Thinking of buying a 6.5x52mm carcano.
- Thread starter Tyockell18
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Does hornady still make loaded ammo?. I'v heard Norma may as well.
Shooting the Carcano is either for the very rich or for the handloader.
Prvi Partizan manufactures Carcano ammunition at this time, as does Norma. The Norma is quite terrifyingly expensive, the Partzan unavailable in Canada, although you can get it from Graf's in the Excited States and through Hornady. This is the same ammunition as marketed as "Highland" in Oz, Kiwiland and Sath Efrica.
Fortunately for us, everybody and his dog makes the dies these days. RCBS are very nice (I have had a set for 30 years now) and Lee Precision makes serviceable dies for about half the RCBS price. Partizan brass is available from Trade-Ex (link at the top of this page) @ $35 a bag of 50..... and it is Boxer-primed.... and they also have the special Hornady bullet in bulk packs, at $39 for 100. This is a correct-diameter 160-grain bullet which can be used to duplicate the military loadings.
SOME rifles will accept and do very well with regular .264" slugs, but most seem to need a larger diameter. If you are unsure, try them all, but do be aware that boat-tails just do not obturate very well (if at all), so, likely, you are better off to stay with a flat-base bullet. A good point is that the very wide lands in a Carcano barrel seem to last half of forever.
As to powders, stay with the quicker types. I am getting good results with powders in the 3031 - 4985 - 4064 range....... but I load for the Carbines with 4198 because I just cannot handle the fireballs and ear-splitting reports which, thankfully, are nonexistant with the Model 41.
IMHO, the Model 41 is the best of the whole Carcano series. As well, there really were not a whole lot of them made: Walter in "Rifles of the World - 1st Edition" estimates "perhaps 1,000" built at Turin, of which an incompehensible number seem to have appeared in Canada in just the last few years.
I'm just happy that I got mine.
Loading data is in most of the loading manuals, but generally seems to be developed with the 21-inch tube on the Special Forces rifles. The '41 has a 27-inch tube and should develop significantly higher velocities with any given load. TEXT BOOK OF SMALL ARMS - 1909 gives 2395 ft/sec with a .266", 163-grain bullet at a mere 38,304 psi out of the 30.75-inch barrel of the original Model '91. The low pressures combined with the relatively small diameter of the casing mean you will be getting a whole bunch of loads out of a pound of powder; factory rounds used only 30.2 grains of powder, so you should get over 225 rounds out of a tin of the stuff. This compares rather favourably with the .50BMG API at 27 shots to the tin of powder: yet another "plus" point for the Carcano.
Have fun! That's what it's all about!
Hope this helps.
.
Prvi Partizan manufactures Carcano ammunition at this time, as does Norma. The Norma is quite terrifyingly expensive, the Partzan unavailable in Canada, although you can get it from Graf's in the Excited States and through Hornady. This is the same ammunition as marketed as "Highland" in Oz, Kiwiland and Sath Efrica.
Fortunately for us, everybody and his dog makes the dies these days. RCBS are very nice (I have had a set for 30 years now) and Lee Precision makes serviceable dies for about half the RCBS price. Partizan brass is available from Trade-Ex (link at the top of this page) @ $35 a bag of 50..... and it is Boxer-primed.... and they also have the special Hornady bullet in bulk packs, at $39 for 100. This is a correct-diameter 160-grain bullet which can be used to duplicate the military loadings.
SOME rifles will accept and do very well with regular .264" slugs, but most seem to need a larger diameter. If you are unsure, try them all, but do be aware that boat-tails just do not obturate very well (if at all), so, likely, you are better off to stay with a flat-base bullet. A good point is that the very wide lands in a Carcano barrel seem to last half of forever.
As to powders, stay with the quicker types. I am getting good results with powders in the 3031 - 4985 - 4064 range....... but I load for the Carbines with 4198 because I just cannot handle the fireballs and ear-splitting reports which, thankfully, are nonexistant with the Model 41.
IMHO, the Model 41 is the best of the whole Carcano series. As well, there really were not a whole lot of them made: Walter in "Rifles of the World - 1st Edition" estimates "perhaps 1,000" built at Turin, of which an incompehensible number seem to have appeared in Canada in just the last few years.
I'm just happy that I got mine.
