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| weaponinfo = Following the advent of the first smokeless cartridges and its defeated attempts in colonizing EthiopiaThe Carcano Fucile Modello 1891, often just called the newly formed Italian state began to look for new rifle designs to replace their black powder arsenal. In Carcano or the endM91, Italy would settle upon Salvatore Carcano’s Fucile Modello 1891 is an magazine-fed bolt-action rifle, making use of the 6.5x52mm Carcano cartridge. The M1891 (often referred to just that served as M91) was designed at the Turin Army Arsenal during 1890 and had many advanced features standard infantry rifle for the time, including an intermediate cartridge, a six round en-bloc clip Italian military during both World War I and magazine based upon Ferdinand Mannlicher’s designWorld War II. It is named after its primary designer, and an Italian bred bolt designSalvatore Carcano. In addition to this, some would be fitted with scopes during It is notable for being one of the first World Warmilitary rifles chambered in a 6. The M1891 was truly advanced for its time5mm cartridge.

The rifle would go on In 1861, the newly unified Italian state began to have look for a long service history from 1891 into the 1940snew infantry rifle. The M1891 would be put through its first trials against the Ethiopians in 1895 through 1896various territories and kingdoms of Italy had been using a wide assortment of firearms, and though the now that they were a unified nation, Italy wanted to standardize on a single rifle for military use. The Italian army would lose this war, it military would prove superior in actually end up using the following Boxer Rebellion and the ItaloSwiss-Turkish War. The primary Italian designed Vetterli black powder rifle throughout World War Ifor a time, it would be pitted against Austrofirst as a single-Hungary shot rifle and Germany in the rugged terrain of the Alpslater updating it to house a four round magazine. Although it would see less frequent use as the Italian army opted for the shorter, lighter M91<ref name = "first informational video">[https://24 and M91www.youtube.com/38, watch?v=KCvIEioG9Y0 Forgotten Weapons video on the venerable M1891 would still see some use in World War II. Even over Carcano]</ref> It wouldn't be until 1890, when neighboring Austria-Hungary adopted a century after being designedsmokeless powder rifle, that the Italian arsenal system would start working on a new smokeless powder cartridge and a new rifle can be found in the hands of insurgents and rebels in the Middle East.

Numerous variants Swiss research into small-bore ammunition caught the eye of military officials in Italy, and they decided that their new rifle would be chambered in this smaller, lighter, faster type of cartridge. The failures of the Italian military's campaigns in Ethiopia were still fresh in the minds of Italian generals, who claimed that ammo shortages were the main cause for their defeats. They believed that a lighter cartridge would come allow their soldiers to pass carry more ammo on them, which would prevent such problems in the future. As a result, the Cartuccia M1891 6.5x52mm cartridge (typically referred to as 6.5 Carcano) would be developed, and adopted shortly thereafter.<ref name = "Wikipedia on 6.5mm">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/6.5%C3%9752mm_Carcano Wikipedia article on the 6.5x52mm Carcano cartridge]</ref> An unintended side effect of the new cartridge was that the barrels of their rifles were having a hard time handling the more powerful rounds. This would be mitigated byutilizing gain-twist rifling in their rifle barrels. In gain-twist barrels, from the Cavalleria rifling has a lower twist rate closer to the chamber and Truppe Speciali versions during World War I a higher twist rate closer to the rearsenaled versions like muzzle. This supposedly helped reduce wear on the M91barrels. Despite the technology being public knowledge by that time, the Italian military treated this rifling system as a highly confidential military secret. They even went so far as to provide Italian-made constant-twist barrels for outside rifle submissions once trails for a new rifle began, in an effort to not let anyone know about their gain-twist rifling technology.<ref name = "second informational video">[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zngrvMQKFY&pp=QAA%3D C&Rsenal video on the M1891 Carcano]</24ref> The rifle trials would culminate with two competing designs being field tested in 1891. The first design would feature a magazine and feeding system purchased from Steyr-Mannlicher, and the second design sported a bolt, safety, and sight designed by Salvatore Carcano. These two designs would be merged together, and the M91/28final product would be approved for service in early 1892. Italy would end up paying Mannlicher around 300,000 Lira (the old Italian currency) for the use of their magazine system. This magazine system did not use stripper clips, and instead utilized a six round en-bloc clip. These en-bloc clips allowed for simple and fast reloading of the successor M91/38 rifle. Upon firing the final round, the empty clip would fall out of a hole on the bottom of the magazine. The M1891 would first see combat use during the First Italo-Ethiopian War of 1895, although not in very large numbers as Italy didn't have the manufacturing capacity to outfit its entire army at that time. This shortage of rifles would see major fighting be rectified in following decades, and when Italy entered the second First World Warin 1914, they had produced over 700,000 Carcano rifles. The M1891 served as the primary infantry arm of the Italian troops during the war, and was considered to be reliable and accurate. Over When the war ended in 1918, close to 3.5 million M1891 Carcano rifles had been produced.<ref name = "Wikipedia on rifle">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carcano Wikipedia article on the M1891 Carcano]</ref> Production of the rifle would continue even after WW1 ended, and the M1891 would be manufactured by various factories until continue to see use up through the Second Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935. By that point, the Italian Army was considering the adoption of a more powerful cartridge, in response to criticisms that the 6.5mm round was too weak. The 6.5mm round also did not feature a Spitzer pattern pointed bullet, which hampered both accuracy and power. As a result, production of the late 1930sM1891 Carcano was stopped in 1937, and it’s become the Italian military would develop a new version of the Carcano to chamber a very common more powerful 7.35×51mm cartridge. This would result in the creation of the M81/38 Carcano.<ref name = "Wikipedia on 7.35mm">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7.35%C3%9751mm_Carcano Wikipedia article on the 7.35x51mm Carcano cartridge]</ref> The M91/38 was planned to completely phase out the standard M1891 as the standard Italian infantry rifle, however the adoption of the new cartridge did not go as planned and popular the old 6.5mm round remained in widespread use. The Italian military was unable to completely switch over to the new rifle within before the consumer marketoutset of World War 2, so their troops ended up being outfitted with a mixture of M1891 and M81/38 rifles. This caused logistical problems, despite as the rising cost Italians now had to manage two different calibers of ammunition. After World War II, Italy replaced its Carcano rifles, first with British Lee–Enfields and scarcity then with the American M1 Garand rifle. Large quantities of 6surplus Carcanos were sold as surplus on the commercial market in the United States and Canada beginning in the 1950s.5 CarcanoIt proved a popular sporting gun, especially in the United States.

* The carbine version of the Carcano M91, known as the M91/28 TS(Moschetto per Truppe Specialli/, or 'Carbine for Special Troops') had a built-in grenade launcher attached at on the right side of the carbine, . This grenade launcher was affectionately known as the M28 con Tromboncino('little trombone'). The grenade launcher 's operation was unique; : since the carbine and the grenade launcher has shared the same trigger once its pushed, the operator should would remove the bolt from the carbine bolt to and insert it into the grenade launcher device, and so on. Interestingly, like a the Dyakonov Grenade Launcher Device which grenade launcher found at on Mosin Riflerifles, the M28 Tromboncino Grenade Launcher Device used live rounds in order to launch the SR.2 38.5mm spigot-type grenade where , with the bullet will be being caught by the cup inside the device. The weapon was used in service during WWII which , and was issued for MG support crew crews and any othernon-than frontline roleor auxiliary roles. The M28 con Tromboncino was decommissioned in 1934 due the heavy weight of the device, which hamper hampered maneuverability.