Request for Help to ID Rifles

[Bob Prudhomme]

One distinguishing feature that seems to identify older Carcano M91 long rifles, and possibly older carbines, is the shape of the outside of the chamber, just behind the rear sight. In the two photos below, which I believe are of an M91 long rifle and an M91/24 carbine, the external shape of the rifle chamber is hexagonal.





In the next two photos, which are clearly of M38 or M91/38 short rifles (the groove on the wooden stock in the first photo and the famous serial no. in the second photo give them away), it can be seen that the outsides of the rifle chambers, in these newer rifles, now have a round shape.





What I am trying to find out is, did all Carcanos prior to 1938 have hexagonal rifle chambers, and were the round rifle chambers introduced with the introduction of the first short rifle in 1938, the 7.35x51mm M38?

[Bob Prudhomme]

My research has turned up some interesting details about the flat facets on the Carcano barrels. It turns out there are only five of these facets and they are all above the level of the wooden stock. Below the stock, the outer surface of the chamber is round.

Coincidentally, or not, it seems the round chambers sans flat facets first appeared around 1938, at the same time the 7.35x51mm M38 short rifle made its debut.

[Bob Prudhomme]

Early carbine versions of the M91 long rifle, plus the M91/24 TS carbine (manufactured from 1924-1928 until the introduction of the M91/28 carbines) were simply cut down versions of the M91 long rifles. The 31 inch long rifle barrel was cut back to 17 inches and often machined to a narrower diameter so as not to look out of proportion.

While being an economical method of producing a carbine, it was a disaster as far as making an accurate shooting carbine went. The M91 long rifles were machined with "progressive" or "gain" twist rifling, unlike the far more common "standard" twist rifling. The M91 was made with 1:19 twist at the breech (meaning that the riflings made one full turn in 19 inches) which grew progressively tighter going down the barrel; ending up with a fast 1:8 twist at the muzzle. As the 162 grain Carcano bullet is somewhat heavy for this calibre, a 1:8 twist is essential for giving the bullet enough spin to stabilize it in flight and give it any accuracy.

Unfortunately, cutting off 14 inches of a 31 inch progressive twist rifle barrel removes the part of the barrel with the tightest twist, and destroys any hope that rifle had of being accurate.

In 1938, the Italians made sweeping, long overdue changes to the concept of their basic infantry weapon which, until this point, had been the M91 long rifle. Disappointment with it among the troops, plus the anemic bullet it fired, led the Italian authorities to scrap both the long rifle and the 6.5x52mm cartridge. Among the long rifle's deficiencies was the fact it was too long and too heavy to make it a practical weapon for an army that was relying increasingly on motorized transport. This is a trend that continued on in the 20th Century and gave us compact weapons such as the M1 Carbine, the Kalashnikov AK-47 and the Armalite AR-15 (better known in the military as the M-16). The only advantages of having a long rifle, such as the M91 with its 31 inch barrel, were that the longer barrel gave the bullets a higher muzzle velocity, and thereby a higher ballistic coefficient, and the longer rifle gave the soldier extra reach during bayonet charges. However, since bayonet charges were practically obsolete, following the introduction of the medium machine guns in WW I, and war makers found the majority of combat to be taking place at ranges under 100 yards, these advantages were seen as something that could be sacrificed.

The other deficiency in the 6.5mm Carcano long rifle was the bullet fired from that weapon; the 6.5x52mm cartridge loaded with a full metal jacket, round nosed, flat based 162 grain bullet. Quite simply put, this bullet was not very good at killing people. Compared to many other bullets, this bullet was very long and narrow, lending it great stability in flight and in a wound. Instead of tumbling or expanding in a wound, these bullets often punched straight through to the other side of their victim, doing very little damage. While adhering strictly to the humanitarian conventions of the 1899 Hague Peace Conference, these bullets were a curse to the soldiers in the field, as it was seldom possible to stop an enemy combatant with one shot.

For these reasons, it was decided, in 1938, to introduce an all new "short" rifle (neither long rifle or carbine) with an all new calibre plus a new design of bullet that would overcome the "humanitarian" issues. While the 7.35x51mm calibre was new, everything about the rifle (receiver, bolt, magazine and feed system) was identical in every respect to the 6.5mm M91 long rifle. Even the cartridges were identical, outside of the case length being 1 mm shorter. In fact, it is possible to make a 7.35 mm brass cartridge simply by taking a 6.5mm Carcano casing and resizing the neck of the case with a 7.35 resizing die, as well as trimming the case length slightly.

