The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

I noticed that Kirklees Guns had some old ex military 6.5 Carcano in stock so I went and bought 50 rounds. It came in a 50 round brown cardboard box. I looked this up and found that this brown box stuff was put together when the Italians cleaned out their arsenals of the 6.5 ammunition. On checking the headstamps I have 27 different headstamps from 4 different arsenals. There are various years from 1924 to 1949. So, an almost instant Italian ammunition collection. This is not suitable for firing as the primers will have failed by now. I can't even pull the bullets and use the cases as the primers the Italians used were a non standard size of .204 that only they used and is not available. A little something to add to the collection. Regards
Peter.

You are correct that the primers are probably mostly dead by now.
I had several hundred rounds of mixed vintages for my M91 Carcano and decanted the Solonite charges and bullets into PPU brass with good results. The bullets are the correct .2665 diameter not .268 as is commonly thought. ukrifleman