An Cosantóir

www.military.ie the defence forces magazine | 31 expel the empty case from the bolt face. The safety sleeve locates in the rear of the bolt with the cocking piece behind it. The cocking piece cam interacts with a slot in the bolt. The base of the bolt handle forms a solid rectangle and, as it lies just forward of the bridge, acts as a safety lug should the front lugs fail. This ac- tion cocks on raising the bolt handle. The trigger guard and magazine is an integral unit secured by bolts to each end of the receiver. The magazine houses the follower mechanism in its forward section, while at its bottom rear it is open. A catch at the rear of the magazine holds the single row, six-round clip in place. When a loaded clip is pushed down into the open action until it clicks, it seats the bottom of the clip in the magazine and fully depresses the follower against its spring. As this leaf spring decompresses it pushes the follower arm up through the clip, thus lining up the uppermost cartridge for chambering by the bolt. The loaded clip can be popped up out of the action by depressing the catch on the front of the trigger guard. When firing, after the last round has been stripped by the bolt the empty clip falls out of the magazine's rear opening. Without these special clips the Car- cano can only be used as a single shot. This entails more effort, however: in clip loading the cartridge slips under the extractor, whereas with hand chambering the extractor has to be forced over its rim. As dirt can enter the magazine through its rear opening, some operators had them blanked off and converted to top lip ejection. A novel feature of these rifles is that they used gain twist rifling in which the twist of the rifling gradually increases to- wards the muzzle. The theory behind this was that by combin- ing a lower chamber pressure with a light bullet and increasing rifling it was possible to obtain a normal muzzle velocity with less recoil. However, some were of the opinion that this could slur the bullet jacket and thus degrade accuracy. The rifling consisted of four grooves with a right-hand twist. An adjustable tangent rear-sight was fitted to the earlier models. The rifle's round is known as the 6.5mm/52.5 Carcano (the latter numerals denoting the case length), a rimless, 162-grain, round-nose, jacketed bullet. In 1905 Japan purchased a consignment of these rifles, cham- bered for their 6.5mm Arisaka round. Two derivatives of the rifle are worth mentioning: the Truppe Speciali Carbine and the Italian Youth Carbine. The former was the equivalent of the US M1 Carbine and was issued to specialist troops like drivers, gunners, radiomen and cooks. The latter was a scaled down copy of the rifle, only 30" long and 3lbs 10ozs in weight. Also 6.5mm calibre, it was either rifled or smooth bored and was designed to fire only blanks. This carbine was primarily intended for the drilling of boys during the 1930s Fascist period in Italy. As a result of the Abyssinian campaign of the mid-1930s the Italians decided that the 6.5mm round needed upgrading due to the round-nose bullet's ballistics comparing unfavour- ably with contemporary pointed types. Subsequently, during 1938 a newly re-barrelled 7.35mm calibre rifle, the Model 91/38 Carcano, was introduced. Modified by Roberto Boragine, its two other main differences from its predecessors were that it used uniform twist rifling and the rear-sight was fixed at 300m. The 7.35mm bullet was semi-pointed and jacketed, and at 128 grains was lighter than the 6.5mm, due to its aluminium nose. This bullet tended to tumble it if it hit any obstacle, thus inflicting a more severe wound. As their cases were similar both rounds used the same clip. A special grenade launcher could be fitted to these rifles. However, as it required a loan of the rifle's bolt to fire it, the 'grenadier' could be temporarily left defenceless. Some experts believed these conversions could pose a danger due to higher chamber pressures. During their winter war with Russia in 1940, the Finns pur- chased some of these 7.35mm Carcanos and in the latter stages of WWII the Germans re-chambered quantities of them for their 7.92mm Mauser round. In post-war years similar weapons turned up in Israel and Syria. While still converting to the new calibre Italy joined the war on 10th June 1940. Consequently, they decided to discontinue the calibre upgrading and to revert back to the 6.5mm round. This included reconverting quantities of the 7.35mm models to the old calibre. After the war many rifles of both calibres ended up in the US, having been brought home by serviceman or imported as war surplus. This brings us full circle to the Dallas carbine. On 20th March 1963 one of these surplus Carcanos was mailed by Klein's Sporting Goods of Chicago to a Box Number in Dallas. The ad- dressee's name, 'A Hidell', is generally believed to have been an alias for Lee Harvey Oswald. The rifle, serial no C-2766, cost just $29.95 including postage. Although commonly referred to as a carbine, this author understands that it was a reconverted 6.5mm Model 91/38 Short Rifle, made in Terni in 1940. Holding six rounds, it was 40.2" long with a 20.9" barrel, weighed 7lbs 8ozs, had a muzzle velocity of 2,320ft per sec, and was fitted with a Japanese x4 telescopic sight and sling. A photograph acquired from the Dallas Police Department/Dallas Municipal Archives John F. Kennedy Collection, shows a 6.5 mm Carcano Model 91/38 carbine rifle recovered from the Texas School Book Depository after the November 22nd, 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy. Photograph: Dallas Police Department/Dallas Municipal Archives/University of North Texas Ammunition (L/R): 7.92mm Mauser, 6.5mm and 7.35mm Carcano A 6.5mm Carcano round on the left compared to a British .303" Mk. VII round with 174 grains bullet.

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