Steel in Carcano rifles
Original steel specs for Carcano rifles (Bolt especially) required Poldi special steel from Kladno in upper Bohemia (then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.)...The Name comes from a contraction of "Leopoldina", the wife of Karl Wittgenstein, a German family of Steelmakers and entrepreneurs (with many famous connections, amongst them the 20th century Philosopher, Wittgenstien); the original name of "Leopoldina-Hutte" became with time, simply "Poldi" of Kladno. Poldi was still in business when the new state of Czecho-slovakia was formed,(1919) and supplied steel for the manufacture of both Mauser (Vz24 etc) rifles and ZB26 type LMGs (The British copied the Poldi specs when making their own Bren Gun Steel.). The Germans, after 1939, utilised Poldi steel, as did the Eastern Bloc after 1948.
The Communist Enterprise was "privatised" in 1989, and almost was bankrupted in 1998; it was saved by a German Steelmaker, and now (much re-structured) again supplies special steels to the European market. Poldi steel is still used for quality gun-barrels, and some say it exceeds the famous "Krupp-laufStahl" in quality and performance.
The connections between steel works and arms manufacturers transcended Political and National boundaries...see the links between Vickers-Maxim, Krupp & DWM, between Vickers-Armstrong and Odero-Terni-Orlando in Italy; and so on. technology and supplies were cross-traded, (cartels), and everybody made money by competition for the customers...Countries such as China had as many Krupp guns and warships as they did of Vickers-Armstrong (Same with Turkey)...it just depended on who gave the better "deal" at the moment...
Search Google for many articles under "Poldi Kladno" (avoiding the majority which refer to Hockey and other Sporting teams). Some articles are in Czech, the majority in English.
The Kladno area is just about 20 km west of Prague, and developed in the mid-1800s as a major steel making and industrial area. It is now like Pittsburgh USA, a "Rust-belt" city, struggling to re-invent itself with modern, efficient industries.