I have found a new old cartridge
this round as has the dimensions of a 8x59RB Breda but is not rebated, headstamp is SMI 934
this is a comparison with a 8x59RB breda (SMI 936)
I’ve seen drawings and photos of experimental cartridges 8x55, 8x57 but I’ve never seen 8x59
This is just early production without the grooved head. I have the same as you show but with a 936, and with and without three stab crimps for the primer plus one headstamped “BPD 36”.
Nice to see the early date. which I’d think would be about the earliest of these.
It seems to me Norby’s point that his case has a conventional rimless head rather than a rebated one is correct. Perhaps he can give us actual dimensions so we don’t have to wonder if the screen image is misleading us (or at least me). Jack
Due to the rimless case and the date in the headstamp I’d say that this can be one of the experimental rounds that led to the final 8 x 59 Breda
Just putting a straight edge along each cartridge case wall in the pictures, it is clear that the cartridge in question is rimless, and the one shown for comparison is rebated rim. Still, I agree with Jack - measurements are in order here.
measures are these
Ø proiettile B 8,25 (0.3248)
Ø bocca M 9,06 (0.3566)
Ø colletto N 9,01 (0.3547)
Ø spalla S 11,37 (0.4476)
Ø base H 12,34 (0.4858)
Ø scanalat. G 10,78 (0.4244)
Ø fondello R 12,37 (0.4870)
Lungh. cart. TL 80,22 (3.1582)
Lungh. bossolo CL 58,93 (2.3200)
Lungh. colletto NL 7,80 (0.3070)
Lungh. spalla SL 48,75 (1.9192)
Lungh. base HL 3,05 (0.1200)
Alt. scanalat. GW 1,10 (0.0433)
Sp. fondello RT 1,03 (0.0405)
Ø innesco P 5,50 (0.2165)
The only reason I can think of why Breda eventually used a Rebated rim (at .470", or standard “Mauser” cal.) was the export angle…the gun could be supplied simply by changing Barrels ( which they did for Portugal…( feed trays were also modified); no bolt-face changes were required.
Also the earlier 8x55 cases would have been the Swiss M-11 case, necked up to hold a 8mm Proj., and was the “8x57” simply a German 7,9mm cartridge, or was it a true “8mm Bore (.315” Lands)???..
Bullet diameters seem to be the same THROUGHOUT…IE, .324" APPROX.
The 8x59 size seems to be to prevent use with 7,9mm ammo, although a 7,9 will fit in the chamber of an M37, and Maybe fire, but with “conseguenze pessime” ( Bad JuJu) for the gun.,
An interesting aspect of Italian ammunition development in the inter-war years.
Doc AV
Nice, good information, I just checked the three I noted above and they all have the production, rebated 8x59 rim, so those are just early production and not the experimental rimless version. One more to look for thanks to all you girls & guys on the forum.
Designing a cartridge for an MG of nominally “rifle caliber” and not making the rim diameter consistent with rifle cartridges of likely interest is a formula for eventual supply difficulties. The Japanese army should have made the 7.7 m/m cartridge they developed for their MGs rimless rather than semi-rimmed. Had they done this they would have avoided creating the rimless “version” of the 7.7 m/m. The fly in this particular ointment was the charger clip for the rifle. The rimless cartridge was necessary to be compatible with the existing 6.5 m/m rifle clip; the semi-rimmed round was not compatible with that clip. The Japanese army clearly didn’t look before it leaped, so maybe the Italians profited from the Japanese error. Jack
Not really, the Japanese Type 89 Binary Flexible Aircraft Gun, with its special two “chain fed” Magazines, use Wide clips to feed the T89/92 semi-rimmed cartridges through a similar mechanism to the T11 Hopper Shutle…so the Clips would not have been a problem…maybe, by 1937, whyen the T99 rimless cartridge was being designed, they decided on a rimless T99 cartridge case, because the T89/92 cartridge was much more Powerful, and would have had deleterious consequences for the small statured Japanese Soldier (Recoil). This was a typically Japanese manner for separating the MMG cartridge from the normal Infantry Cartridge… BTW, T3/T92 Guns made in Other Calibres ( 7x57 Mauser, or re-barrelled to 7,621 Nato) are just as efficient as the T92 Semi-rimmed, or the Type 01 7,7 Rimless Guns (Limited Number Made)…so it was a typical Japanese Mindset type of Mistake.
Doc AV
Doc: I understand the circumstances involved in developing the semi-rimmed cartridge in Japan in the late 1920s, my point was that they failed to anticipate that that cartridge could have served as a successor to the 6.5 m/m for rifles except for the fact any clip which would have accepted the semi-rimmed round would have been useless for the 6.5 m/m round with its smaller base. That would have meant the 6.5 and 7.7 rifles would have required different clips, an unacceptable situation in practice. By lack of anticipation they failed in the late 1920s to develop a 7.7 m/m cartridge which had any possibility of becoming a rifle cartridge. Better to have two loadings (rifle and MG) for a cartridge than to develop two different cartridges which by definition could not be interchanged, even in an emergency. Jack
Jack, I see where you are coming from…but the Japanese did find ( during WW II) that 7,7 Rimless Rifle ammo Would Function in a Semi-rimmed Bolt face Gun ( the T92) with acceptable efficiency at close range…in an emergency…in fact, the Massive extractor on a T92 Bolt has enough grip to extract a rimless case T99 cartridge. Of course, the reverse does not hold ( T92 Ammo won’t close in a T99 rifle ( unless one uses the “Indonesian solution”==Grinding away the Case Lip on the Bolt face…then a T99 will accept Semi-rimmed, Rimless and Rimmed 7,7 ( T87 .303).
I have found the T92 gun–T99 ammo interchange to work when making Blank ammo for a T92, from .30/06 cases…works just fine, rimless, and actually a smaller rim than an original T99 cartridge. (by about 0,005 "). Same for my T89 Single Flexible ( semi rimmed) will work with rimless cases. The Japanese did make rimless versions of these guns in 1941-42 ( Seen examples in PRC) but the quantities were small, and mostly restricted to the Airforce T-1 Binary.
Interesting exploration of Mind Processes of 80 years ago…in an inscrutable ( and sometimes ambiguous) language.
Doc AV
perhaps there are other topics to talk about the Japanese cartridges, I think it would be better to talk about why Italians have adopted the 8x59RB instead of this 8x59
this cartridge was born as “cartuccia per mitragliatrici pesanti” (cartridge for heavy machine guns) so no rifles, only some experiments
Caro Norby,
The decision to go for a rebated rim MAY have had connections with the Tray system of feeding to obviate a “rim jam” when feeding or retracting the case; But I think it was with a view to Export Sales of the Gun in truly Rimless calibres ( ie, 7,9mm, or 7,65mm or 7mm), simplified by simply making a Barrel change in the factory, and no other modifications to the Gun itself. The Higher Power of the 8x59 cartridge was a Tactical Consideration, and of course, Italy’s wanting to be “Different” and “Better” in comparison with France, Britain, Germany, etc.
The really good solution would have been to make the Breda M37 gun Belt Fed, using the excellent non-disintegrating M35 Belt used in the Fiat-Revelli M35 also in 8x59RB… Considering this “retreaded WWI gun”, it may be the rebated rim was a mechanical necessity for this gun, rather than the later M37 (although development of the Breda guns started earlier in the 1930s, and the M35 initial Breda Prototype was in “8x55 M35 Rimless Breda”.
The twenty round Tray was replaced by a 20 round vertical Box in the re-configured M38 Tank MG, also used widely (Bottom ejection) for tight space considerations in the equally small Italian Tanks of the late 30s and early 40s.
We may never know, uinless someone in Italy can research any existing Breda or R. Esercito (Artiglieria) Records, on the design and adoption of the Breda M37 and of the Fiat-Revelli M35 Conversion.
Saluti, da un Piemontese nato in Australia.
Doc AV
Brisbane Australia.
Hi Doc
a very bad machine gun with a great feeding system (Fiat-Revelli M35) and a great machine gun with a bad feeding system (Breda M37), of course, the same cartridge!!! is possible only in Italy…the land of contradictions
it is possible that the extraction system Breda, copied, I believe from the machine gun Perino could have influenced the form rebated?
un canguro piemontese?
fanno la “bagna càuda” a Brisbane?
Caro Norby,
Facciamo “La Bagna Cauda” tutti gl’anni a Luglio, all’Associazione Piemontesi ( di Queensland); Mia moglie (astigiana) e’ sul comitato, e rappresenta Giacometta alle Manifestazioni. Io sono d’aiuto nel preparare il “vitel tunne’” ed altri affettati. Mia moglie e’ anche brava nel preparare “dui povrom bagna’ ent’l’euli” ed altre lecchornie e piatti Astigiani, Cuneesi, e del nord Italia in generale.
Per contattarmi, pregasi usare amsvallati@hotmail.com
Doc AV
Magister Ballisticus Pedemontanus de Galliam cis-padana ad Quadralli (Provincia Cuneensis).
Yes, the intricacies of Italian Military Bureaucracy…Like the Breda 81 mm Mortars…supplied to Greece with Alcohol Spirit levels ( anti-freeze) but to REI with water Levels ( froze during the Greek campaign (“Guerra di Grecia”) and of course, in Russia with the CSIR/ARMIR. ( Cento-Mila Gavette di Ghiaccio)
