FUCILE MODELLO 1938
A note from the Author:
The Fucile Mod. 38 in 7.35 was called interchangeably "Fucile Mod.38" , "Fucile mod. 91/38" "Fucile Corto in 7,35", "Fucile Corto Mod.38" in the short span of time when the Army was distributing it to various units.
To ease the collector comprehension I went with the classical "Fucile Corto" (short rifle) terminology.
I'll also use "Mod.38" to indicate all guns in 7.35x51 and "Mod. 91/38" to indicate all guns with mod.38 features but produced in 6.5x52 after 1940, since that's the general consensus the Carcano collector world is trying to conform around.
DEVELOPMENT
As we discussed in the Moschetto T.S. and the 91/24 section, the Italian Royal Army learned several lessons from WW1 and from the subsequent Colonial clashes in Libya and along the ethiopian border:
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Long rifles were definetly too cumbersome and bulky to carry around, especially with motorized columns in a colonial theatre.
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The 6.5x52 round nosed bullet, despite having a good penetration and precision at long distances, lacked terminal ballistic in term of stopping power. Also, since most of the fighting were within 4-500m, this had to be taken into consideration for any new portable ordnance.
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The rifle didn't had anymore the same role it had in 1891, when entire infantry units were supposed to offer volley fire for direct confrontations, advance and to intedict enemy actions. Machineguns, mortars and other support weapons covered most of these tactical roles in the 1930s, leaving the rifle only to cover the LMG and for sharpshooting actions.
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Lack of trailed artillery pieces required an improved kind of "heavy" firepower on the tactical level (hence the Tromboncino mod.28 and the consequent light mortars were born)
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Infantry squads lacked decent firepower to offer cover while advancing (hence the Breda mod. 30 LMG/AR was adopted).
​In the 1920s bullet development for the 6,5x52 ammo were experimented, especially around a spitzer bullet, but this research didn't go over the experimental level. There was a clear need for a larger, spitzer bullet, possibly in 8mm, especially for the heavy machinegun role.
The heavy machinegun request was quickly solved by adopting the proprietary 8x59mm Breda, adopted in 1935 for the brand new Breda mod.37 HMG and for the converted Fiat mod.14/35 HMG.
For the standard issue infantry cartridge instead (whose purpose was to feed both infantry rifles/carbines and LMG) there was a specific planning ahead, in order to create the new round around the following requests:
- Improve the terminal ballistics qualities within 4-500 meters, using a lighter bullet calibrated for 7.5-8mm, fired out of a shorter barrel than the Fucile mod.91 had.
- Share as much specifications as possible with the 6.5x52 cartridge, in order to simplify production of new ammo and new guns and, if possible, to ease conversions of old guns. So the new round needed to share the same chambers, same rifle clips, same rim, etc.
The final result, obtained in 1937 after some years of study from Giuseppe Mainardi and the Research and Development branch of SMI (Società Metallurgica Italiana), was the best compromise out of this situation, the infamous 7.35x51.
Pressure and muzzle velocity wise, external ballistic was good, pretty similar to the 6.5 round thanks to a lighter bullet (123g against the 162 of 6.5), and a nitrocellulose load;
Terminal ballistic Was pretty efficient too, thanks to the larger, 7,65mm (.300") spitzer bullet and an alluminum tip over the lead core of the bullet.
The plan to implement this new bullet with the army was pretty interesting: The infantry squad tactics continued to be focused around two guns, a LMG (or Automatic Rifle) that was the already issued Breda mod. 30 converted to 7.35, and a standard bolt action rifle to all other squad members to offer covering fire. In addition to these, a semiautomatic rifle (that ended up to be the Armaguerra mod.39 rifle) was adopted to equip the best shooters of the squad (allegedly 3/4, NCO included), in order to exploit the 7.35x51 round in a sharpshooting role.
​The bolt action rifle, of course, was developed in 1937-1938 around the new round and adopted as the Fucile corto modello 1938.
One of the possible experimental prototypes toward the mod.38 may have recently emerged from the Terni warehouses. In fact, an "Extra Large" musket was found here, with interesting details:
- Barrel approximately 500mm long obtained from a 1936 mod.91 rifle
- Moschetto rear sight held in position with a barrel ring similar to the one used for the rear sight of mod.91 rifles
​- Elongated stock with a finger groove, almost identical to that used later in the mod.38 rifles.
The definitive version of Fucile corto mod.38, developed by Army ordnance engineers R. Boragine and F. Capaldo had the following characteristics:
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Intermediate length barrel, placing it at 536mm against the 780mm of the old Fucile and the 445mm of the Moschetto
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Constant twist rifling
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Rounded barrel shank, as the Moschettos were implementing slowly since 1935
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New proprietary stock, using side sling swivels and a buttplate with trapdoor to store the 3 pieces cleaning rod, taken directly from the Moschetto production.
