[ Italian Balilla Youth Carbines ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today at Morphy's
taking a look at a pair of Italian
Balilla youth training blank-firing carbines.
There were several manufacturers of these,
and these two in particular were manufactured
by the Grazian Brothers of Verona.
Verona being a city in northern Italy
kind of in between Venice and Milan.
So these go back to the mid-1920s.
When Mussolini took over in Italy
he wanted to create a Fascist culture throughout all of Italian life.
And one of the things that he did to further that goal
was to basically shut down all youth groups, all youth organisations,
and replace them with one of his own, the ONB, the National Balilla Organisation.
Balilla is ... sort of the colloquial name for a historical figure, a kid,
who in 1746, allegedly, according to legend, launched a ... revolt against the Habsburgs in Genoa.
It got them kicked out of Genoa, retaken for the Genoese, and
a folk hero basically. And he was a little kid at the time that this took place.
So, if you're going to come up with the Italian fascist youth organisation
Balilla is ... an appropriate person to name it after.
Now ... it's very similar to Hitler Youth,
it's very similar to highly politicised Boy Scouts basically.
It was an organisation intended for boys aged 6 to 18.
There was a series of similar youth organisations for girls as well,
but they didn't have the military training aspect that the boy's organisation did.
Now these were intended for kids - I see varying numbers - up to age probably about 12.
... Basically you're going to do a variety of activities in this organisation,
and one of them is going to be learning how to handle a rifle and doing military drill.
Because this is intended to be your starter to eventually joining the Italian Army.
... But you don't necessarily want to be trying to instruct a battalion of 10 year olds with rifles.
So instead they gave them blank firing guns
that are in fact really highly detailed copies of actual 1891 Carcano carbines.
And that's what we see here today.
Now like I said, there were several different manufacturers, and these are both
Grazian Brothers manufactured.
So one early, one late, let's go ahead and take a closer look at them.
To put these in perspective, here are two Balillas,
and this is basically a standard pattern of the cavalry carbine that they're modelled after.
This is the M38 with a different sight, but
as for size, you can see the substantial difference in size.
They are however remarkably accurate copies of the real Carcano carbines.
Now these were designed to fire blanks, but they look like real cartridges.
So, unfortunately I don't have a clip or blank ammunition to show you,
that stuff is way scarcer to find than the actual guns.
But what they did was basically make a
similarly scaled down version of the Carcano clip and cartridge.
It only held 5 rounds instead of 6.
And what it was, was like a 4mm blank firing primer component
that was put into what looked like a scaled down 6.5 Carcano cartridge.
So it looks like a clip of ammunition, but they don't actually have a projectile.
The barrels on these are actually generally 6.5mm,
and rifled interestingly, despite being blank firing guns.
But ... the diameter of the fake bullet is 5.5mm.
So you see these referenced as either 6.5 or 5.5, .22 calibre.
And I should point out that there were some other patterns manufactured by other companies
that used for example 6mm Flobert, or other types of blanks.
So there's a variety of these.
To dig into the history a little bit more, the ONB, the
Balilla National Organisation was first formed in 1926.
These carbines didn't actually begin to be produced until 1931.
And the first ones were actually ordered from FNA Brescia,
and they would produce about 50,000 of them.
In 1932 a second major manufacturer was added, and that was the Grazian Brothers,
which is what we have here in today's examples.
And Grazian would make them starting in 1932 and running until, I believe, 1942 or '43.
In total Grazian made about 57,000 of them, and they were in fact the largest manufacturer.
And there are two distinct patterns that they made.
Their early ones have this lip at the back of the magazine well,
which the later guns, like this one, do not.
And I think part of the reason for this is that
on the early guns this was like a pot metal casting
that probably needed a little more material in it to be strong enough.
... They did have issues with these breaking,
and so they switched to a more traditional machined steel magazine well,
which no longer needed to have that extra material in it.
If we look at this up in a little more detail, we'll see a lot of similarities to standard Carcanos.
One of them being the flats on the barrel here are used to record
information about the manufacture of the gun.
So it's dated 1938 and XVI, XVI being 16, or the year of the Fascist Era in Italy.
And we have our manufacturer's name here, Grazian of Verona.
And then F.M.B. which I believe stands for patented rifle model in Italian.
Now originally these would have had a square ONB crest on them,
but in 1936 the ONB was replaced by the GIL, or Italian Littorio Youth.
Basically a separate organisation that did the same thing,
and this has that GIL crest because it is 1938.
So when this was manufactured, that was the organisation that it went to.
Now a lot of these also use a variety of bronze parts instead of steel.
And on this one in fact, almost all of this is bronze.
You can see in some of the wear on the corners, the bronze kind of peeks through.
These were all manufactured as what's colloquially known as the cavalry carbine,
the ... attached folding bayonet version of the Carcano.
And the bayonet is fully functional, it will lock out like so.
There are recognised safety hazards of handing a bunch of 12 year olds bayonets though,
and so the tips were rounded on these, so they're not quite so stabby.
The rear sights are actually marked and do function,
so you can flip this all the way forward for the ... so-called battle sight,
even though this is a blank-firing gun.
The idea was to train kids in operation and handling of what would eventually be real carbines.
And so no point in skimping on the sights, you want to teach them how to use the sights.
These Grazian pattern guns are actually serialised on the buttstock.
So we've got this nice wooden stock stamp that is "Fratelli Grazian",
or Grazian Brothers, Verona. This gun is serial number 33,900.
Our later example is very much the same in general, this is a 1941 production.
But it's got the same markings on the barrel ... flats.
This one is right at the end of production, serial number 56,898.
And this ... one also still has the GIL acceptance stamp on the opposite side.
Interesting to point out that on this 1941 late example
they actually didn't cut a sight notch in the ... ramp sight there,
although it does have the battle sight notch.
These were set up to use the same style of sling as the normal 1891 Carcanos.
Very remarkable to still have the original sling on this example,
that's something you don't normally find.
And ... this is actually stitched in place permanently.
So it is not removable unless you actually take out the sling swivels.
While Balilla carbines aren't exactly super-rare,
they are rather difficult to find in good condition like these two.
So I thought it would be a great opportunity to show you
what they look like sort of in proper condition,
and also be able to compare an early and a late one for you.
So, hopefully you guys enjoyed the video.
Thanks for watching.