Quotulatiousness

July 7, 2022

M38 Carcano Carbine: Brilliant or Rubbish?

Filed under: History, Italy, Military, Weapons, WW1, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 1 Aug 2017

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Carcano vs K98k Match video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAyxL…

I would like to propose that the M38 Carcano short rifle was, despite the poor reputation of the Carcano series of rifles, one of the best thought-out bolt action weapons of World War 2. Why, you ask? Well, let’s consider …

Only a few nations actually recognized the short ranges at which combat actually took place. Germany was one, as seen with its 8x33mm cartridge development, and Italy was another. The sights on the M38 series of carbines were made as simple fixed notches, with no adjustments to be knocked out of place unintentionally. With a 200 meter zero (or 150 meters, with the Finnish replacement front sight), the weapon needed no adjustment to make hits out to 300 meters, which is as far as anyone could realistically engage a target.

The M38 is a light and handy weapon compared to its contemporaries — 8.1 pounds and 40.2 inches (3.7kg and 1.02m) — and it fired a significantly lighter cartridge as well. The 7.35x51mm round used a 128gr (8.3g) bullet at 2400-2500 fps (735-755 m/s) depending on barrel length. This produced noticeably less recoil than rounds like the .30-06 or 8mm Mauser, which made it easier for troops to shoot effectively. The Carcano also had a 6-round capacity and fed with Mannlicher type clips, which are potentially faster to load than Mauser-type stripper clips.

Today we will discuss the M38 and these features (along with its predecessor, the M91 rifle) as they appear on paper. At the same time, over on InRangeTV, today we have the first stage of a 2-Gun Action Challenge Match in which I am shooting this M38 Carcano against Karl, who is using a Mauser K98k – so we will see how the theory works out in the field!

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July 3, 2022

Model 1907/15 Berthier: The WW1 Standard Infantry Rifle

Filed under: France, History, Military, Weapons, WW1 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 24 Jul 2017

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When World War One broke out in 1914, France mobilized millions of men into military service — and it became abundantly clear that a lot of new rifles would need to be manufactured. The 1886 Lebel was no longer in production and was a slow rifle to make in any case — but the 1907 Colonial Berthier was being produced already, and was a more efficient design as well. By late 1914, plans were underway to drastically increase Berthier rifle production.

A few changes were made to the 1907 pattern, mainly changing the front end to accept the standard 1886 Lebel bayonet (“Rosalie”). After the first 80,000 had been made, the bolt handle was also changed from the bent carbine style to a heavier duty straight type. With these changes made, the Modele 07/15 was ready for mass adoption by the infantry, where it would serve side by side with the Lebel.

The primary manufacturer of 07/15 rifles was the St. Etienne arsenal, which build between 1.0 and 1.2 million of them by the spring of 1917. The Chatellerault arsenal produced another 436,000, and the Delauney Belleville automobile factory retooled its workshops to make rifles, producing another 170,000 of them. The Remington company in the US also took a contract to make 250,000 Berthier rifles, but was unable to meet the terms of the contract. Remington had taken on more wartime production work than it could handle, and failed to meet French quality and scheduling requirements. In August of 1916 that contract was cancelled, with just 9,440 rifles sent to France for use. The remaining 5,000-10,000 that had been made by Remington were sold on the commercial market in the US.

By 1916, it was clear that the 3-round capacity of the Berthier was a very real disadvantage (both tactically and psychologically) to the German Mauser rifles, and an upgrade program was put underway. This would ultimately become the 1916 pattern and would go into production in 1917.

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June 29, 2022

How to Identify a Real M1A1 Carbine vs a Fake

Filed under: History, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 10 Feb 2018

Looking for a light and compact weapon to equip its new Airborne units, the US military adopted the M1A1 Carbine in May of 1942. This was mechanically identical to the existing M1 Carbine but with a wire-frame side-folding stock in place of the standard wooden stock. This allowed the M1A1 to fit into a very handy leg bag for paratroops.

