Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "Forgotten Weapons" channel.

  1. A reminder that you have to be careful in removing safeties.
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  2.  @johnstacy7902  Easily done, since 6.5 Carcano and 7.62X39 cartridges have practically the same dimensions of the base. Back when the 7.62X39 were hard to obtain in the west and there were plenty of surplus Carcano ammos, 7.62X39 cartridges were made by necking down and reforming Carcano brass.
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  3. The Finns actually worsened the sights, asking for them to be zeroed at 100m instead of 200m before the rifles being delivered. That way they were practicaly useless past 150m, well into combat distance.
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  4.  @sthenzel  The Beretta was made to shoot the super-hot m38 cartridge (around 20% hotter than the standard 9X19), so to shoot standard Parabellum rounds is pure relax for the action.
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  5. Infact. Folded it becomes an utility knife.
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  6. It's the equivalent of the M1 carbine, but made mantaining the full blown cartridge. Something the US had been unable to do.
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  7. 1911 design is pickier than people tend to think of. Even in .45 as long as tolerancies start to reach "modern day handguns" level, the design starts to became less reliable with some kind of ammunition. Fine-tuning it for 10mm is even harder.
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  8.  @Cyan_Nightingale  To economically make BM59 you have first to have M1 Garand receivers to convert. Otherwise to machine a new receiver is out of this world compared to a G3 or a FAL. Beretta could make BM59 for the Italian Army because it received one of the two production lines for the M1 Garand (that of Winchester) and a ton of spare parts already produced (that's why many Beretta made BM59 have the original Winchester and Springfield markings). But in itself the BM59 is a great battle rifle. Easily the most controllable of the four in full auto. Easily the one with the best magazine (and it was straight in, not rock and lock) and the most complete out of the box (select fire, bipod, grenade launcher, winter trigger, muzzle brake). The problem was that it was a battle rifle, not an assoult rifle, but that was in common with the G3, FAL, M14...
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  9.  @stealthnoid  the 7.62X51 was what the NATO selected and used. The competitors to the BM59 were the M14, FAL, G3 and AR10, all in 7.62X51 period. It doesnt' have any sense to say that the BM59 was outdated in respect to something that couldn't exist in the west. The 5.56X45 was standardized as NATO cartridge ONLY IN 1980.
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  10.  @stealthnoid  Sorry, but you switched your argument. "Italian military individual weapons has been outdated until '90." is not "NATO military individual weapons has been outdated until '90". BTW the early studies on intermediate cartridges (IE for the Terni 1921) came from the experiences of thrench warfare and the need of automatic fire to clear trenches. When the Germans adopted the STG44 they already passed from fighting in the steppe to the forests of eastern Europe. The US switch to the M16 was due to the forests of Vietnam. In Afghanistan the GIs often found themself outranged with the M4, and had to dust off some M14. As a result of the perceived shortcomings of the 5.56 NATO, the US Army had just adopted another battle rifle, the SIG Spear. To me it's a mistake. The Spear has almost all the damning defects of the M14, and some more, but that demonstrates that the question had not been settled yet.
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  11.  @stealthnoid  It's not in opposition. It's only an elegant way to switch argument. Because if the argument was that battle rifles were outdated it would have been "battle rifles were outdated", not "Italian military individual weapons has been outdated until '90." if someone wants to say that gasoline cars are obsolete, doesn't say "Jason Smith's car is obsolete". And no. GIs were not amazed at all. The M16 had an atrocious reliability in Vietnam, due to the poor choice of the ammo's propellant. Still in the '80s the general opinion was that the M16 was a lemon. As already said: "the early studies on intermediate cartridges (IE for the Terni 1921) came from the experiences of thrench warfare and the need of automatic fire to clear trenches. When the Germans adopted the STG44 they already passed from fighting in the steppe to the forests of eastern Europe. The US switch to the M16 was due to the forests of Vietnam. In Afghanistan the GIs often found themself outranged with the M4, and had to dust off some M14. As a result of the perceived shortcomings of the 5.56 NATO, THE US ARMY HAD JUST ADOPTED ANOTHER BATTLE RIFLE IN A CARTRIDGE THAT'S MORE POWERFUL THAN THE 7.62 NATO, THE SIG SPEAR. To me it's a mistake. The Spear has almost all the damning defects of the M14, and some more, but that demonstrates that the question had not been settled yet." Can you get it?
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  12.  @stealthnoid  Put it how you want and invent any story about the M16 you want if that makes you feel more comfortable, but not pretend to sell it to others.
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  13. The water cooled HMGs of the time had the advantage of weight. Like in contemporary factory tools, the mechanic was so overbuilt in respect to the work they had to do that there were really few things that could go wrong. They worked until there were bullets and water. The Hotchkiss' mechanic was as reliable, but it was air cooled, so it could overheat. But it was not all peaches and dandelions for water cooled MGs. The weight prevented them to be used as offensive weapons, and the exposed water jacket was a liability. A bullet, or a splinter, on it, and the MG became useless, because the barrel was too thin to resist to more than few dozen of rounds without water.
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  14. Didn't you watch the video? The LF-57 came out first.
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  15. You can walk around it being rimmed and too much tapered, but why chose it over ammos that have the same power whithout being rimmed or too tapered?
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  16. It's not even that lefties-unfriendly. They only have to operate the charging handle from above. The important part is to perform all the recharging operation with the firing hand.
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  17.  @lobsterbark  They gain MUCH for the barrel lenght. In this case 13,5" vs. 19", 5.5" difference.
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  18.  @LilSwinney  The Canadians could have required to use their own ammos, had they thought they were necessary for their rifles to work. It was not like they had no say in the matter, but, as already said, "Canadian experts said the chamber of the Ross was already large enough to take the new British ammunition in a pinch, and the tighter fit could only increase accuracy anyway". If they didn't tell the Brits their rifles were useless without their ammunitions, are them the idiots, not the Brits.
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  19.  @LilSwinney  Canada is not exactly surrounded by the United Kingdom, and the Brits desperately needed the Canadian support, not the contrary. UK was not in position to impose anything, nor taxes, nor conscription, nor tariffs (they needed any ounce of materials from abroad, and they would have imposed tariffs? LOL!) nor they could intern some hundred of thousands of Canadian soldiers depriving the front of them (during WWI? Please...). Had the Canadians tought their ammos were useful to keep their rifles working, they could have easily kept them. Unfortunately they didn't "Canadian experts said the chamber of the Ross was already large enough to take the new British ammunition in a pinch, and the tighter fit could only increase accuracy anyway".
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  20. They used in WWII.
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  21. No, Breda was the surname of the founder of the company, Ernesto Breda. There are several "Breda" town in Italy (IE, Breda Di Piave).
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  22.  @JohnDoe-nf7up  "We have a trusted and true design that anyone wants and commands incredible prices on the used market. We just need to put it in production as is". "Yeah but, out of nostalgia goggles, the original trigger group was not that good." "Right! We are Colt. Now we can make it way worse!".
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  23. Why? The clones hardly prevent Beretta from selling any gun (they are aimed to a lower market segment), while the existence of the clones testifies of the soundness of the design.
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  24. It's a specific problem of this sample, not a general one.
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  25. All the known pictures when the particular can be seen, all the surviving samples, and even some rusted sample found with a metal detector, show the safety still in place.
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  26. The italian three grades were "Figli della Lupa" (sons of the she-wolf), 6-8 years old, "Balilla" 9-14 years old, and "avanguardista" (vanguard) 15-18 years old.
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  27. Other than being spitzers (so ineherently more unstable in the body than round nose bullets like the 6.5 the Italians used up until that moment) the 7.35 Italian rounds, under the jacket, had an alluminium tip and a lead tail. That moved the center of gravity further back, ensuing the tumbling of the bullet into che flesh.
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  28. Infact the P7A13 didn't even reach the cost comparison phase of the trial. It was eliminated because it fared atrociously in the reliability tests.
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  29. Mind that it's a long recoil weapon. The brass is ejected only by the spring tension when the barrel is pushed forward.
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  30. Yeah. The fin on the bolt carrier is only a further safety, that the tray can't move as long as the bolt is forward. That was probably needed because the loader can insert the trays one after the other (so with the one he had in hand pushing the one firing) and he could have been too energic.
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  31.  @Never_heart  During WWII the Italians used 6.5 ammos, that didn't even use the same propellant of the 7.35 that supposedly had reliability issues (and that for some reason alredy became "super unreliable").
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  32. You messed up the chronology. Italy signed an armistice. After italy signed an armistice, the Germans occupied as much Italian territory as they could, and seized Italian army's equipment. Then, since the Germans had became an occupation army, Italy declared war to Germany. Italian armistice is Sept. 8 1943. Italian war declaration to Germany is Oct. 13 1943. More than a month later.
