Statement of Purpose This set of WWW pages is dedicated to the Carcano, the main Italian military longarms system from its initial design in 1891 (the ministerial adoption followed in 1892) to the end of World War II and and even longer. The project has been undertaken in order to provide a concentrated online reference to the Carcano, and to dispell a lot of erroneous and non-fact-based. The M1891/41 rifle was only manufactured at two arsenals, R.E. Terni (aka Terni, FAT) from 1941 to 1945 and Armaguerra Cremona from 1941 to 1944. Collector's Comments and Feedback: 1. Most of the Carcano 1891/41 rifles encountered on the surplus market today.
By Robert Jensen
Terni Carcano Rifle Serial Numbers
A seemingly odd fact has long puzzled me and other collectors of French and Italian rifles. Both nations had armies numbering over a million men in both World Wars I and II. These armies were predominantly infantry and infantrymen are armed with rifles - thus there were certainly over a million French and Italian rifles manufactured. Why, then, are French and Italian sniper rifles apparently absent from collections in this country and even pictures of their soldiers equipped with scope mounted rifles never seen. I have seen two different pictures of French snipers with scoped Lebel 86/93 rifles in trenches but have NEVER seen even one picture of an Italian soldier with a scope mounted rifle.
Dick Hobbs, in his book on the Carcano, states flatly that no telescopically equipped rifles were issued to the Italian Army. He based this statement on his thirty years of collecting data on Carcanos and the fact that he too had never even seen a photo of one in all that time.
Four years ago I was fortunate enough to finally purchase a Lebel sniper to give my collection a representive example of a French sniper rifle (see Issue 61 of the MRJ ) but still had yet to locate or even hear of an Italian example. Then it happened!
Carcano Serial Number Database
Carcano Serial Number Lookup
At the last Tulsa Gun Show a man came in carrying a rifle that his next-door neighbor had brought back from his service in W.W. II. It was stated that it came from North Africa and it was accompanied with an Italian pith helmet and a. Fascist Youth Honor Dagger. It was a Model 38 Cavalry carbine in 7.35mm caliber - quite a scarce rifle in itself and one I did not have in my collection. It was in excellent condition, matching, had beautiful bore, an original sling, and the two cleaning rods in the butt trap. Best of all, it had an optically perfect, Beretta made telescopic sniper scope in two left side rail mounted clamp type bases. The scope still had the original rubber eyecup. Could one ask for more? I was not at the show but a friend of mine was and he immediately bought the piece. Happily, he later sold it to me.