Deliveries began in October 1942, with all of the guns being manufactured by the Inland company. A total of 140,591 were made in two batches (71,000 between October 1942 and October 1943 and another 69,000 between April and December 1944). This is a very small fraction of the more than 6 million M1 Carbines made during the war, and the M1A1 has become quite notable and desirable for its association with elite Airborne units. As a result, reproduction and fake stocks abound, and are quite difficult to tell from original ones.

Today we are going to look at some of the specific features that can help you authenticate an M1A1 stock.

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June 25, 2022

Colonial Berthiers: 1902 Indochina and 1907 Senegalese

Filed under: Africa, Asia, France, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 21 Jul 2017

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The sharpshooters of the French colonial forces in Indochina (the Tirailleurs Indochinois) had never been issued Lebel rifles, and were still using single shot Gras rifles at the turn of the century. The Indochinese soldiers were rather short statured, and the Lebel was simply too long for them to use efficiently. The colonial government requested a special weapon for these men, and the result was the 1902 Berthier.

The Berthier carbine was much more compact than the Lebel, and it was also less expensive to manufacture and simpler to instruct troops with. So after some brief experimentation, a version was produced with a 25 inch (635mm) long barrel, which was a nice balance between the carbines and the Lebel rifle. In my opinion, the 1902 is the ideal size for a Berthier, and I think it handles best of all the different variations made.

An initial production run of 22,500 of these 1902 rifles was made by Chatellerault between 1902 and 1912. A second batch of about 25,000 more would be produced in the 1920s, but we will discuss these in a separate video, as they incorporated the 1916 upgrades.

With the successful implementation of the Berthier in the Indochinese colonial forces, it would stand out as an obvious solution for the need to upgrade the arms of France’s African colonial troops as well. These soldiers were not short, but also had outdated Gras rifles, and Lebel production was no longer active by 1907. As a result, a further lengthened Berthier was suggested for the Senegalese troops, with a barrel 31.5 inches (800mm) long; equal to that of the Lebel. This was accepted into service, and 25,000 were manufactured by Chatellerault between 1907 and the beginning of the Great War in 1914.

With the urgent need for more rifles because of World War One, the 1907 Berthier (renamed to the 1907 Colonial and issued to colonial troops besides just the Senegalese as of 1908) would attract the interest of the military because it was cheaper to manufacture than the Lebel, and still in active production. The result would be the 07/15 Berthier, which would become a dual standard infantry rifle alongside the 1886 Lebel in the war.

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June 22, 2022

Johnson M1941 Rifle

Filed under: Europe, History, Military, USA, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 3 Oct 2016

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Designed in 1936 by Melvin Johnson, the M1941 Johnson Automatic Rifle was a competitor to the M1 Garand, but not introduced in time to actually be adopted in place of the Garand. Instead, Johnson hoped to have his rifle accepted as a parallel second option for the US military in case something went wrong with the rollout of the Garand, or production simply couldn’t meet the required levels.

However, Johnson was not able to make his case to the military successfully. A small number of Johnson Light Machine Guns were acquired by the US Paramarines and the First Special Service Force, and a large order (30,000 rifles) was placed by the Dutch government for shipment to the colonies in southeast Asia (it is from this order that the M1941 designation comes). However, those colonies fell to the Japanese before a significant number of rifles were able to be shipped out. This left a substantial number of rifles orphaned in the US, and a small number of these were unofficially put in service by acquisitive Marines, mostly in the Pacific theater.

Mechanically, the Johnson is a short recoil system with a rotating bolt (very similar to the later AR-15 bolt, which Johnson would influence). It is chambered for the standard .30-06 cartridge, and feeds from a 10-round rotary fixed magazine which can be fed by stripper clips or with individual cartridges.

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June 18, 2022

M60: Its Purpose, Mechanics, and Development

Filed under: History, Military, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 25 Feb 2022

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June 15, 2022

Model 1892 Berthier Artillery Musketoon

Filed under: France, History, Military, Weapons, WW1 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 19 Jul 2017

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The original 1890 Berthier carbine was designed for cavalry, but a slightly modified version was produced (in small numbers) with a bayonet lug, for use by the Gendarmerie. In 1892, the French military would adopt that same carbine for use by an assortment of troops who were better suited with a carbine than a full size Lebel rifle. These included primarily artillery crews, but also engineers, messengers, drivers, and others.

The Modele 1892 Mousqueton d’Artillerie was basically identical to the 1890 cavalry carbine, including the same 3-round Mannlicher-type clip. It was put into production at both the St Etienne and Chatellerault factories, and by August of 1914 384,000 were in French inventory. By the time the improved 1916 model was put into production, a total of 675,000 of these carbines would be built.

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June 11, 2022

Gas Trap M1 Garand

Filed under: History, Military, USA, Weapons, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 29 Sep 2016

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The original design of the M1 Garand as adopted in 1936 used a “gas trap” system instead of a gas port drilled in the barrel. This system used a type of muzzle cap and false muzzle to redirect gas into the gas cylinder in the short distance between the end of the rifled barrel and when the bullet left the muzzle. The system worked, but was not ideal.

Several problems were found with the gas trap system as the guns went into production. These included cleaning complexity, an unstable front sight, and a potentially weak bayonet mounting point. Most significantly, however, one rifle in testing had a screw work loose in the muzzle cap, which allowed parts to shift out of alignment and resulted in a bullet striking the gas plug and blowing the entire assembly off the gun. This led to a decision to redesign the gas system of the M1 to use a simpler gas port drilled in the barrel.

When this design change was made, 18,000 rifles had been completed and parts were made for an additional 33,000. Those guns were completed with the available parts, and the new gas system was used for all further production. Gas trap M1s are very rare today because the guns were updated to the new system when they were overhauled during WWII, and in 1947 the Army ordered all remaining gas trap rifles destroyed.

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June 8, 2022

MAC 1950: Disassembly & History

Filed under: France, History, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 27 Feb 2017

Shooting the MAC 1950: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sduZ4…

The PA MAC 1950 (Pistolet Automatique Modele 1950) was the result of a 1946 French effort to standardize on a single military pistol. By the end of WWII, the French military had accumulated a mess of different pistols of French, Spanish, American, and German origin; officially using the Luger, P38, Mauser HSc, 1911 (and A1), 1935A, 1935S, Star, Ruby, and Model 1892 revolver.

Trials were held in 1950, although the outcome was predetermined — this pistol, designed by St Etienne and largely derived from the Model 1935S, was to be the next French military sidearm. A design from the SACM company was also tested, as was a commercially purchased SIG SP47/8, but this was for comparison sake only. In fact, the SIG was the best performer in the testing, with the St Etienne design suffering from cracked parts and durability problems. It would be improved, however, and deemed suitable for adoption by early 1951.

Production began in 1953 at the Chatellerault arsenal (hence the “MAC” name used in the US). All of 221,900 were made by Chatellerault until it was shut down in 1963, when production transferred to St Etienne, where another 120,000 would be made by 1978.

Mechanically, the gun is largely taken form the Browning 1911, with a few improvements. The recoil spring is of a captive design, and the fire control group is all built into a single easily replaced unit (similar to the Tokarev and the 1935S). It is single action only, with hammer-block and magazine safeties and a 9-round magazine of standard 9x19mm ammunition. It is still in French service, having proven to be a reliable and dependable weapon, if outdated by today’s standards.

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June 5, 2022

Winchester G30M

Filed under: History, Military, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 27 Jul 2016

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With the death of Jonathan “Ed” Browning in 1939, development of the Winchester G30 rifle was passed into the hands of a new employee at Winchester by the name of David Marshall Williams. Williams would become widely known as “Carbine” Williams in later years thanks to Jimmy Stewart and Hollywood, but we will get to that part of the story later.

