Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we have reached the last chapter
in our story of the development of the Carcano rifle.
This is the Model of 41, or Model of 91/41.
This came about ... sort of as a reaction to the use of the M38 short rifles.
If you didn't see last week's video on the M38, I strongly suggest you take a look at it.
I think it is one of the most effective, most efficient rifle designs of World War Two.
It acknowledged a lot of the simplification, and a lot of the limitations of infantry rifle use that I think are eminently practical.
However, clearly someone or some group of people in the Italian military didn't share that opinion,
because they reintroduced the Model 41.
Now this originated as the Model of 1940, which was only done developmentally, only prototypes made.
And it ... was essentially the same rifle but with a different rear sight
that was a five position notch sight with a little adjustment dial on the side, went from 100 out to 500 metres.
Not a bad idea.
If you're going to want extended range, and there are arguments to be made that perhaps the Italian military was looking at
the initial combat in North Africa towards the beginning of World War Two and saying,
"Wow, you know, we thought that this idea of just no one's ever going to shoot past 200 metres is fine, but
out there in North Africa there's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of metres of available range,
maybe we do need a rifle that can exploit that."
Of course these were ... not produced in time to actually take part in conflict in North Africa, but.
They initially developed this rear sight that was out to 500 metres, ... five different notches. It's not a bad system.
However, they dropped that system, and instead decided to use the rear sight directly off the earlier Carcano 91 carbine.
So they ended up with a rear sight that has a 200 metre battle zero, and then can be adjusted out to 1,000.
Which is still well beyond the capabilities of basically anyone using one of these rifles.
Anyway, they did shorten the rifles a little bit from M91 length.
Here's ... a 91, this is a whopping 3.5 half inches shorter.
Not really all that significant.
But these did go into production, and so let's take a closer look.
They did make a couple of accommodations to the modernisation from the M38, so I'll show you those.
The action on the M41 is identical to all the previous Carcanos.
The only change they really made was to change this, and simplify the barrel shank geometry a little bit,
just into sort of more of a smooth conical shape.
You'll remember from the early rifles, the M91s ... had flats milled into the back of the barrel there for markings and such.
They've simplified that a fair amount.
They reverted back to a straight bolt handle instead of the bent bolt of the M38 series.
And of course we have this carbine rear sight on here.
So you can see the maximum range out there is 10, minimum is 300, (10 being 1,000 metres).
And you just push in the button and flip this around.
If you flip it all the way forward, you have a separate rear notch that is a 200 metre battle sight zero.
The front sight is just a very simple windage adjustable blade.
There ... are a small number of these that were milled for a front sight hood.
There is still some debate about exactly what that was intended for,
no original Italian front sight hoods have ever been located.
Standard German Kar98k front sight hoods do not fit, but G33/41s do fit.
So, that's the fact of the matter. What the implication is I don't know, and I'm not going to speculate on it.
The nose cap was simplified a bit.
On the earlier M91s the nose cap is actually threaded to retain the cleaning rod right here.
On the M41s they've gotten rid of that, this is just a little wider section here to fit snug.
But the threading is at the end of the cleaning rod, and it threads into a lug down in the bottom of the stock.
In case you're wondering, this example is an earlier Century import.
I don't know if there will end up being any of these that come out of the big stash of rifles that's imported out of Ethiopia.
It would kind of make sense if there wasn't, given that the M41 was never actively used in Ethiopia.
It didn't start to see combat service until after the Italians had been removed from Ethiopia.
So maybe some ended up there, but probably not in the quantities of the earlier models.
One accommodation that was made to practicality with the M41
was the use of both a sling bar and a sling swivel on the bottom.
So that if you're going to carry this over the shoulder, like typical infantry,
you had a bottom mounted sling swivel to do so with.
And if you wanted to carry it across your back like cavalry, you have a sling bar in the side.
And the barrel band is set up the same way, so it's got a swivel on the bottom and it's got a fixed bar on the side.
This particular example was made at Terni, "FAT" is Fabbrica d’Armi di Terni,
or something that sounds vaguely like that.
42 is the production date, so you'll find these 41, 42 and 43.
Armaguerra markings are rather different, I don't have an example here to show you of those. ...
The serial numbers all are four digits with a prefix letter.
They started with A, and when they got to Z (this example is R, by the way there, if you can't read it),
when they got to Z they then started over again with a double prefix letter.
So after Z comes AA and then AB and then AC, and so on.
There is no calibre marking on these rifles, unlike the M38s.
However, all of these are in 6.5mm.
This didn't enter production until after the unfortunate experiment with 7.35 had ended.
So there never was a 7.35 version, and ... they didn't see any reason to mark them.
There was never a 7.35 long rifle of any kind in fact.
Unfortunately, the stock cartouche on this one is so worn as to be illegible,
but you will sometimes find these with ... refurbishment markings. So you may find them marked by the armoury in Rome.
You may find them with post-war dates on the stock, because a lot of these were refurbished and reused after the war.
Production of the Model 41 began in, you guessed it, in 1941, and they were made at two separate factories.
They were made at the Terni Arsenal, and they were also made up in northern Italy at Armaguerra.
The Terni Arsenal was severely damaged by an Allied bombing raid in August of 1943,
and that effectively ended production of the Model 41 there.
And of course the Kingdom of Italy would sign an armistice just a month later in September of '43 and change sides.
When that happened German forces occupied as much of northern Italy as they could to maintain the second front there,
and they did take possession of the Armaguerra factory.
So production continued at Armaguerra under German leadership until well into 1944.
Probably using, definitely parts, and probably tooling evacuated from
the damaged Terni facilities before the Armistice was signed.
So you'll find these with both production codes.
You will find ... pictures of these being used by a variety of German units.
They had access to the factory, they needed small arms, and they did issue out Model 41 Carcanos to some troops.
Generally not front-line troops, but they would be things like police units and that sort of thing.
In general these rifles ... in Italian hands were used in the Balkans and probably in Russia.
They didn't so much go over to the western side of the theatre.
A lot of them appeared to have ended up actually in warehouses
and never actually issued out before the end of the war.
And a bunch of these were imported into the US after World War Two, many decades ago.
So, I think it's ... really interesting that the Italians created what I think is the best, the most thought out,
practical, infantry rifle of the war with the M38. And then immediately slid back to this.
So they made a few accommodations, they shortened it a little bit, but
given the option between an M38 and one of these, I would take the M38 without any real hesitation.
I think it's really just a better configuration of rifle.
Anyway, hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
I have a number of other videos on some much scarcer sub-variants of Carcanos.
If you're interested, there's a whole playlist on Italian firearms as well. So check out some of those,
and thanks for watching.
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