Krieghoff 8mm Mauser Carcano for the Volkssturm

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! When Italy surrendered in late 1943, German troops disarmed the Italian forces in areas under German control, and came away with nearly 400,000 Carcano rifles. These would form the core armaments of the Volkssturm forces in 1944 and 1945. Most were simply left as captured and issued with captured Italian or ammunition. However, something figured that it would simplify logistics if they were converted to use standard German 8mm Mauser. About 15,000 such conversions were made in January and February 1945, by FNA Brescia (under German control) and Heinrich Krieghoff. This M38 Short Rifle we have today is one of them, done by Krieghoff. The process involved drilling out the barrel to 8mm, replacing the magazine follower with a solid wooden loading block (the Carcano clip was not compatible with 8mm Mauser cartridges), and replacing the front sight to set t