#Italian

The Beretta M12, with its variants, has over 60 years of history, and it’s one of the most iconic SMG models in Europe. Recently Beretta gave it an heir with the more modern PMX. The book by Carlo Canterini “From the Beretta M12 Machine Gun to the PMX” details this journey.

A couple of years ago we had a look at a few different semiautomatic pistols pursuing the reduction of the bore height over the hand. Among several commercial models, we saw a couple of promising prototypes from different periods. While these were highly innovative, they still kept a relatively traditional configuration. What we have here is a novel approach to muzzle rise reduction, developed over the course of several years by an Italian inventor.

Franchi has introduced a new bolt action rifle to the US market. It is called Momentum. Earlier Franchi released a very similar rifle called Horizon. Momentum has some minor differences like a fluted bolt shaft. Most likely, Momentum is the designation of the Horizon rifles exported to the USA.

In March of 1963, a man named Lee Harvey Oswald purchased an M38 Carcano rifle and some quantity of ammunition from Klein’s Sporting Goods in Chicago. Oswald would later use this rifle and ammunition (or so the official narrative goes) to assassinate the then- President of the United States John F. Kennedy on November 22nd, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.

By this point, it’s impossible to hide my affinity for early selfloading rifles, and today we have another great video from Forgotten Weapons on an early Italian model that made it all the way to adoption. Though the program was cancelled before it could be produced, the Armaguerra Model 1939 rifle is still an important piece of Italian firearms history. You can learn more about it in Ian’s video embedded below:

These days, it’s easy to forget that once upon a time at the dawn of the smokeless powder era there was a huge variety of bolt-action repeating rifles being developed to re-arm the military powers of the world. While the Mauser 98 and its progeny eventually took the world by storm, in the early days of repeating bolt actions rifles like the Krag–Jørgensen, Mannlicher, and Belgian Mauser competed on the world stage for contracts.

Italian gunmaker Breda was at the show with a modest booth, showing off their new 930i sporting clays shotgun. Breda’s representative explained that the goal of the shotgun was to create a semi automatic sporting clays shotgun that could compete and win out of the box, with no modifications or customization.

This week, C&Rsenal takes a look at the Italian Bodeo revolver, an interesting transitional type that served all the way through the 1960s.

Previously, we looked at the Breda Model 39, an Italian rifle that competed against what would become the Beretta BM-59 in a bid to be the Italian military rifle of the 1950s and ’60s. TFB friend Trevor Weston sends along more photos of three Italian rifles that are not well known today. The first two are Beretta-made licensed-produced copies of the 7.62mm  SG 510-4 rifle, the more conventional one being the first Chilean contract rifle of 13,000 made by the company for that country. The other is a Beretta-made “improvement” of the 510, called the BL-62, with a combined buttstock and pistol grip.

Trevor Weston sends us more information on obscure Italian prototypes, this time two general purpose machine guns design by Breda. Trevor’s contact Vic Tuff writes:

Royal Armouries’ Trevor Weston recently sent me an email with some details relayed to him about a little-known Italian rifle from the 1950s, the Breda Model 39. This firearm was apparently intended to compete with what would become the BM59, among other weapons trialed by the Italians at the time, but stands out as having a very “commercial” appearance, with a classical shaped, fully-encased receiver reminiscent of a Winchester or Remington shotgun. Everything I know about this firearm comes from my email conversations with Trevor, in which he relayed information from one of his sources to me:

InRange TV has tackled the Arsenal Strike One in a new shooting review available on Full30. The relatively new, and certainly unique polymer framed double stack full-size handgun impressed Ian and Karl, despite some early issues. While Full30 does not apparently allow embedding, Ian has posted a “trailer” for the review on the ForgottenWeapons YouTube page: