A decade with a 6.5X52mm Carcano
By Jeff Brown
Back in December 2009 I bought a 1941 vintage 6.5X52mm Carcano service rifle. Originally built at the Italian government arnsenal Fabbrica Armi di Terni (FAT for short) it was then sporterised by Parker Hale in the UK and subsequently sent to the colonies. To be honest it is not something I would have ever considered purchasing but the price was right, I needed a new shooting project and it was Christmas. Combine these justifications with me being a cast bullet crank and a sucker for ugly ducklings the deed was done and the rifle went home with me: I mean, who else was going to buy it?
The rifle ex factory started life with a 27.2 inch long barrel. Parker Hale shortened this to 22 inches for a sporting configuration. Rifling is 4 grooves, right hand twist, one turn in 21.5cm or 1 in 8.5 inches. Earlier rifles the likes of the Model 1891 had a gain twist barrel starting at a comparatively slow twist of 1 turn in 57.85cm at the breech and 1 turn in 20.15cm at the muzzle (1 in 22.78 inches and 1 in 7.93 inches). By amputating the tube from the front accuracy was destroyed as insufficient twist remained to stabilise bullets so many sporterised rifles were ruined in an attempt to shorten them. On my rifle Parker Hale replaced the front sight, after shortening the barrel, with a ramp base carrying an excellent Lee Enfield front sight blade but the issue rear sight with its very deep V remained and makes for a challenging sight picture.
Carcanos have taken a fair amount of criticism over the years; some justified, a lot not so much. OK, they are not very refined; my action is far from smooth but it operates just as it should and as mentioned already the rear sight has a very deep V that is hard to get a consistent sight picture with but with practice works just fine. In addition the rear sight adjustments are in increments of 100 only so no fine settings are possible as can be achieved on a SMLE or ’03 Springfield but one should always remember we are talking about a military infantry rifle not a target rig. Action strength has been called into question and for the life of me I can’t figure out why as the Nazis rebarreled some Carcanos to 8X57mm without issue and would most certainly not have done so if the action was not robust enough. A lack of accuracy has been levelled at the rifles over the years also. Basically, accuracy issues can be attributed to one factor; undersized bullets. The 6.5X52mm shoots a .268 bullet and not the typical .264 we are subject commercially and of course .268 inch bullets are not readily available (Hornady made them for a while) UNLESS you are cast bullet crank. Justified detractions are the split bridge action that does not lend itself to ease of scope mounting (but it is an infantry rifle), en bloc ammo clips without which the rifle cannot be fed (fair call) and odd ball bore size (applicable to jacketed bullets). Look, you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear and neither should you expect to. The rifles are what they are.
The rifle ex factory started life with a 27.2 inch long barrel. Parker Hale shortened this to 22 inches for a sporting configuration. Rifling is 4 grooves, right hand twist, one turn in 21.5cm or 1 in 8.5 inches. Earlier rifles the likes of the Model 1891 had a gain twist barrel starting at a comparatively slow twist of 1 turn in 57.85cm at the breech and 1 turn in 20.15cm at the muzzle (1 in 22.78 inches and 1 in 7.93 inches). By amputating the tube from the front accuracy was destroyed as insufficient twist remained to stabilise bullets so many sporterised rifles were ruined in an attempt to shorten them. On my rifle Parker Hale replaced the front sight, after shortening the barrel, with a ramp base carrying an excellent Lee Enfield front sight blade but the issue rear sight with its very deep V remained and makes for a challenging sight picture.
Carcanos have taken a fair amount of criticism over the years; some justified, a lot not so much. OK, they are not very refined; my action is far from smooth but it operates just as it should and as mentioned already the rear sight has a very deep V that is hard to get a consistent sight picture with but with practice works just fine. In addition the rear sight adjustments are in increments of 100 only so no fine settings are possible as can be achieved on a SMLE or ’03 Springfield but one should always remember we are talking about a military infantry rifle not a target rig. Action strength has been called into question and for the life of me I can’t figure out why as the Nazis rebarreled some Carcanos to 8X57mm without issue and would most certainly not have done so if the action was not robust enough. A lack of accuracy has been levelled at the rifles over the years also. Basically, accuracy issues can be attributed to one factor; undersized bullets. The 6.5X52mm shoots a .268 bullet and not the typical .264 we are subject commercially and of course .268 inch bullets are not readily available (Hornady made them for a while) UNLESS you are cast bullet crank. Justified detractions are the split bridge action that does not lend itself to ease of scope mounting (but it is an infantry rifle), en bloc ammo clips without which the rifle cannot be fed (fair call) and odd ball bore size (applicable to jacketed bullets). Look, you can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear and neither should you expect to. The rifles are what they are.
Left to right: Lyman 280468, NOE 269-145, Lee Cruise Missile. All 50m55y range.
In order to get myself up and running with the rifle I had to source brass, dies and a mould. Brass and dies were straight forward but care had to be taken sourcing a suitable mould to allow for the long throat that measures .269 inch diameter. At the time most 6.5mm moulds were cut to produce bullets of .266-.268 so I bought the Lee ‘Cruise Missile’ mould casting at 0.270-.271 inch and throwing a 170gr bullet that would allow me to size to .269 inch to fit my rifle. The mould started life as a group buy on the Boolits forum and was christened the ‘Cruise Missile’ (CM) due to its OAL of 1.25 inches. It’s like a pencil. Subsequent shooting with the CM showed it was very accurate BUT left oval holes in the paper suggesting it would not super stable in flight. I dubbed this “wobbly bottom syndrome”. This trait is universally reported by all owners in all cartridges. It shoots straight but leaves oval holes. All initial shooting was done with the CM until some time later Al Nelson at NOE starting knocking out some 6.5mm patterns and I ordered an aluminium three cavity mould in his magnificent 269-145 design. Later still I happened across a double cavity Lyman 280468 designed for the .270 Win and bought that on the basis that it might size down for the Carcano and shoot well. It did and I wrote up a blog article on the CBA site in February 2017 about sizing the 280468 from .280 down to .268 with success.
Over a decade I have done an awful lot of shooting with the rifle using all three bullets and the accompanying table lays out all my experiments warts and all. A few observations have been made along the way and are as follows:
Over a decade I have done an awful lot of shooting with the rifle using all three bullets and the accompanying table lays out all my experiments warts and all. A few observations have been made along the way and are as follows:
1) Sizing to .269 to match the throat made for tight chambering of loaded rounds and further tests with bullets sized to .268 proved just as accurate.
2) Factory dies size brass unnecessarily and make for short case life causing split necks. Factory dies are ground to size necks to hold .264 bullets. My fired brass measures .271 I.D., when passed through the dies is squeezed down to .262 I.D. and then expanded back to .268 I.D. for my cast bullets. That’s a huge amount of work on the brass and to achieve a reasonable case life I have to anneal my PRVI brass after EVERY firing.
3) GC material appears not to make any significant difference to accuracy. Superb (2 MOA) accuracy has been achieved shooting Hornady commercial checks along with homemade versions fashioned from aluminium, copper and brass.
4) Definite velocity barriers exist for different alloys and these are directly proportional to the BHN of the alloy. This is down to the 8.5 inch twist and the amount of load that this fast pitch puts on the bullet. Air cooled clip on wheel weight tops out at 1500fps in my rifle. Above that and groups open up rapidly. Alloys of 13-15 BHN (nominal No 2 alloy) will handle up to 1700fps, maybe 1800fps, but to achieve 1800fps and beyond linotype hardness of 20 BHN+ is required. For plinking and target shooting hard alloy is not an issue. For hunting it is an and zero expansion can be relied upon with super hard alloy and as 6.5mm bullets have little frontal area to cause tissue damage and velocities are limited to the mid teen range I strongly advocate for bullets with a well designed hollow point to aid with terminal performance.
5) A crimp is sometimes beneficial to fine accuracy and particularly so when burning slower powders the likes of H4350 (AR2209) topped off with inert filled. Faster powder such as Alliant 2400 appear not so dependent on a crimp and often results showed a crimp to be detrimental to accuracy.
6) Primers made not significant difference in any given load. Remington 9 ½ and CCI 200 primers performed the same. Potentially using a Winchester or magnum primer with W748 may have improved groups as ball powders tend to like a hotter light.
7) Highest velocities with the heavier bullets was achieved with slow burning powder. This is to be expected.
8) Nose first sizing of the CM when cast in softer alloy eg: ACWW is preferred to avoid the potential of bending the very long bullet when sizing base first in a Lyman/RCBS style lubesizer.
I should note that all my shooting over the years has been using the iron sights on the rifle or more recently with the SeeAll sight I install in 2018 on my return from a visit to the USA. See blog write up February 2019. At no time has a telescopic sight been utilised and as such I consider 2 MOA accuracy to be very satisfactory when considered the rifle is not epoxy or pillar bedded but as it left the factory.
NOTE: Neither the author nor Cast Bullet Association Inc. accept responsibility for use of the following data. Use at own risk. ***DATA***
2) Factory dies size brass unnecessarily and make for short case life causing split necks. Factory dies are ground to size necks to hold .264 bullets. My fired brass measures .271 I.D., when passed through the dies is squeezed down to .262 I.D. and then expanded back to .268 I.D. for my cast bullets. That’s a huge amount of work on the brass and to achieve a reasonable case life I have to anneal my PRVI brass after EVERY firing.
3) GC material appears not to make any significant difference to accuracy. Superb (2 MOA) accuracy has been achieved shooting Hornady commercial checks along with homemade versions fashioned from aluminium, copper and brass.
4) Definite velocity barriers exist for different alloys and these are directly proportional to the BHN of the alloy. This is down to the 8.5 inch twist and the amount of load that this fast pitch puts on the bullet. Air cooled clip on wheel weight tops out at 1500fps in my rifle. Above that and groups open up rapidly. Alloys of 13-15 BHN (nominal No 2 alloy) will handle up to 1700fps, maybe 1800fps, but to achieve 1800fps and beyond linotype hardness of 20 BHN+ is required. For plinking and target shooting hard alloy is not an issue. For hunting it is an and zero expansion can be relied upon with super hard alloy and as 6.5mm bullets have little frontal area to cause tissue damage and velocities are limited to the mid teen range I strongly advocate for bullets with a well designed hollow point to aid with terminal performance.
5) A crimp is sometimes beneficial to fine accuracy and particularly so when burning slower powders the likes of H4350 (AR2209) topped off with inert filled. Faster powder such as Alliant 2400 appear not so dependent on a crimp and often results showed a crimp to be detrimental to accuracy.
6) Primers made not significant difference in any given load. Remington 9 ½ and CCI 200 primers performed the same. Potentially using a Winchester or magnum primer with W748 may have improved groups as ball powders tend to like a hotter light.
7) Highest velocities with the heavier bullets was achieved with slow burning powder. This is to be expected.
8) Nose first sizing of the CM when cast in softer alloy eg: ACWW is preferred to avoid the potential of bending the very long bullet when sizing base first in a Lyman/RCBS style lubesizer.
I should note that all my shooting over the years has been using the iron sights on the rifle or more recently with the SeeAll sight I install in 2018 on my return from a visit to the USA. See blog write up February 2019. At no time has a telescopic sight been utilised and as such I consider 2 MOA accuracy to be very satisfactory when considered the rifle is not epoxy or pillar bedded but as it left the factory.
NOTE: Neither the author nor Cast Bullet Association Inc. accept responsibility for use of the following data. Use at own risk. ***DATA***
