Carcano rifles

[arbud]

Hey guys. Anyone have one. Would anyone no if you can harvest a black bear with one at close range.
It seems to me they are very similar to a 3030 lever gun. Appreciate any input because I am thinking of buying one if in great shape.

 

[SKIP]

https://www.royaltigerimports.com/searchresults.asp?Search=Carcano+rifles&Submit=

 

[noddaz]

wiki says

and I quote

The cartridge is acceptable, with proper bullet, for medium-size big game such as North American whitetail deer within 250 yards.[2] However, the standard Italian service round used an unstable round-nosed bullet with a propensity to tumble, whether hitting soft tissue/ballistic gel or harder material such as bone.

The currently available factory ammunition may lack accuracy due to the use of a 6.7mm (.264 in) bullet instead of the 6.8mm (.268 in) as originally loaded.[citation needed]

Italics and bold added by me.
And as far as I know, Wikipedia never harvested a deer. So take that as you will.

 

[Rocinante]

Hey guys. Anyone have one. Would anyone no if you can harvest a black bear with one at close range.
It seems to me they are very similar to a 3030 lever gun. Appreciate any input because I am thinking of buying one if in great shape.

I wouldn't trust 6.5 Carcano for a black bear, or any medium game for that matter [insert Oswald joke here]. Not to mention nearly all the Carcanos that are on the market right now have come from Ethiopia and are sewer pipes (I've seen several examples firsthand, the MAJORITY of them are in garbage condition). Not to mention the Carcano feeds from an en-bloc clip. So you either must have the clip (which are no longer manufactured, and drop from the magazine on the last round) to use it or a 3d-printed sled that converts the magazine into a single-shot rifle.

If you want to hunt with a surplus military rifle, a far better option is to find a Swiss Schmidt-Rubin. 7.5x55 is rare but readily available and still made by PPU in batches, and it's ballistically similar to a .308.
Schmidts are generally in very good condition when they're imported, Switzerland (to my knowledge) never surplused them out to any other country, and the Swiss were VERY good about maintaining their rifles.

There's also 7x57 and 8x57 surplus mausers on the market- both cartridges excellent for medium game.
South American mausers are in generally decent shape, but are sometimes collector pieces. Spanish mausers are still on the cheap end and you can find them in 7x57, 8x57, and .308 if you're lucky, usually in good condition.
For 8x57 mausers, the Yugo M24/47s and M48s are still in the $400-600 price range depending on condition. Only downside is Yugo ammunition is incredibly corrosive and usually the rifles were not properly cleaned and the bores may be pitted or destroyed.

Lastly, there's always the venerable Mosin. If you run out of ammo you can always spear your target.