119 year old Carcano comes back to life

majspud

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I picked this up this past January. I got one shot out of it before the extractor broke and the hand guard broke in half. It was a harder fix than I thought as the first generation M91 Carcanos have the extractor running through one of the bolt lugs. It took a few months to find a donor bolt body and a hand guard; the original is held together in three pieces by Gorilla Glue and is suitable for display only. On this one I had to mend a 1.5 inch crack with super glue and it held up fine.

Sunny, 56 degrees, and VERY windy. So windy several plastic chairs and a trash can had been blown over on the range line. At my club we use binder clamps to hold a side of cardboard box between two Nylon lines. Even with 4 clamps, the target was oscillating up and down - it looked like a sail.

Shot 34 rounds of PRVI FMJ and FMJ/SP. Rifle shoots VERY high from POA; about 3 feet. I wound up aiming on the grass below the target at 100 yards. Only 4 hits in the black, but a dozen hits on the cardboard. Contrary to its 'exceptional accuracy' stamp, to hit center mass you would have to aim at the enemy's knees!

A lot of character to this rifle; bolt MM and force match stock. The stock has a half dozen chunks replaced with glue and tree nails. The cleaning rod is only for show; a 10" from a TS/38. This one needs a 29.5 inch rod. Found one on eBay for $150 buy-it-now, but I only paid $200 for the rifle in the first place. Nice feel and probably a lot of history. Cycled and ejected with no problem, save I had to really push a couple rounds into battery and close the bolt early on. No problems when we had warmed up.

Any help getting a cleaning rod to complete it would be greatly appreciated!

Original post here:

http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?422267-An-Old-War-Horse

T
 

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I think Carcano's sites are calibrated for 200yards? Meters? How about adding a small piece of heat shrink tubing to the front site to get a 100 yard Zero?
 
the battle sight on the is like most any "battle zero... its going to favor a hit out to X yards with out changing hold or sight settings.
so if all is st up right a carcarno 91 would be 300 meters or 328 yards which puts you bout 12" high of POA at 100 yard.
 
Reminds me I need to take the Finn M39 to the range. I don't think I have shot it since replacing the sights with the higher front and the peep rear. It was probably close to 12" high at 100 yards.
 
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