Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "Scotti Model X Italian Prototype - Shooting, History, & Disassembly" video.

  1. Here the experimental Scotti LMG using the same action (here the aerial version, there were versions with buttstock too). https://i.pinimg.com/originals/71/6f/8e/716f8e33be4f124274a6de9457462b65.png
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  2. +besternamedensgibtxd When the round is fired, in the barrel, between the bullet and the bottom of the case, that lay on the bolt, it develops a very high pressure, that locks the walls of the case against the chamber, so preventing the hot gasses to be driven back to the face of the shooter. If the bolt begin to travel backwards too early, when the pressure in the barrel is still high, then the thin metal of the case is stretched between the chamber (since the walls of the case are still locked to it by the pressure) and the bolt that is travelling backwards. That way the case can break, and the hot gasses and brass splinters can hit the shooter's face, with unpleasant consequencies.
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  3. +Helghastdude Beretta 34, M91, MAB38, Breda PG, Breda 37, Breda 38, Breda SAFAT, Breda 20/65... No really successful semiauto rifle had been designed until the end of the 30s. IE, until the end of the 20s John Garand wasted ten years playing with a quirky primer acutated blowback design, then switched to gas actuated, the rifle was adopted, after seven years of ironing out problems, in 1937, but the M1 became really reliable only with a last modification done three years after its introduction, in early 1940. Probably this rifle is closer to be a good service rifle than a M1 prototype of the same year.
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  4. +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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  5. Scotti used the same design scaled up in several calibers, up to 37mm automatic guns. Chinn, in "the machine gun" higly appreciated it. It was economical and practical.
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  6. Infact there had been a "Scotti LMG", as well as Scotti belt fed HMGs in 7.7mm and 12.7mm and the Scotti automatic cannon in 20mm. All used the same action.
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  7. +pkt1213 Those markings were intended for volley fire. To shoot to enemy formations (that, at that time, still moved in close ranks) , not single soldiers. Later, that function was taken by heavy MGs.
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  8. +Laurent Belkacem It balance the "Type I" Japanese rifle, that's almost always referred as "Type one", while really the "I" was a letter (standing for "Italian" since it was made by Beretta) and not a numeral.
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  9. A nice comparison with the contemporary N33 Swiss rifle prototype you reviewed in another video could be done. As far as it seems, the N33 aspect seems more "modern" and refined. Not surprisingly, since it haven't to reuse pieces of a 19th century rifle. At first sight, the N33 action seems simpler too. Tilting bolt engaged in the back of the receiver vs rotating bolt with lugs engaged in helicoidal slots in the front of the receiver. Then, in reality, the N33 bolt and carrier are pieces of fine watchmaking, with a lot of presumably costly machining involved, while the Mod.X bolt and carrier are as simple and crude as they can be. The Mod.X has an effective safety, that seals the action and locks the bolt in forward position, on an empty chamber. The N33 safety is not as effective, since it don't seal the action, and allow the bolt to move back (enough to extract a round? In this case it would be even dangerous). The Mod.X uses a dated Manlicher clip system that holds six rounds. The N33 uses a modern detachable magazine that holds... five rounds (military brass minds at work here "give too much rounds to a soldier, and he'll waste them!"). Unfortunately we didn't see the N33 working.
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  10. +uzi75020 Is like if, in a bolt action design, the soldier forgets to turn on the safety, after having inserted the rounds and closed the bolt, and instead he pulls the trigger. No weapon is completely idiot-proof.
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  11. Studies performed after WWI concluded that the infantry bolt action rifle had been the least useful among all the weapon issued to infantrymen. Pistols, hand grenades, even knives and showels had been more effective. The recomendation for the Italian Army was to switch to "automatic muskeets" for all the infantrymen bar designated marksmen. So the Terni arsenal developed the Terni M1921 along with an intermefiate power round for it https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/raigap/40496274/928974/928974_original.jpg The rise od fascism, economic considerations, and the conservatism of the Army prevented its adoption, but the Army still wanted a semiauto rifle in a full blown cartridge, since that was anyway a big improvement over the bolt action rifle (enemies rarely show up one at a time at 1.5 sec. distance, to give you the time to operate the bolt and realign). The bolt and trigger assemblies of the Scotti rifle are actually simpler than those of a Carcano rifle (that's a very simple bolt action). Yeah, there is the gas piston, but the increase of complexity is negligible. Already in 1915, Maj. luigi gucci noted that, in adopting a semiauto rifle for the army, the price of the rifle was, in the end, marginal if compared to the price of the ammos for it (then, the price of a brand new semiauto rifle, not a conversion was estimated in 60L, that of a single Carcano cartridge was 0.1L, so a semiauto rifle costed like 600 cartridges). Belt fed LMGs in the '30s were not a thing (the first one was adopted in 1938). Even the MG34 and MG42, when used in the LMG role, had many limitations (IE to change a 50 rounds belt requires more time than to change a pair of box magazines, so limiting the practical ROF). It required several decades after WWII for the concept of "general purpose machine gun" to impose itself, and it's not a definitive victory (see the Marines replacing the M249 with the M27).
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  12. The MG08/18 was not a LMG, but a HMG reworked to resemble one. It was heavy, easily overheating without quik exchange barrel, and barely produced. The Garand didn't work properly until the '40s, but the Garand was one design. Several semiauto models had been tested by various armies before, and found to be serviceable. Simply there wasn't really a demand for them, due to logistic considerations.
