Carcano Ammunition - Reloading

Also included here are some hints regarding reloading for the Carcano.

• Cases (aka brass)
• Primers
• Bullets
• Powder

Primers

Italian military cases use a Berdan primer of 0.204" (5.18mm) diameter.
Boxer primed cases typically use a Large Rifle (0.210 inch/5.33mm) primer.

Primer Type	Example Sources
Berdan	RWS, Hirtenberger, Sako, Sellier & Bellot.
Boxer	Winchester, Remington, Federal, CCI.

Note: the use of "magnum" primers is dictated by the specific powder being used. Unless specified, standard primers should be used.

Powders

Military Brass

• They are berdan primed, must thus be deprimed in an extra step.
• The brass often may have become brittle due to natural age hardening (brass ages quickly - be very wary) and/or may have been subjected to interior galvanic corrosion (the brass of the case against steel jacketed bullets). Consequences can (but need not) be dire for shooter and gun, since the Carcano action is not overly apt to handle gas escapes.
• The military cases have an inside step about at the shoulder/neck junction, which is used to control the bullet seating depth. This impedes the passage of an expander ball (How have other reloaders dealt with this problem? Do you just size the outside of the neck?).

Resizing Cases From Other Calibers

• Is it possible to form 7.35x51 Carcano cartridge cases from 6.5x52 Carcano cartridge cases?
• Why fire forming?

The answer to the second question, why fire form is more subtle. Although it is possible to cold form 7.35x51 Carcano cartridge cases from 6.5x52 Carcano cases using dies, the cold forming process work hardens the the neck area of the cartridge, which may result in premature failure of the cartridge. This would require annealing to removed the induced stresses. Cold forming also requires an investment in a set of dies for this purpose. When fire forming, your 7.35x51 Carcano chambered gun becomes the hot-forming die, something you should already have otherwise this whole exercise is moot. The resulting cartridge uniquely fits your rifle.

Do not fire a loaded 6.5x52 Carcano round in a gun chambered for 7.35x51 Carcano, as damage to the barrel rifling may result! A 6.5x52 Carcano round will fit into a chamber of a 7.35x51 Carcano chambered gun and can be fired, as most of the critical dimensions of the 6.5x52 Carcano round are the same or smaller than the 7.35x51 Carcano round. However, the 6.5mm round will be unsupported in the 7.35's barrel and will slap along the rifling.

Instructions for fireforming 7.35x51 Carcano brass from 6.5x52 Carcano brass.

1. Prime an empty 6.5x52 Carcano brass cartridge.
2. Load with 35-40 grains of powder. The type and quantity is not really important, as we are not capping the cartridge with a bullet.
3. Cap the cartridge with a ball of bread. The bread will prevent the powder from spilling, long enough to fire the round.
4. Fire the round in a 7.35x51 Carcano chambered gun. The pressures will cause the 6.5x52 Carcano brass to conform to the dimensions of the 7.35x51 Carcano chamber.
5. Resize the round in a reloading die. This will size the neck to nominal dimensions.
6. Trim the length of the cartridge to a nominal 51.35mm (2.022 inch) up to a maximum of 51.50mm (2.027 inch).

At this point you have fire-formed 7.35x51 Carcano ready for loading as a standard round.

Converting Military Berdan Primed Cases To Boxer Primed Cases

Note from Gaetano Liberatore:
Please note that cartridge brass tends to get more brittle with age. We are dealing with 55+ year old, military surplus brass here! Resizing the primer pocket does have disadvantages in that you are thining the depth of the web. The original Berdan primer is not as deep as a standard Large Rifle Boxer primer. In addition, you have the one or two original Berdan flash holes in addition to the added Boxer flash hole. These serve to weaken the web. Careful judgement and observation must be used when loading for such converted brass.