Loading data is in most of the loading manuals, but generally seems to be developed with the 21-inch tube on the Special Forces rifles. The '41 has a 27-inch tube and should develop significantly higher velocities with any given load. TEXT BOOK OF SMALL ARMS - 1909 gives 2395 ft/sec with a .266", 163-grain bullet at a mere 38,304 psi out of the 30.75-inch barrel of the original Model '91. The low pressures combined with the relatively small diameter of the casing mean you will be getting a whole bunch of loads out of a pound of powder; factory rounds used only 30.2 grains of powder, so you should get over 225 rounds out of a tin of the stuff. This compares rather favourably with the .50BMG API at 27 shots to the tin of powder: yet another "plus" point for the Carcano.
Have fun! That's what it's all about!
Hope this helps.
.
- Location
- Not really sure.
Thanks for all the info!, very helpful. Wow I can't believe so few were made, I'm glad I grabbed her now.
I think she'll be staying with me from now on. I see Trad-ex has everything a fellow would need. what are you using for seating depth on the 160 gr's?, or do they have cannelure lines.
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I'm not set up for Ebay, I'll take acouple clips if you can sell them, sure!.
Nice reeded cannelures on the Hornady Carcano slugs, also on the Remington bulk-pack 140s that my '41 seems to like.
I don't bother crimping them at all (brass lasts longer and, for the first 40 years I owned a Carcano, simply obtaining a few rounds was very difficult); the dies size them down quite well enough to hold the slugs.
I am surprised, dismayed, shocked, that nobody has jumped up and shrieked "Check the headspace! Check the headspace! The sky is falling!". The Italians may have erred on headspacing when they put their rifles into storage, but in every case I have seen, they erred on the SAFE side. You will find many more Carcanos with very tight headspace than ever you will find even slighly loose. Headspace itself is very much a misunderstood issue. You can find a truly excellent discussion of the entire issue in HATCHER'S NOTEBOOK by Maj-Gen Julian S. Hatcher, US Army, ret'd. Hatcher was one of the all-time REAL experts and he wrote down huge amounts of arcane knowledge in this book. You can possibly find a copy of the new reprint, or you can download the original from the Military Knowledge Library over at milsurps dot com. Membership is free and they offer literally hundreds of rare books and documents for students of firearms.... and they are all free.
Suffice to say that if you feed the round up and out of the magazine, onto the bolt, if the extractor is gripping the chambered round, you're safe to go.
BTW, if things get REALLY desperate some time, you can make Carcano brass out of .220 Swift, but you will need a lathe to remove the semi-rim and deepen the extractor grove. MUCH easier just to call Trade-Ex and get a couple bags of The Right Stuff.
And be prepared for a bit of a shock, once you get things all together: Carcanos can be frighteningly accurate if they are in decent shape and like what they are being fed.
Have fun!
.
I don't bother crimping them at all (brass lasts longer and, for the first 40 years I owned a Carcano, simply obtaining a few rounds was very difficult); the dies size them down quite well enough to hold the slugs.
I am surprised, dismayed, shocked, that nobody has jumped up and shrieked "Check the headspace! Check the headspace! The sky is falling!". The Italians may have erred on headspacing when they put their rifles into storage, but in every case I have seen, they erred on the SAFE side. You will find many more Carcanos with very tight headspace than ever you will find even slighly loose. Headspace itself is very much a misunderstood issue. You can find a truly excellent discussion of the entire issue in HATCHER'S NOTEBOOK by Maj-Gen Julian S. Hatcher, US Army, ret'd. Hatcher was one of the all-time REAL experts and he wrote down huge amounts of arcane knowledge in this book. You can possibly find a copy of the new reprint, or you can download the original from the Military Knowledge Library over at milsurps dot com. Membership is free and they offer literally hundreds of rare books and documents for students of firearms.... and they are all free.
Suffice to say that if you feed the round up and out of the magazine, onto the bolt, if the extractor is gripping the chambered round, you're safe to go.
BTW, if things get REALLY desperate some time, you can make Carcano brass out of .220 Swift, but you will need a lathe to remove the semi-rim and deepen the extractor grove. MUCH easier just to call Trade-Ex and get a couple bags of The Right Stuff.
And be prepared for a bit of a shock, once you get things all together: Carcanos can be frighteningly accurate if they are in decent shape and like what they are being fed.
Have fun!
.
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- Not really sure.
Yeah I'v read online that these actions are pretty strong, one person stated he mistakenly loaded upwards of 90,000 psi loading through his and it withstood it with only a minor headspace increase.
While I'm positive it would fail horribly if continued to do so, the fact they can take hits like that without flying apart sounds pretty durable to me.
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