Quality of steel in Italian Carcano's

[Rex in OTZ]

I found some sketchey info on Czech steel used for carcano production and royalties paid the czech's for a certin propritary type used. any information of when this occured the quantites and the #'s produced in each type, I could see where war time shortages of key mineral's in steel production would lead to certin production runs being perfictly suitable for 6.5 but those peace time production rifles would be more robust from a metalurgical standpoint are what I would like to know about, both the model 91 & carbine I have were WWI production and appeard crude by comparrision to the 1930's mfg models I was able to inspect.

[Rex in OTZ]

  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.

[Moleman]

Interesting tidbit.   I only have one Carcano and it is one of the ones Cooey imported and sporterized after WWI.  Mine was missing the barrel when it came to me and I'm waiting for reasonably priced barrel blanks to be available again for a rebarrel to perhaps 7.62x39.   

[Rex in OTZ]

A SMLE rifle barrel will work,  front of the .303 British  chamber uses the same angles as the 7.62combloc, ream the freebore short as stubby 7.62x39 slugs have a hard time transitioning the gap ment for longer heavier bullets, the trim barrel back and set headspace.
Some conversions used Enfield P-14 barrels.
Then again a threaded reducer trunion with a AK/Sks barrel pinned in place is another alternative.
One alternative was rebarreling to .35 Remington.

[Moleman]

Funny you mentioned the 35rem.  It's the other top runner followed by 357Max.    Don't have any 30 or 358 blanks that are big enough and don't want to do a stub job.  The modified milspec stock has the old style sporter look to it so I was thinking a half round half octagon barrel would look neat. That'll require a 1.2"ish  blank though.
  Have SS 44 blanks which I've seen 44 mag conversions done.  Only other blanks are 4140 .375" blanks.  I was wanting to keep it in a rimless caliber that has available factory ammo.   Tried to backorder some inexpensive gunsmith blanks from Green Mountain coming up on a year ago and was put on a list to be notified.  Keep checking but no luck so far. Likely going to call again to add more blanks to the list including for the carcano since the action isn't in the best shape no need to throw money at it with a more expensive blank.