MOSCHETTO MODELLO 91/24

DEVELOPMENT

After WW1 ended, Italy was crippled by debt, guns were abundant and the war ministry spending was cut to a minimum, but colonial clashes kept going on, both in Lybia and on the Ethiopian border, so a constant flow of guns was required to pacify these areas.

To make the best out of this situation, the War ministry had to adopt some simple and yet effective measures: in a period where there were no money for brand new productions, the ministry resolved to convert old, useless and/or consumed Fucili mod.91 (often recovered from battlefields, other times abused by training sessions) into T.S. carbine configuration.

As we're going to see in the following paragraphs, this conversion soon turned out to not be really useful to recycle consumed rifles, as much as an effective and cheap way to get new TS carbines, far more useful and handy in the motorised columns of the colonial theaters than the bulky and abundant Fucile mod. 91.

Circolare n.59 29 Gennaio 1925
This ministry, after hearing the opinion of the respective tecnicians, has come to determine the adoption of a new kind of Moschetto mod. 91, obtained by the transformation of the Fucile mod. 91. Such Moschetto will be catalogued with the nomenclature "Moschetto mod. 91/24" and it may be used in whatever role the Mod.91TS is issued.
Circolare n.149 9 Aprile 1925
In order to make more practical and comfortable the carrying of the Moschetto mod.91/24 [...] especially when carried sideways on the back, this Ministry [...] decided to adopt a special "Side sling swivel", composed by a barrel band with a metal bar on its side, in order to substitute the regular bottom sling swivel used in both the Fucile 91 and Moschetto 91/24 barrel band, and by a metal bar with rolling tube of the Moschetto mod.91, that must be applied on the left side of the buttstock, as it is on the Moschetto mod.91.

The conversions happened with the following modifications (applied following the new, 1921 approved, T.S. carbines configuration):

​

• Cutting down the stock from the front end and from the rear (Moschetto stocks have a slightly shorter length of pull than Fucile's)

• Installing side sling swivels (often in pair with the old bottom sling swivels). Most of the new side sling swivels were steel bars protruding from the stock, but in some instances the old roller side sling swivels used in moschettos were applied. Both versions were placed further on the stock, away from the buttstock.

• Modifying the rear sight of the Fucile for the new barrel, adding a new notch on the slider blade and recalibrating the sights.

• Shortening the Fucile barrel while thinning it to accept the standard Fucile bayonet and the Fucile front sight ring. This shortening happened through several methods.

NdA: this first method is absolutely rare to find, I'm reporting it since it is written on reference books, but you'll find mostly Terni converted mod.91/24 following the second method.
 

• --- The first known method is to simply shorten the barrel by cutting off the front portion. The Army technicians knew that cutting a gaining twist long barrel wasn't good to stabylize the bullets to the correct rotation rate, causing terrible precision, so they also re-sleeved the barrels with the Salerno Method. It is estimated that less than 200 were converted in this way as it was considered too expensive and labor intensive for the project.