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  33. It won WWI It's more "How to know you’re on the losing side of a war: you’re issued a Mauser"
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  34. The first samples were real rifles, in 6mm Flobert or .22 Short. Then it was deemed too dangerous, and they were made blanks, but the barrles were probably never changed.
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  35. It occurred pretty often back then, IE for aerial torpedoes.
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  36. It's not really a problem of reliability. It's that the cost of the conversion was not really that much lower than that of a new rifle to justify it's adoption instead of a brand new rifle.
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  37. Actually the manufacturing standard and the machining of that gun, like that of any Breda made gun, is no less than perfect. You can question the design, but the realization is outstanding.
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  38. Infact that sight was only for field use, and was developed cause the weapon was intended to be used with a shield, the round plate was integral part of the protection and the "hole sight" was the only opening on the shield. On the aircrafts the round plate was not used, and a traditional circular "crosshair" round sight was adopted. Despite what's usually said, the Villar Perosa was not designed to be an MG for aircrafts. It had always be intended to be an infantry weapon. Only the first 350 samples produced were given to the aviation (that, at that time, was a branch of the army), cause the army wanted the manufacturer to be ready for mass production first to introduce it on the field.
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  39. I can see a lot of stovepipes with that relatively small eject window so far from the actual chamber. Apart from that, it seems a well tought design, with a remarkably low bore-axis.
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  40. No, cause there is the "out of battery" safety.
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  41. The Armaguerra 39 was adopted, but too late to be produced in numbers.
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  42. It's comparable to the Italian Navy adopting the Mauser C96 in 1899 (first large contract for that gun). While it took to the Army another 11 years to adopt a semiauto. The Army use much more of those weapons, and uses much more avery one of them, so, they have to think more about logistic and economy. For the Navy, in respect to the cost of just one of their floating toys, the price of few thousands handguns is immaterial.
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  43. At that time, and for many years later, US pilots usually carried revolvers in .38 Special.
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  44. "probably after advancing..." That had something to do with the fact that BOTH the Breda 30 and the BAR were used by 3 men crews? "Oh, and don't forget..." Really the Allied used them, The Brits even stamped an English manual for the British gunners equipped with the Breda 30. That's what the Tactical and Tecnical Trend (the magazine of the US Intelligence) No. 7, Sept. 10, 1942 "Use of Captured Italian Weapons" said of it : "The Breda light machine gun is similar to the British Bren gun. It is mechanically superior to the Bren gun under dusty conditions. It requires only one man to service it as compared to several for the Bren gun. It has a slightly higher rate of fire than the British weapon. Its disadvantages are that it has no carrying handle, cannot be fired on fixed lines, and has no tripod mounting." That was what the contemporaries, the ones that had to DAILY fight the weapon and use the captured ones, tought of it. Not the armchair opinion of someone that saw it once on a video. No hints of the oiler or the dust cover, or the loading procedure, to be problems at all.
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  45.  @robosoldier11  The Armaguerra 1939 had not been adopted, but approved for service. It means it could be distributed to the troops to test it on the field. As for not adopting anything, Italy is in company of practically everyone bar the US (the Soviets adopted one, but had to revert back).
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  46.  @robosoldier11  To me, as a technical enthusiast, both the Scotti action (the one you see in the Model X, it had been scaled up to 37mm automatic cannons) and the Breda gas action (the one you see in the Breda PG, that too had been scaled up to 37mm automatic cannons) were very good. The Scotti bolt was made of four pieces, with little precision machining required. The Breda of five, with only straight cuts. The Scotti rifle only required to fire from a closed bolt and a magazine to be a very good semiauto, and it's difficult to imagine a simpler one. But in 1939 Italy had 1/4 of the industrial output than Great Britain. There were budgetary constraints. France, that had other economic possibilities, adopted a new bolt action in 1936. In the same period, the US had something like 42% of the world's industrial output.
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  47. +mytmousemalibu All the weapons designed by Alfredo Scotti (7.7mm and 12.7mm aerial MGs and 20mm AA automatic gun) used a slight variation of the same action, but this one is the only one that, at least at this stage of development, required oiled cartridges. In 1939 the weapon was tested again to be adopted by the Italian Army, this time VS the Breda PG and the Armaguerra 39 (the winner). The Breda and the Armaguerra didn't require lubrication. It would be nteresting to know if the Scotti still required it at a more avanced development stage.
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  48. Great video, thanks. I always wanted to see a Scotti Model X in action.
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  49. It seems walnut.
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  50. Yes, it's currently in production.
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