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  13. IE Col. Edoardo Versè "Impiego tattico delle unità di fanteria dotate del nuovo armamento". Already in the “T batallion” model of 1918 the infantry rifle was relegated to a secondary role, while the MGs and SMGs had the main one (the end of the war stopped the implementation). Simply the infantry rifle was not used by shock troops, IE the Arditi, during the attacks, used SMGs, hand grenades, knives, pistols, but not rifles. While in defense it had a marginal effectiveness in respect to machineguns. “Semantic” is to point to an HMG and say “that’s an LMG”. It’s not, it remains an HMG. “Semantic” is to say that the “MG34 was a 100% mature design in 1934” (probably because it has a “34” in the name). It was not until 1938. The Madsen LMG weighted 9.07 kg, the Chauchat weighted 9.07 kg. The SIA 1918, adopted the same year of the MG08/18, weighted 10.7kg, and had a quick exchange barrel already. Those were not “unreasonably modern standards”. Garand started to develop his rifle pretty late, took a wrong turn, had to change caliber, took another (minor) wrong turn and so had a pretty long development. But already the Carcano semiauto conversion of 1912 was deemed to be serviceable. Other projects had been hampered not by the technology, but by unreasonable requests of the military (muzzle blast actuated instead of gas actuated, possibility to be used as bolt actions…). I never bashed machineguns. You are again talking like the Garand was the only semiauto rifle ever made, and yes, “logistic considerations” includes the fact that, after WWI, there were shitloads of bolt actions available. To say that the Scotti is not an example of something the way it was, but it would have been having the gas piston in another position is utter nonsense. Scotti produced a perfectly serviceable LMG in 6.5 Carcano, using the same gas system (it was used as tank gun until it was replaced by the Breda 38 in 8mm Breda) The short stroke gas piston was perfectly feasible even with WWI metallurgy, it was only a question of thinking of it.
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  14. Here the experimental Scotti LMG using the same action (here the aerial version, there were versions with buttstock too). https://i.pinimg.com/originals/71/6f/8e/716f8e33be4f124274a6de9457462b65.png
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  15. +MacNutz2 That's totally wrong. Mussolini left the Socialist Party in october 1914 to found an interventionist newspaper, "Il Popolo d'Italia", and, when Italy finally entred in WWI (may 1915), he voluntereed, served as a "Bersagliere" (elite light infantry corp) Private, was promoted Corporal for merit (official motivation: "Attività esemplare, qualità battagliere, serenità di mente, incuranza ai disagi, zelo, regolarità nell'adempimento dei suoi doveri, primo in ogni impresa di lavoro e ardimento", "Exemplar activity, fighting qualities, serenity of mind, does not care of discomforts, zeal, reliable in the fulfillment of his duties, first in every enterprise of work and bravery"), and ended his military career being seriously wounded by the explosion of a grenade launcher during a training exercise in february 1917. All in all he had a rather exemplar military service. Not that the service in the trenches gave him some quality as a strategist, obviously, but he was a brave man.
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  16. Simply this rifle has the recoil spring behind the bolt, an M1 Garand has it around the op-rod. Other rifles with this scheme "hide" this by having part of the receiver in the stock (IE the AR15), but that makes the disassembly more complicate.
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  17. +Sjon Kosse Then US used lubed ammunitions on the HS 404s. Sometimes, where there isn't an available substitute, or at least not one good enough, you have to accept some quirky feature of the weapon.
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  18.  @tiortedrootsky  For the headspace, the only thing that counts is the contact surface between the locking lugs and the slots. All the rest doesn't even need to be that precision machined.
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  19.  @tiortedrootsky  To retreat, the bolt tend to rotate the receiver clockwise. At the same time, it tends to rotate the bolt carrier anti-clockwise, and the carrier is solidly attached to the receiver, so the net result is zero. As long as the bolt is geometrically locked, the net result is always zero. It's only the bullet pushed forward that, by reaction, pushes the bolt and everything attached to it rearward.
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  20. This rifle is the only Scotti action that for some reason required lubing (even if in the manual is said that wetting the cartridges with water worked too) Scotti used the same basic action for any caliber up to 37mm AA guns. The Scotti LMG and auto rifles in 6.5 Carcano didn't required lubing. Probably, in the Model X, it had something to do with using the Carcano en-block clips, that weren't made for auto fire. This is the Scotti Automatic rifle (only experimental) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=129fvBDfxL4 This is the Scotti LMG (This one had been used in Jugoslavia) https://i.pinimg.com/736x/45/63/b7/4563b7e40ee5908e63c697cd04c35af3.jpg
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  21. It's pretty easy to turn an open bolt action to a closed bolt. It's enough to add a spring (to tension the firing pin, that so becomes a striker), and make so that the sear catches the firing pin (IE making it "L" shaped with the short side of the L protruding out of the bolt to be catched by the sear) instead of the entire bolt.
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  22. He made closed bolt versions also. Mind that this action did born for a 20mm automatic AA gun, then it had been adapted to this rifle, belt fed 12.7mm HMGs and 7.7mm MGs, 6.5mm LMGs and so on. It's a machinegun action (so a naturally open bolt action) adapted for a rifle. The closed bolt versions came later.
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  23. In 1932 this was way closer to be a serviceable semiauto rifle than the Garand was. It only needed some further refinement. "unfortunately" the Italian Army never had the money to afford the transition to a semiauto.
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  24. more carbon deposits.
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