Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Mausers and Military Rifles 7.62x39 Carcano project thread

I picked up a heavily bubbad Spaghetti rifle recently for cheap, and I’m intending to make it a nice, light rifle with lower recoil than my mausers and Mosin for shorter range fun and use when I bring newer shooters to the range. It was a 1918 Terni long rifle, but the barrel is now cut down to an awkward 16 inches, the rear sight is missing, and of course the stock has been cut down. I ordered a virgin Chinese SKS barrel for this conversion to ensure I’m set from a barrel perspective, and I’ll be going with the tried and true method of cutting threads on the SKS barrel to match threads that will be tapped in the barrel stud. I also bought a Gewehr 88/05 interrupter assembly, which I’ll either duplicate or install on the Carcano action to allow me to ditch the en bloc clip. I like shooting my Gewehr 88/05/35 a lot and I’m hoping to replicate some of the features on this spaghetti rifle while I’m at it. I’ll be adding a block as well to extend the feed ramp and shorten the magazine well’s internal length to boot. Odds are I’ll retain the bubba stock at least initially, but refinish it since he sanded the Arsenal stamps off the stock.

However, I do have an aspect I haven’t given much thought to yet that I would like an opinion on: sights. I’d prefer not to just throw a scope on it, as I find the extra field of vision of iron or aperture sights to be well worth the lack of scope for sub 150 yard work and easier to use for beginners. Short of reverting to the tall af SKS sights, are there any good options for a Carcano sporter outside of scoping it?

Keep us informed of the progress.

Progress currently is in tool acquisition and shipping mostly. Barrel should be arriving today. Just bought a receiver vise so I can get the barrel off, I’m glad it’s a half octogonal barrel. May use this project as my excuse to buy a drill press as well, otherwise one of my coworkers has one that would be used to drill out the barrel stub.

The virgin Chinese SKS barrel arrived today, and I must say I'm mildly disappointed. It's 18", breech to muzzle, and I was hoping I'd have an end result closer to 20". It's also pitted pretty much the entire exterior, so if I can't get this company to swap it out for a longer one I will be cerocoating the barrel, magazine, and receiver. Waiting for the receiver vise to arrive so I can remove the cut up barrel and get the stub drilled out.

Sounds like you're investing a lot of time, aggravation, and money into a rather dubious project. But, if you're having fun and learning something (like don't ever do something like this again!), then it's worth it. I guess.

I think the best way to go with sights is the obvious (to me) traditional front ramp blade and rear u notch on the barrel. That old tried and true works and works pretty darn good. Does the barrel come with the chinese sights? Good enough.

I like aperture sights but the bolt movement gets in the way of any reasonable mounting. A scope requires a side mount and unless you make your own, they all stink. And the scope will be either to high or offset. This gun is simply not for scopes.

I actually do like the choice of 762x39 barrel and magazine idea. I also like 18" for that caliber it seems long enough. Dare I say ideal.

You have a lathe to cut the threads and no drill press! That is a must have tool, a floor mounted size. Must have. I would also look at some Harbor Freight mini-mill if they sell one.

Send back the pitted barrel. That is ridiculous. That is no virgin, more like a $20 hooker.

That pitted barrel got sent back yesterday, they sent me one that’s a few inches longer and hopefully in better shape before I even had this one in the mail. Got a healthy respect for Desert Fox’s customer service as a consequence, if this turns out well enough to do another they’re definitely getting more business from me. I wish these came with sights cause as ugly as they are I’d use the SKS ones if they came with the barrel, but they’re untapped and bare. No sights with them. Got a possible lead on aftermarket Remington 700 sights fitting the receiver, figuring out options for barrel mounted sights (preferred) may be interesting.

😂😂😂😂😂😂!

You aren't wrong at all.

And yet, there exercises in poverty and frustration are what leads
to the coolest stuff.

Practicality and fun don't often work together.

trying to find a post, guy converted a carcano to a CZ 527 magazine

http://forums.nitroexpress.com/showflat.php?Number=316228

The build thread for that rifle on gunboards was one of the ones that inspired me to give a 7.62x39 Carcano a try actually, it turned out really well. Shame the guy didn’t remember what sights he used.

How are you going to deal with the gas port on the SKS barrel ?

Desert Fox still has "virgin" ones that haven't been tapped for the gas port or anything, which in my opinion is the only way that this is worth dealing with using an sks barrel.

The replacement barrel arrived, 20.5” end to end. Much better shape overall. I also acquired a bent bolt which will more than likely be used instead of the current straight bolt on this “carbine”. Receiver vise arrived as well, tried to remove the barrel with a pipe wrench and with a crescent wrench with no luck. Probably needs to be soaked some and a longer wrench acquired. Debating whether it’s strictly necessary to remove the barrel or if I should just cut it, drill, and tap in the receiver and risk them maybe not being quite as straight as I’m hoping to be.

These are the standard righty tighty, lefty loosey threads right?

The question that started this thread has been answered finally now that I have the sks barrel on hand to take measurements. Whether I’ll be able to find the sights I want is another story. Currently leaning towards a Williams Remington 700 receiver peep sight for the rear, mounted in front of the bolt, and a Remington 700 Mountain front sight ramp for the front. Figure I can swap blades around if needed.

^^^^^^^^^^^^This ^^^^^^^^

Picking up the drill press Monday, picked up some metal to make the interruptor from and a magazine insert to keep cases from jamming. The Gewehr 88/05 interruptor is too thin relative to the Carcano mag well and 7.62x39 cartridge. Ended up snagging a second bubbafucked Carcano at a gun show today for the stock, it’s a very nicely formed ex military stock that’s been narrowed after the magazine and shaped to have that nice flair at the end. Will be picking that up Thursday, as it’s a 1940 instead of the 1918 I started this project with it may end up subject to being 7.62x39 Carcano V2 once I’ve had my trial and error session with this one. Also got a suggestion to try using a Swedish Mauser front sight band on the sks barrel, number seem line up so I’ve got one on order. Hoping to be making real progress soon

I call it making ice cream outta s hit. I've gotten pretty good at it over the years.

If the magazine conversion using the Gewehr 88/05 interrupter ends up being difficult, an interesting idea I saw from Gunboards was a guy who used a wood block as both a magazine spacer and feed ramp:
https://www.gunboards.com/threads/762x39-feeding-from-mausers-and-carcanos.661801/#post-6042298

Seems like it would allow for feeding from the original Carcano clips, with the spacer keeping the rounds vertically stacked properly and the ramp redirecting the spitzer tip at the right time.

[img]https://www.gunboards.com/attachments/1filler-jpg.1858274[/img]
[img]https://www.gunboards.com/attachments/2filler-shaped-jpg.1858282[/img]
[img]https://www.gunboards.com/attachments/3filler-in-jpg.1858290[/img]

The wood block is going to be my fallback plan if I can’t make this work, but the main reason I’m not doing that right off the bat is I want to be able to top the magazine off, which it seems I won’t be able to do with the en bloc. The biggest obstacle so far seems to be getting a reliable feed without rounds trying to double stack in the en bloc grooves. The sheet steel I grabbed for filling those grooves, shortening the magazine, and blocking off the tab for grabbing the en bloc proved…. difficult to get to keep the shape I gave it.

Decided to dick around a little further with cardboard to see how we’d do with jamming up if I used the sheet metal to only fill in the en bloc slot rather than making a whole magazine box essentially. All rounds popped up once I let my thumb off the top one, so I’ll be cutting that and forming it in the near future. Probably will be Tuesday or Wednesday, at which point I should have a Swedish Mauser front sight band to compare to the SKS barrel as well and determine what else may need to be done.