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New fixed sights, zeroed at 200m, perfect for quick engagements and for the covering fire the squad was supposed to give;
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New folding bayonet, smaller and more practical than the old Saber-bayonets, that could be kept on the rifle at all times, with a specific slot in the rifle stock to fold the blade into.
PRODUCTION AND USE
​First batch of the Fucile mod. 38 was produced by the Terni arsenal: first 30k guns were produced with a longer stock and handguard, pretty similar proportion-wise to the one of early T.S. moschettos; the frontend was proprietary to this version; and it also had a longer cut in the bayonet lug for the stock screw that held it in position.
Beretta production apparently also used the early pattern stock for its UA batch.
The early pattern stock was soon swapped to the more known pattern we're familiar with today, with the shorter handguard, middle barrel band , longer front band, and bayonet lug with a simple hole to host the screw that keep it in place on the stock.
The formal reasons for this stock change are unknown, but In the authors' opinon this change is related to the long handguard being easy to crack, expensive to produce (finding wood that long can be expensive on mass productions) and the sling swivels being too distant from one another, making the moschetto slings used on these rifles quite tight when the rifle was carried sideways on the back.
This first batch was obtained completely by converting old Fucili mod.91, shortening and thinning the barrel, rounding the octagonal barrel shank, drilling the barrel to .295 (some sources say .298) and rifling it to .300, removing the old long regulable sights for the new short fixed ones, putting the front sights at the end of the shortened barrel.
Sometimes the rounding of the octagonal barrel shank didn't manage to remove completely the old markings, so several mod.38 rifles still bear the vestiges of the previous mod.91 barrel. Contrary to some source, these weren't restamped, but just too deep to be removed by the standard rounding process. Steel mills initials were often restamped, but only those.
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The practice of converting old, shot out Fucili kept on during the production of the Fucile corto mod. 38, so it's pretty usual to see old fainted writings on the barrel shank, belonging to the barrel donor.
Vestiges of the donor barrel markings can be found rather frequently on Mod.38 short rifles barrel shanks.
The Production of the new Fucile corto mod.38 was carried on by Terni, Gardone V.T., and by private firms like Beretta and FNA, that from the 1930s became assessments of the Italian arms industry, being involved in most Army contracts and productions.
​Total production numbers between 1938 and 1940 reached around 280k units.
Production was slowly "halted" in early 1940, when war became a more concrete issue for the Italian Army, that soon realized that the adoption of a brand new cartridge and a brand new set of guns in an already stretched economy (Italy basically lacked access to most of its previous foreign raw material sources since September 1939) was a dire strategy, both production and logistically wise.
That's why they decided to switch the production back to 6.5 guns, leading to the implemantation of the Fucile corto mod.91/38, basically the same gun calibrated for 6.5x52 and with the fixed sights zeroed to the standard 300m combat sights of previous carcanos.
Mod. 38 in Finnish Service
Trying to get as many 7.35 guns as far away as possible from their logistical lines, the Italian army and government made a deal to sell 100k 7.35 mod.38 rifles to Finland, desperately in need of arms to face the Winter War against the Soviet union.
The agreement was reached in February 1940: of these 100k guns, only 94.500 reached the Finnish territory, and only after the end of the Winter war (Germany, "honoring" the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, blocked several Italian shipments directed to Finland).
When the Continuation war broke out a year later, Finland put the M38 rifles to good use, arming the local population against soviet "partisans" and arming rear line units.
The Finnish Defense Ministry required the guns to be converted to a 100m (some source claim 150m) zero, by raising the front sight.
Apparently the Fucile corto wasn't really loved by the finnish soldier, mostly because:
- The Finnish soldier is heavily trained in sharp shooting, so m38's fixed siht were definetly a bummer.
​- 7.35 rounds sold to finland with the rifles weren't apparently up to specs (or badly stored), resulting in pretty poor performances on the field.
Finland's Defense Ministry in 1942-43 started studying an adjustable rear sight in order to update these guns.
But the continuation war ended before they could implement it in any substantial form, so they just kept the 74k rifles they had left in their inventories, until they sold them all to Interarms in 1957.
Mod. 38 in Italian Service
The rest of the M38 7.35 rifles left in Italy were mostly used in rear guard use, with local militias, for training, police actions and similar, but in general kept as much away as possible from the front lines and from the army supply lines.
Many were sent to East Africa, to arm militias and colonial troops.
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​These guns have a huge "Cal. 7.35" marking on their buttstocks' left side, in order to recognize at glance which gun is which (sorta similar to the huge "red nine" on 9mm c96s).
