bullets were all full metal jacket bullets and unsuitable (plus illegal) for hunting. Some hunters solved this problem by carefully filing off the tip of the copper alloy jacket, exposing the lead core and making it a soft tipped bullet, but this method was a crude way of making a soft tipped bullet. Some gunsmiths, such as John Masen of Dallas, Texas, would pull the Carcano FMJ bullets for customers and re-seat hunting bullets into the cartridges. As the only hunting bullets available for this would be the .264" diameter variety, once again accuracy was lost.

It soon became apparent there was a market for 6.5mm Carcano soft-tipped hunting cartridges, and several ammo makers began making cartridges for the Carcano. Every single one of them used bullets that were .264" in diameter instead of the required .268" diameter and, in fact, a company by the name of Prvi Partizan used a bullet only .2635" in diameter. Either the manufacturers didn't know or they didn't care that they were a great part of the reason Carcanos were not shooting accurately. Needless to say, this put the finishing touches on the inaccurate Carcano rifle reputation.

Lastly, the abnormally long and heavy (for the calibre) Carcano bullet was not exactly what would be called a "flat shooting" cartridge, especially not at the lower velocities the bullets travelled at. Cartridge makers such as Prvi Partizan began loading a shorter, lighter bullet (139 grains instead of the old 162 grains) into Carcano cartridges, and changed the nose to a spitzer point instead of the standard round nose. Likely, another reason was economics, as these shorter bullets were probably made originally for a more common 6.5mm calibre rifle. See photo below, comparing a standard FMJ 6.5mm Carcano cartridge loaded with a 162 grain bullet to the Prvi Partizan 6.5mm Carcano cartridge loaded with a soft tipped spitzer point 139 grain bullet:



The difference in overall cartridge length is quite obvious. This had the effect of lengthening the distance from the bullet to where the barrel riflings began (freebore) far more than the Carcano designers originally intended.


It was not until 2004 that a cartridge manufacturer by the name of Hornady recognized the problem and began making .268" diameter bullets specifically for Carcano rifles. Multitudes of "junk" Carcano rifles instantly began shooting more accurately.

Edit: My apologies. The Prvi Partizan cartridge shown above is loaded with a FMJ bullet. It seems, according to the box, that the FMJ bullets were even shorter and lighter, weighing only 123 grains. Here is a photo of the 139 grain soft tipped bullet: