Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we are taking a look
at another example of an early
Italian prototype semi-automatic rifle.
Now, this is actually a prototype select-fire rifle,
this is a Breda ... Model PG.
This was developed by an Italian designer, obviously, by the name of Sestilio Fiorini.
And these were manufactured by the Breda Company from 1931 to about 1937.
They didn't make very many and they only, as far as I can tell, had two clients.
They sold some of them to the Italian government,
and they sold some of them to the Costa Rican government, kind of interesting there.
Now the ones that were sold to the Italians were semi-automatic rifles, pretty simple.
And these actually fire from an open bolt which makes them kind of interesting.
The Italians had more than a few prototype open-bolt semi-auto rifles.
The Scotti ... Model X is another example of that.
The Italian rifles of course were in 6.5mm Carcano.
And they were part of this large batch of guns that was tested by the Italian military in the 1930s.
They were interested in finding a semi-automatic rifle.
They ultimately adopted the Armaguerra Model of 1939,
but were never really able to put it into production because of World War Two.
However Breda was also able to sell a batch of these guns to Costa Rica.
And what's particularly interesting about the Costa Rican guns is those are semi-automatic,
and also have the option for a 4-round burst fire mechanism.
They don't have the ability to fire unlimited full-auto.
The safety selector on one like this is safe, semi-automatic, and 4-round burst only.
And as far as I can tell, I think that these are the first rifles
actually equipped with a burst limiting feature like that.
So they're pretty interesting, and beyond that ... the rest of the mechanics are also very interesting.
It's an open bolt gun, it has a vertically travelling kind of odd style of bolt.
It has an annular gas piston system.
In fact that's what "PG" stands for, "Presa Gas", or gas operated.
So in total about 800 of these were made for Costa Rica.
And then a couple of hundred for Italy, I don't know exact numbers.
But the Italian rifles that got into troop trials, they generally manufactured 200 or 250.
There may have been a few more of the Bredas, but I don't have exact numbers on those.
They are, of course, quite rare today.
So without further ado, let's dig into this one and see how it works.
First things first, we have the markings here on the top of the receiver,
or actually on top of the receiver cover.
Government of Costa Rica. It is ... an automatic carbine, Breda Model PG,
serial number 328, and then manufactured in Rome in 1935.
That ... Roman numeral 13 is 1935 expressed as the Era of the Fascist Regime in Italy
which started in 1922.
Then we also have a number 69 up here.
And the reason for that is the factory assembly number of this rifle was 69,
and then its Costa Rican inventory number is 328.
So when we look inside the gun you'll see 69 on all of the parts.
The sights are of the standard Italian model.
So we have a rear sight that goes up to 1,600 metres.
And this is the battle sight position with this notch all the way forward.
To alter it you push this button in, and then you can rotate the sight around.
The front sight is a rounded blade, mounted ... actually on a gas system cover.
So we'll pull that off in a moment.
The safety catch is back here, this is the 4-round burst position.
This is semi-automatic.
And you can see that the trigger drops into this shape of the safety for semi-automatic.
And then that is safe, which just physically blocks the trigger entirely.
The magazine catch is external, relatively similar to ... the French MAS 49 series.
There is a magazine catch here on the side of the magazine, short little feed lips on the back.
That locks into place.
And yes, for some somewhat inexplicable reason
it has these big huge cutouts in the magazine body.
Great for telling how much ammo you have,
not so great if you're going to have this near mud or dirt.
It's Costa Rica, it's a jungle, what could go wrong?
An interesting element of the PG that you'll notice when you handle it
is that it actually has a pretty short buttstock, ... it's a bit awkward to handle.
You have a low comb and a short buttstock, so the gun is kind of crowding back on you.
And the grip is not the most comfortable with the trigger relatively far forward of the wrist.
So a bit awkward to hold, I'm not sure how this would handle in firing a 4-round burst of 7mm Mauser.
... Which, by the way, is the calibre for the Costa Rican guns.
The Italian ones were in 6.5 Carcano, the Costa Rican export model was 7mm Mauser.