The most significant feature of the new 7.35mm bullet was that, inside the jacket of the bullet, instead of being 100% lead, only the back end of the bullet was lead. The forward half (or third, actually) of the bullet, inside the jacket, was made from the very light metal aluminum. This created an imbalance in mass in the bullet from front to back, and actually caused these bullets to tumble once in a wound, causing great and grievous injuries. This was further enhanced by discarding the 6.5mm's round nosed bullet and giving the 7.35 a pointed bullet. While new to Italian troops, this bullet was actually a slavish copy of the British .303 Mk. VII cartridge introduced in 1907, in response to the banning of the British .303 Mk. II "Specials" (dum dum bullets) and the Mk. IV and V cartridges (hollow point bullets) at the Hague Peace Conference. This information should be studied carefully by students of the JFK assassination, as it still defies belief that a 6.5mm FMJ Carcano bullet could have done what is claimed at z313.

Another important thing to understand, perhaps THE most important thing, is that it was not necessary to change the calibre of the Carcano just to adopt a pointed, aluminum tipped bullet. It would have been far simpler to just make this new bullet in 6.5mm calibre. The real reason for making the new 7.35mm rifles had more to do with Italy's limited steel making capacities.

The 7.35x51mm M38 short rifle was going to be part of the ultimate recycling program. From the First World War and their African campaigns, Italy had great inventories of 6.5mm M91 long rifles, many with worn out barrels. As the plan, in 1938, was, for all eternity, to abandon the long rifle AND the 6.5mm calibre, these rifles were viewed as surplus. The choice of a new calibre in excess of 7 mm (the 7.35) was no coincidence, either. The plan was, until their vast stocks of M91 long rifles ran out, to cut the long rifle barrels from their length of 31 inches to the new short rifle length of 21 inches and make this shortened barrel the foundation of a new short rifle. The shortened barrel would then be drilled to a new bore diameter of 7.35 mm, completely eliminating the rifling grooves of the 6.5mm calibre and, essentially, making a new barrel. As the old bore was 6.5 mm, and the old groove diameter was 6.8 mm, drilling the new bore diameter of 7.35 put the lands of the new bore .275 mm further into fresh barrel metal than the bottoms of the old grooves.

The obvious question is, why not just cut the long rifle barrels to a new length of 21 inches and keep the 6.5mm calibre, and save having to drill them out to 7.35mm? The answer is simple and we can go back to the start of this thread where the making of carbines from long rifles is discussed. The 162 grain 6.5 mm bullet required a fast rifling twist of 1:8 to stabilize it in flight. The M91 long rifle was made with "progressive twist" rifling, meaning that the rifling started at 1:19 at the chamber, where the bullet began its journey, and progressively got tighter; achieving the final rifling of 1:8 at the muzzle of the barrel. At the end of a 21 inch cut off barrel, the rifling would be nowhere near tight enough to stabilize the 6.5mm bullet, and accuracy would suffer dramatically.

This was a perfectly sound idea, one that would have given the Italians a fine weapon with good stopping power. While its barrel was 10 inches shorter than the M91 long rifle, it was no longer required to shoot the heavy 162 grain 6.5mm bullet. The 7.35mm bullet, despite being larger in diameter, weighed only 128 grains, due to the light aluminum nose and there simply being less metal in a pointed bullet, as compared to a round nosed bullet. This combination, coupled with a 1:10 standard twist rifling, gave the 7.35mm an impressive muzzle velocity of just under 2500 feet/ second, almost 100 fps faster than the M91 long rifle. In comparison, firing the heavy 6.5 mm bullet through the 6.5mm carbines and short rifles only gave muzzle velocities of 2000 and 2200 fps. Not only this, the lighter weight of the 7.35mm bullet and its pointed nose gave it a higher ballistic coefficient, causing it to retain more of this velocity and performance down range.

More to come.......

[Bob Prudhomme]

I have bumped the thread, "The Humanitarian Rifle", back to the first page as I realized, after re-reading it, that I gave a far more detailed background of the 7.35x51mm M38 in that thread than I have given here. The basic story of the short rifle is in that thread, this thread will give the physical proof of the claims I have made.

[Bob Prudhomme]

I have neglected completing this thread for some time now. It is a complex subject, and I must admit I have felt a bit frustrated over it.

So far, we have established that, prior to the introduction of the M38 short rifle in 1938, all Carcanos (long rifles and carbines) had a curious five flat facets on the upper side of the exterior barrel, at the point where the barrel joins the chamber.



When a long rifle's barrel was cut short, from 31 inches to 17 inches, in the manufacture of a carbine such as the M91/24 TS, the original stampings and serial number were left untouched. However, a "rework stamp" was struck on the upper side of the five faceted section to show this was no longer the original M91 long rifle. One such stamp can be seen on the barrel of an M91/24 below:



Inside the oval reads "Fare 27 Terni", which means this carbine conversion of a long rifle took place at the Terni factory in 1927. This is chronologically correct, as the M91/24 conversions all took place between 1924 and 1928. The disastrous results of cutting short the M91 long rifle barrels, with their progressive twist rifling, was seen in the abandonment of the M91/24 carbine program in 1928; replaced with the M91/28 carbine. With their lesson learned (for a while anyways) brand new barrels were made for the M91/28's.

As I stated earlier, 1938 came along and Italy was set to scrap the 6.5x52mm cartridge and replace it with a 7.35x51mm cartridge. The 7.35 short rifle was identical in every feature to the 6.5 except for the larger bore. The 7.35 cartridge was also identical to the 6.5 cartridge except for being 1 mm shorter in the case neck and being loaded with a larger diameter bullet.

No new barrels were manufactured for the 7.35mm short rifles. Every 7.35mm short rifle barrel was made by cutting a long rifle barrel from 31 inches to 21 inches and re-boring it from 6.5 mm to 7.35 mm and then re-rifling the "new" barrel with a 1:10 standard twist rifling.

It does not seem that the Italians followed their customary practice of putting a rework stamp on the five faceted base of the barrel, as seen on the reworked M91/24 TS carbine photo above. Rather, the 7.35mm M38 barrels now had only round metal where the five flat facets had been.



Note the "CAL 7.35" stamped on the rear sight.

As we know that ALL 7.35mm short rifles were made from cut down, re-bored 6.5mm M91 long rifles, the above photo is undeniable proof that these cut down long rifle barrels were placed in a lathe and the section with the five flat facets turned down; effectively removing them. This also effectively removed all original stampings and made this a brand new barrel which, in effect, it actually was. In the photo below, it is possible to see where the lathe operator did not quite remove all of the flat facets on this particular barrel. The points where the barrel begins to taper can plainly be seen.



It must be understood that the Italians were in no way attempting to deceive anyone with this practice. The 7.35mm's were all new rifles and it only seemed appropriate to install new rather than re-worked barrels in them. It is what happened after the 7.35mm program was abandoned in 1940, and the 6.5mm calibre cartridge brought back in the 6.5mm M91/38 short rifle, a carbon copy of the 7.35mm M38 short rifle in every feature except calibre, that I believe was the beginning of deception.


Italy abandoned the 7.35mm short rifle and the 7.35x51mm cartridge in the beginning of 1940. Coincidentally, Italy declared war on the Allies in June, 1940, after many months of blustering by Mussolini. While history cites a "lack of 7.35 ammunition" as the reason for returning to the 6.5mm cartridge, of which they had large stockpiles of 6.5mm ammo, it is not nearly as simple as it seems on the surface. The most complicated and time consuming part of making a rifle is the manufacture of the barrel. Not only this, it also requires a great deal of high grade steel, something Italy was not anywhere being a great manufacturer of and, with the coming declaration of war, was likely to be in shortage of. In the making of the 7.35mm rifle, the barrels were already manufactured and required only cutting and re-boring. On the other hand, no barrel for a 6.5mm Carcano had ever been manufactured, prior to 1940, that did not have progressive twist rifling. In other words, Italy entered into, on the eve of an inevitable war they knew they were not prepared for, the production of a new 6.5mm short rifle for which every single barrel had to be made from scratch. We are asked to believe this was simpler than manufacturing 7.35x51 mm ammo; likely the easiest thing to make when compared to the rifle.


While the intent was to make the 6.5mm M91/38 short rifle barrels with standard twist rifling, and it is true that many were made with standard twist rifling, there is evidence of 6.5mm short rifles that have progressive twist rifling. Certainly, all of the carbine versions of the M38 and M91/38 short rifles are listed as officially having progressive twist rifling (and I do not believe for a second it was a 17 inch condensed version of the M91 progressive twist rifling).

All Carcanos from 1938 on had round barrel bases instead of the earlier flat facets, including the infamous JFK assassination rifle C2766.



I should point out, in fairness, that a handful of carbines from the late 1930's (pre-1938) had the turned down barrel chamber seen above, yet no long rifle from the 1930's was made this way. The reason for this is simple. The making of M91/24 TS carbines in great numbers by cutting down M91 long rifles with progressive twist rifling was such a disaster, it led to the cessation of this practice in 1928. However, this practice was revived in a small way in the hard times of the 1930's, only by now, there would have been a real stigma attached to a carbine that was obviously a reworked long rifle. Better to remove all traces of the long rifle from the barrel. It wouldn't shoot any straighter, but that could always be blamed on the soldier.

So, along comes the program in 1940 to keep the short rifle but to now make it in 6.5mm calibre with standard twist rifling. As I said earlier, no 6.5mm Carcano barrel had ever been made that did not have progressive twist rifling, meaning all 6.5mm short rifles had to be made from scratch. The obvious thing to do would have been to continue making new barrels with the five flat facets on top but, what if Italy's planners had a strong hunch the war might not go well for Italy, and the time may come when their ability to acquire steel and make new 6.5mm short rifle barrels might be severely hampered? What if things got so bad that, in order to maintain a supply of new short rifles, it was necessary to revert to their tried and true practice of cutting long rifles from 31 inches to 21 inches, and there was concern the troops' morale would suffer if they knew they were being issued short rifles with the disastrous cut down long rifle barrels?


The obvious thing to do would be to make new barrels for the 6.5mm short rifles without the five flat facets but, rather, with the round outer chamber, as seen on C2766. That way, if things went well for Italy, they would have all new barrels and no one would ever suspect why they left out the flat facets. But, if things went badly, a shortcut could be taken by cutting down the 31 inch barrels and doctoring them to look like new 21 inch short rifle barrels. And, as the short rifle barrels were 4 inches longer than the 17 inch carbine barrels and would have gotten a little more of the tighter parts of the progressive twist rifling, they may not have been deadly accurate but, they would have been more accurate than the carbines.


Just how many 6.5mm short rifles would have been made this way is impossible to say without sulphur casting the barrel of every single M91/38 short rifle still in existence. The first one on my wish list for sulphur casting would be the one in the National Archives bearing serial no. C2766.

It has never come out just why the Italians only made the M91/38 short rifle for one year (1940) before scrapping it but it is possible the explanations above had something to do with it. Its replacement, brought out in 1941, should raise even more eyebrows. Italy had gone from scrapping the long rifle AND the 6.5 calibre in 1938, to keeping the short rifle but reverting back to the 6.5mm calibre in 1940, and in 1941 they even scrapped the short rifle and went back to a long rifle; namely, the all new 6.5mm M91/41 long rifle. They had come full circle in what was possibly one of the most bizarre weapons programs the world had ever seen.

What could possibly possess them to go back to a long rifle? I have a theory. Italy's planners knew they were making a poor weapon by cutting a progressive twist barrel from 31 inches to 21 inches. Not only that, each short rifle required that an all new wooden stock be made for it. Why not just re-issue the M91 long rifles they had in stock? If an M91 long rifle and an M91/41 long rifle are placed side by side, the only noticeable differences are the rear sights (the M91/41 has the smaller carbine rear sight) and the M91's 31 inch barrel, compared to the M91/41's 27 inch barrel. Internally, the M91/41 was to have been made with standard twist rifling, as opposed to the M91's progressive twist rifling.

Very few M91/41's actually made it into service, prior to Italy signing the armistice in 1943. Once again, it is anyone's guess how many of them were new rifles, and how many were cut down M91 long rifles. The loss of 4 inches of the tightest part of the progressive twist rifling might not have effected the accuracy of these rifles sufficiently to have been noticeable.

If it ever came out that Oswald's rifle, C2766, had progressive twist rifling, this and all the other deficiencies I have talked about would be more than enough to disqualify this rifle as being capable of performing the feats attributed to it on 22-11-63, regardless of who was pulling the trigger.

[Bob Prudhomme]

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