What Williams did to the G30 was to replace Browning’s annular gas piston with his own short stroke tappet system (this being the first rifle to use that system of Williams’). This substantially improved the gun’s reliability, and Winchester was able to submit it to Marine Corps trials in 1940 alongside the Garand and Pedersen rifles under the designation G30M. The Marine Corps was legitimately interested in the G30M, as it was expected to be both faster and cheaper to manufacture than the Garand.

Ultimately the trials were won by the Garand, with the G30M placing third in total malfunctions and broken parts. This had involved 37 different tests and more than 12,000 rounds through each rifle. The Garand had 1,480 total malfunctions and 49 parts broken, replaced, or repaired. The Johnson had 1,547 and 72 respectively, and the G30M 2,864 and 97 (roughly double the number of problems as the Garand).

Despite this failure, Winchester was encouraged to continue working on the rifle, if for no other reason than the possibility of foreign purchasers. Williams’ next step would be to replace the Browning tilting bolt with a Garand-type rotating bolt, which would result in a rifle Winchester would call the M2, or “the seven and a half pound rifle”. We will examine that rifle in the next video …

June 2, 2022

M1915 Howell Automatic Rifle Enfield Conversion

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons, WW1 — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 28 Mar 2017

The M1915 Howell Automatic Rifle is a conversion of a standard No1 MkIII Lee Enfield rifle into a semi-automatic, through the addition of a gas piston onto the right side of the barrel. Despite its very steampunk appearance, the Howell is actually a quite simple conversion mechanically. The rifle action had not been modified at all, and a curved plate on the end of the gas piston is used to cycle the bolt up, back, forward, and down just as it would be done manually.

The additional metal elements added to the gun are there to prevent the shooter from inadvertently getting their hand or face in the path of the bolt. The crude tubular pistol grip is necessary because the shooter’s hand on the wrist of the stock would normally be in the path of the bolt’s travel. Note that the Parker-Hale bipod on this example is a non-military addition from its time in private ownership.

In addition to these elements, the Howell has been fitted with a 20-round extended magazine to better exploit its rate of fire. However, the Howell was made as a semiautomatic rifle only, and not fully automatic. It was offered to the British military circa 1915, but never put into service. Instead, the British would significantly increase production and deployment of Lewis light machine guns. Howell would offer his conversion in basically the same form to the military again at the onset of World War 2, but was again turned down.

Shooting the Howell was remarkably successful — I had expected it to be very malfunction-prone, but in fact it ran almost completely without fault. In retrospect, I would attribute this to the simplicity of its conversion, which made no changes to the feeding and extraction/ejection elements of the SMLE. The gun was a bit awkward to hold, and the offset sights left one with really no cheek weld at all, but recoil was gentle thanks to the gas system’s function and added weight. Quite a remarkable gun, and one I am very glad to have been able to shoot.

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May 28, 2022

Modele 1890 Berthier Cuirassier Carbine

Filed under: France, History, Military, Weapons, WW1 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 17 Jul 2017

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When the Modele 1890 Berthier carbine was adopted for the French cavalry, the decision was made to produce a special version for the Cuirassier troops. These were the elite heavy cavalry, equipped with steel breastplates and elaborate plumed helmets. They existed in that very brief window where the worlds of Napoleon and the smokeless-powder rifle coexisted.

The armor worn by the Cuirassier required some special adaptations to their firearms, specifically to the stocks. The scaled chinstrap of the helmet interfered with a normal cheek weld to the carbine, so the comb was removed from the stock. The metal buttplate also was a poor match for the metal cuirass, as it was difficult to hold the gun in position to aim. To account for this, a leather buttplate was used on these carbine, which would be much less slippery on armor.

Aside from these changes to the stock, the carbine was identical to the standard 1890 cavalry carbine. A total of 20,000 Cuirassier carbines were made in 1891 at the Chatellerault arsenal, and few survived World War One. By fairly early in 1915 the cavalry units had been repurposed as infantry, and the Cuirassier went into the trenches with the armor and carbines — perhaps better equipped, ironically, than the infantry in the greatcoats, kepis, and with Lebel rifles.

Thanks to Justin for finding this rifle for me!

