picked up a nicely sporterized 1891 carcano in 6.5 and thought what a shame that it is in a nearly unavailable caliber. sure, i have (100) 220 swift cases that could be trimmed and reformed for it, but what about something more common? sure enuf, i found a used SKS barrel at numrich, and am in the process of converting the rifle now.
initial thoughts: the carcano threads are reportedly 26.5 X 1 mm, while the SKS thread is 25 X 1 mm, so cutting off the original barrel in front of chamber and boring it out to about 18mm with a counterbore of 24mm at the chamber end, then turning the SKS barrel with a matching ring at chamber end, drop in from the breach and cross-pin after setting headspace by adjusting counterbore depth.
was going to adapt the floorplate to a single stack AK magazine, but have a friend that is willing to part with a half dozen carcano clips. will install a magazine block in the front of well and include a ramp, then remount the current sporter sights and walnut. plugging the existing gas vent on the SKS barrel and bluing a clean-up turning on the lathe should finish out the job.
these rifles languish out there for under 50 bux, so adding a $25 barrel and making a nice little shooting machine seems an inevitable process. pix to follow in a week or so.
pix on page 2.