One last interesting element to note on the outside of the gun is this trapdoor.
Which I can push that back, open this up, and I now have access to the recoil spring.
Push that in, and I can actually disconnect the recoil spring
from the outside without disassembling the gun.
Why is that important? Well, we'll take a look at that in a moment when we pull it apart.
So the PG uses an annular gas piston which wraps around the barrel.
And it looks like it's a gas trap design, it actually has a muzzle cover much like a gas trap system,
but it does actually have gas ports drilled in the barrel.
So we'll start our disassembly by pulling this latch down.
We can rotate this around and remove it.
So you can see the gas ports right there,
1, 2, 3 and 4 of them, equally spaced around the barrel.
Then this ... well, we'll pull that apart in a moment.
You see the four lugs there that lock onto the barrel to hold this in place.
Next we have to remove the nose cap, and that requires taking out this screw.
There's that.
The nose cap comes off, and it has that retention spring on it.
With the nose cap off, now we can take off the external gas cylinder cover,
which has the front sight mounted to it.
In order to do that, really the easiest way is to first loosen the upper handguard and this band.
So we'll do that.
... That comes forward.
Then I can pull the handguard forward ...
and off. That's pretty simple, just a handguard there.
Now you can see this gas cylinder cover,
which is locked in place on the little tab back here.
But I can't take this ... band off until I have the cover out.
We'll pull that off the front of the system.
Then I can take the band off.
Now at this point you can actually see the gas piston itself, which is this corrugated piece.
Gas pressure is going to come out through these ports,
hit the front face of this, and push backwards.
That's going to connect to a series of operating arms here.
Which eventually connect all the way back to the bolt assembly.
Moving on with disassembly, we now need to take the receiver cover off.
That is going to begin with unlocking this latch.
That comes down, and then this whole receiver cover assembly
can slide backwards, and off the gun.
It's held in place by a couple of little tabs back here,
as well as these wings on the front.
Now we'll take the trigger guard off.
Which involves two locking screws, and then two standard screws.
The screw is out, now the trigger guard can come off.
We'll touch on this in a moment.
Now the stock can come off.
Next step is to remove the recoil spring.
It is a captive piece, that makes it handy.
Now before we can take the bolt out, we have to take this buffer off the back.
Once the dust cover is off that just slides out.
You see a spring right in there, this is just a heavy buffer
to absorb the last bit of movement of the bolt.
Then the bolt can come out.
Pull it all the way to the back, and then the bolt handle comes out as a cross pin.
And the bolt and bolt body slide out the back.
With the bolt removed we can then pull the guide rods off.
... The gas piston comes off the front.
It has three lugs here on the barrel
that run in these three slots in the piston that control its movement.
And the op rod comes off.
And two hours into the work, you're done disassembling.
And it is an open bolt gun, you can see that when it locks the firing pin protrudes through.
The firing pin itself is in the back here.
That's the firing pin, kind of an unusual shape.
And it is locked into the bolt by the bolt handle cross pin.
So as soon as it's all the way forward, it protrudes through and fires.
With the firing pin out, we can take the bolt head and the bolt body apart.
A quick note while we have this apart like this,
there is a Breda logo on the top of the receiver,
as well as a serial number here which you can't see when the dust cover is in place.
Now one of the most interesting elements of this is its 4-shot burst mechanism.
And the way this works is with
a set of two ratcheting gear wheels inside the fire control group.
As the gun fires, every time the ... bolt cycles back it's going to push this lever down.
This is our sear, this is what's actually firing the gun.
So when I pull the trigger the sear drops.
And there's a semi-auto disconnector, so if the trigger is pulled all the way back,
it fires in semi-auto.
That's why for the burst mechanism, right here,
the safety actually locks the trigger from going all the way back.
What that does is it allows you to pull the trigger this far
to drop the sear and let the bolt go forward.
But it doesn't allow you to pull the trigger far enough back
to trigger the disconnector and re-engage the sear.
In semi-auto mode, like that,
you can pull the trigger all the way back and only fire single shots.