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May 25, 2022

M1915 Villar Perosa

Filed under: History, Italy, Military, Weapons, WW1 — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 5 Aug 2016

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The Villar Perosa is one of the first small machine guns developed and used by a military force. It was designed in Italy and introduced in 1915 as an aircraft weapon, to be used in a flexible mount by an airplane’s observer. The gun consists of two independent firing actions mounted together. Each fires from an open bolt as a rate of 1200-1500 rounds/minute, feeding from a 25 round magazine of 9mm Glisenti cartridges. This allowed the maximum possible volume of fire in an aerial combat situation, where in 1915 ballistic power was not particularly important.

As aircraft armaments improved and synchronized, belt-fed machine guns became practical, the Villar Perosa was quickly made obsolete in aerial use. The Italian military experimented with several applications of the weapon in ground combat, including slings and belt fittings for walking fire, tripods, mounts with integral armor shields, and bicycle mounts. None of these proved particularly successful, as the elements that made the gun well adapted to early aerial use (high rate of fire with a small cartridge) made it relatively ineffective for infantry use.

Ultimately, the best use of the Villar Perosa was to break them up and convert the actions into shoulder-fired submachine guns. Designs to do this were developed by both the Beretta company and Villar Perosa themselves, and in 1918 these guns entered service in the same approximate period as the first German MP-18 submachine guns. Because of this recycling, intact M1915 Villar Perosa guns are quite rare today.

May 21, 2022

Ed Browning’s Winchester G30 Prototypes

Filed under: History, Military, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 25 Jul 2016

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After Jonathan Edward “Ed” Browning had his 1929 rifle dropped from US military testing, he took the design back to his shop in Utah and kept working on it. By 1938 he had made enough improvements that he was ready to present the gun to Winchester, hoping they would be interested in purchasing the design. Specifically, he redesigned the receiver to move much of the bolt travel into the wrist of the stock, shortening the action. He also replaced the short recoil action with an annular gas piston. He made two sample rifles, one in military configuration and one in sporting configuration.

Winchester was looking for a self-loading rifle to market at the time, because they could see that war in Europe appeared to be imminent. They had been caught without a military rifle of their own during World War One, and did not want to be in that situation again. They thought that Ed Browning’s design showed merit, so they agreed to purchase it, and brought Browning onboard to help continue development.

With Winchester’s resources, it was possible to make the guns more professionally. Winchester designated the rifle the G30, and we have one of the examples made by Winchester in the video as well.

The tilting bolt mechanism took inspiration from John Moses Browning’s 1911 pistol, and the trigger housing bears an interesting resemblance to that of the French Berthier rifles (which may or may not be coincidental). The rifles appear to have worked reasonably well, although the annular gas piston was a hindrance which Browning apparently was unwilling to abandon. With his death in 1939, the project moved on to a new phase with David Marshall Williams taking on the job of improving it.

May 18, 2022

L119A2: The New British SOF Rifle

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 24 Jan 2022

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Around 2013, the UK MoD began looking for a new rifle to replace the Special Forces’ L119A1. Those A1 rifles were getting old, and something new was needed — and there was some thought that a new rifle could improve on some shortcomings of the A1 model. The new rifle was produced by Colt Canada (formerly Diemaco), and it was procured in both 10″ and 15.7″ barrel lengths (note that the rifle in this video has a 16″ barrel to avoid being an SBR).

The most distinctive feature of the new L119A2 was the licensed LMT monolithic upper receiver. This was used because it allowed solid mounting of devices like lasers on the side rails. However, it had major shortcomings in terms of heat retention and cleanability. The A2 also now used a MagPul CTR stock, and Geissele triggers (an excellent improvement from the A1’s MILSPEC trigger). The same Surefire suppressors were used, as were the optics from the A1s — the new A2 tender did not include new optics (nor funding for them).

Very few photos are known showing the L119A2. It came into service around 2016 or 2017, and entered public awareness after Christian Craighead was photographed using one in the Nairobi Westlands mall siege in 2019.

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