Yesterday's Weapons Forums

Well, I'll take a stab at it... ** deeeeeep breath***

Tiny circle with TNI is the arsenal identifier for Terni. I'm not sure what it's doing on an FNA moschetto. I see RE with a crown = Regio Esercito or Royal Army.

Oval shield and crown is the 'Cross of Savoy' = a standard military mark.

Fxxxx is the serial number, of course. Italy used a different letter or letters for each block of 9,999 rifles.

FNA Brescia is the arsenal where this was made. They used a variety of markings to ID that arsenal. This one wasn't used very long.

1936 is when it was made. The Roman numerals represent the "Era Fascista" or the number of years elapsed since they took power in Oct, 1922.

I think the 36 FNA are on the bottom of the receiver. That just shows when it was made. That year very often doesn't match the barrel. Most of the other marks beneath the wood are armorer's stamps. Used primarily to show a certain operation had been completed. For example, the armorer who verified headspace would smack a mark into the arm somewhere so other armorers would know it had already been done.

The 'dollar sign' is a partially obliterated inspector's mark. Can't recall the man's name at the moment.

Same story for the bolt - armorer's marks. Except for the number 2 on the bottom of the bolt root. That shows it's a #2 headspace correction bolt. Rather than pull the barrel - set it back a thread or two, they simply had a box of headspace correction bolts #1 to #5. Much easier and faster to address headspace that way. Also cheeper, and that was always an issue for them.

Many of the marks will come back to outside contractors. I don't have a list of those. An Italian friend is working on it but is a couple years out from anything worth publishing.

It might be the lighting... are the butt plate and nose cap nickel plated? If so, I'd trade you original finish parts for them. I need a few nickel plated parts to finish my 'Guardie del Duce' moschetto.

That's all I can think of at the moment. SW

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@NebrHogger

Thanks for the feedback. You are a wealth of information.

I did the magnet test on the butt plate, nose cap, and everything else and nothing on the rifle is nickel.

The pieces are a bit shiny, but I believe one of the previous owners did his own "refinishing" and polished all the metal, sanded the stock, and put some varnish/lacquer on the wood. I'm not sure if this same person put the wood piece in the bayonet channel, but I've seen plenty Carcano's with the bayonet removed, but NONE that also had the bayonet channel filled.

If nothing else, I've got a Carcano M91 that didn't cost me anything and I'm hooked on getting my next one.

Be careful! They will breed like wabbits in your gun room! It's fun though. SW

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Slava Ukraini!!