Now as you're firing, each time the bolt comes back it pushes this lever down.
That lever cycles both of these wheels.
So the back wheel ... has one tooth for each shot.
The front wheel only has one tooth for every four shots,
which is what makes this a 4-shot burst.
When that four-shot tooth engages,
the force on this lever inside the receiver gets much greater.
And what it's actually doing is tripping the disconnect as well,
which you can see, this arm right down here.
So on the fourth round, right there, this lever goes down
and that re-engages the sear and stops the gun from firing.
It doesn't happen on the first three, but when I get to that fourth one it does. ...
Now like ... the early M16 burst mechanism,
this does require you to hold the trigger down for the entire burst.
If you put it in burst mode and then ... release the trigger after you fire two shots,
the next time you go to fire a burst it will only fire two
because ... the four-shot ratchet only cycles when the gun fires.
What makes this a bit less of a really clever burst mechanism is the fact
that the burst wheels are cycling every time the gun cycles, whether it's in semi or burst.
So if you're shooting this a lot in semi-auto, and then you go to switch to burst,
you have no idea what position this burst counter is in
because it cycles in semi-auto as well.
So your first burst could be anything from 1 round to 4 rounds,
and you'll only find out by holding the trigger down.
After that you'll get 4 rounds each time, but the first one is going to be a surprise.
One other interesting feature of the design here with the magazine
is that the magazine itself only has very short feed lips in the back.
And that's just to retain ammunition in the magazine.
The front half of the feed system is machined into the receiver.
And that was presumably done because magazines
are much more fragile than an element inside the gun.
And so having delicate feed lips on the front of the magazine
presents a serious potential for malfunctions.
And to get rid of those it's helpful to put
... these ... potentially delicate surfaces inside the receiver itself.
But you still want to have enough on the magazine to retain cartridges,
so they split it in half on this design.
On the trigger guard, in addition to the safety down here which is just a pivoting thing,
(all the safety does is control travel of the trigger),
but we do also have this which is a magazine hold open.
So when the magazine is empty, this lifts up.
This bar comes up through the bottom of the receiver and locks the bolt open.
That hold open is controlled by that little tab on the back of the follower.
That's how it's going to operate.
So we have a dust cover here to close off this whole action,
which is a very good thing because there's a lot of open space in there.
When I cycle the action, it will lock the dust cover open on this rear latch.
Now it also locks the bolt open because it is an open-bolt firing gun.
Pull the trigger, bolt drops.
And you can see how it travels in the downward position.
And then as it locks, the bolt lifts up, the firing pin then protrudes,
fires the cartridge, and the bolt comes back open again.
In safe of course it doesn't fire.
And in semi-auto here, when I run it again it locks open.
I have to release the trigger to fire another shot.
However, if I put it into burst mode, now the trigger only comes far enough back to drop the sear,
not far enough to actually trigger the disconnector.
And on some random shot on the first burst, in this case on the third shot, the bolt locks open.
Then I can release trigger, pull it again, I get one, two, three, four, and then it locks open.
Now if I put it into semi-auto, ... fire two shots, and go back to burst,
now I should get a two-round burst ... just like that.
So that burst cyclic counter is always counting in there,
whether you're in semi or burst ... functionality.
So that's probably part of the reason why this burst counter didn't really take off
is ... if you're going to get a 4-round burst, you want a 4-round burst every time.
So with this we have yet another look
at some of the interesting Italian style of early semi-automatic firearms.
It's pretty cool to take a look at this, especially in comparison
to the other guns that were being produced at the same time by Scotti and Beretta,
and all of the other major Italian arms manufacturers.
So if you're interested in the subject, I have a series of other videos on Italian prototypes
including some from the Beretta Archive research library.
Definitely make sure to check those out.
And if you enjoy seeing this sort of thing on the internet,
consider taking a look at my Patreon page.
It's support from folks there at a buck a month that makes it possible for me to travel
and find guns like this original Costa Rican Breda PG and bring them to you.
Thanks for watching.