Gunky Vetterli 70/87/15

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Bitrclngr

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I have been friends with GunnyUSMC for sometime and he encouraged me to join over here at The High Road. Some of you may have seen some of Gunny's posts on stock repairs. I try to go down and visit at least once a year and I usually bring a bunch of rifles with stock issues. While visiting this last march,Gunny and I did some trading and I ended up with this filthy Vetterli rifle. I collect military surplus arms and tend to like weird and unusual stuff. Italian Vetterli rifles being one of the things I collect. Gunny told me he never really cared for this rifle and bought it at a pawn shop 7 years ago and did nothing to it. Here is what the rifle looked like when I got it.
 
Definitely looks better!

I have one such specimen. Neat old rifles. I think mine got the wire wheel treatment at some point, but it honestly doesn't look bad to the gun. I still haven't taken it out to shoot it yet, but it occupies wall space in my living room nicely, along with some unidentified flavor of European folding trigger double action .32 revolver.
 
Thanks to all. My crappy pictures don't do it justice. I will never fire this rifle as they are not safe. The unsupported 6.5 Carcano case head in a black powder strength action makes me cringe every time I think about it. I also have a 70/87 that was sold to Russia during WW1 and later sold to the Spanish Republican government during the Spanish civil war. Though it is not as nice the two rifles you guys posted! I do plan to shoot the 10.4 Vetterli someday. I have seen the C&Rsenal video on these and it reinforces my view on how unsafe the 6.5 Carcano conversions are to fire.
 
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OK watched "The Beard" on his You Tube video and got my 6.5x52mm barrel question answered. It is an insert of a sort.

The Beard also had one crack its locking colar firing reduced charge loads.

This makes me wonder if this rifle is the source of the tales of horror I heard as a youth about avoiding Carcanos because the bolt and or firing pin was supposed to break free and stab you in the face.

It is a rifle and it does use Carcano ammo and I would bet that they were advertised in the old 1950s or so surplus ads as "6.5 Carcano Rifles"

I have to wonder if any showed up in West Africa while US forces were deployed there. Sure were a lot of actual Carcanos floating around.

-kBob
 
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