Bullets

• Bullet diameters:
  Finding the right bullet for your Carcano can be a chore in itself. Many complaints about inaccuracy are due to undersize bullets rather than to the guns. One must keep in mind that the usual mainstream "6,5 mm" bullets (6.70mm = .264") are almost always undersize for the wider groove diameter of Carcano rifles, which can measure as much as 6.80 mm (.269"). This can lead to gas blowby (unless the bullet obturates enough to expand in the bore) and will generally decrease accuracy. The Carcano is not alone with the characteristic of having a oversize bore, as other contemporaries of the 6.5x52 Carcano, such as the 6.5x53R Mannlicher (Dutch/Romanian) and the 6.5x54 Mannlicher-Schönauer, require "oversize" bullets.
  In order to avoid this, it is necessary that you slug your bore (or have it slugged) and choose bullets in the fitting size among the resource list of this webpage. WARNING: Since such a procedure can and will lead to a wider case neck diameter in the loaded cartridge, it is mandatory that one measure the case neck to ensure that it conforms to CIP specifications. If a dummy cartridge (which you will wisely have loaded for this checking purpose: no primer, no powder) shows an excessive neck width, you must turn the outside necks appropriately thinner. Otherwise, one would incur dangerously high pressures build-up because the case neck cannot expand wide enough to release the bullet swiftly.
  This also holds true for 7,35 x 51 rifles with tight barrels (as can be indicated by the small "Tiro a Segno Nazionale" stamp on barrel or stock: two crossed rifles superimposed by a bullseye target): they may need a .298" bullet. Using .300" bullets can, together with thicker case necks, give noticeable overpressure and subsequent extraction failure, as I have experienced. Be careful to have your barrel slugged before deciding on bullet diameter, just as with 6,5x52 Carcano rifles.
• Bullet Weights:
  Just about any commercially available bullet weight will work with any Carcano with the exception of the M91/24 Moschetto T.S. The M91/24 Moschetto T.S. was made by cutting down the barrels of M91 Fucile. This would not have been a problem except that the M91 uses gain rate rifling. Simply put, the the twist rate of the rifling is not as great at the chamber end as it was at the muzzle end ... the rifling twists more as the bullet travels down the barrel. As a result of cutting off the section of barrel off with the greatest twist rate, military standard weight bullets (162 gr.) do not receive enough angular velocity to be stabilized. Dave Emary of Hornady has witnessed standard weight bullets going through targets sideways at 25 yards! He suggests a bullet of no heavier than 100 or so grains for this application. The military standard bullet weight for a 7.35x52 Carcano round is 128 gr.

Lee dies:

• The included shell holder #2 is far too large for the smaller Carcano base. It is absolutely intolerable that a reloading equipment manufacturer should propose the same shell holder for cartridges as dimensionally different at their base and rim as a 8x57IS and a 6.5x52 Carcano. This results, not infrequently, in torn-off base rims. Use a RCBS shell holder instead!
• The seating die bullet hole is designed for undersized and unsuitable 6.70mm (.264") bullets. When one tries to seat the truly fitting and adequate Carcano bullets (e.g., 6.75-6.77mm, as made by Moloc), they jam in the seating die. Another annoying quirk. However, Lee can, on special order, custom size the seating die to suit.

Cartridge preparation

• Case trim length:
  Be aware that the 7.35mm specifications allow only for 51.5mm maximum case length, in contrast to 6.5 mm cases with their maximum case length of 52.5mm.
• Bullet Seating depth:
  The 6.5x52's throat is designed to accomodate the original heavy (and long) round nose bullets, thus has a lot of freebore. This characteristic limits the choice of bullets; lighter bullets will have too much free travel to be accurate (not necessarily so, but is true in many cases). Throat erosion is not uncommon, either, especially with older Carcanos, and may dictate a further setting out of the bullet, depending upon one's individual gun. Just keep in mind that a Stoney Point Gauge or a comparable instrument won't show correct seating depth figures unless you use it with the exact bullet diameter you would employ later (thus, trying to determine seating depth with a 6.70mm/.264" bullet insert would be foolish).
• Shoulder setback and headspacing:
  It has been our and Dick Hobbs' impression that Carcanos with too tight a headspace are actually more common than the reverse (too much), contrary to what one might expect. (GL: This appears to be due to an inconsistancy between the Italian military and SAAMI/CIP GO headspace specification, as the Italian military spec appears to allow for a shorter GO than SAAMI/CIP). In such a case, one may be wishing either
  • to exchange the bolt (body) against a better fitting one, or
  • to set back the shoulder of new cases sufficiently.
  The former choice may be preferable, but it does alters the originality of the gun. Since Carcano parts are generally not numbered (with exception for some late WW I "Roma" and some very early bolts), this is not a visible impairment. However, providing a "spare" bolt for shooting seems preferable to exchanging it permanently. Just mark both as belonging to the individual gun, as to avoid confusions.