The 6.5×52mm Carcano was the first to be officially adopted of a class of similar smallbore military rifle cartridges which included the 6.5×50mm Arisaka (Japan), 6.5×53R Mannlicher (Romania / Netherlands), 6.5×54mm Mannlicher-Schönauer (Greece), 6.5×55mm Swedish Mauser (also Norwegian Krag-Jørgensen), 6.5×58 Portuguese.
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The cartridge has achieved some notoriety, as a World War II Italian Carcano rifle was identified by the Warren Commission as the weapon used by former Marine Lee Harvey Oswald in his assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Steyr Mannlicher | Mannlicher | Carcano | Ferdinand Mannlicher | Steyr-Mannlicher M1895 | Ramón J. Cárcano | Mannlicher-Schönauer | 6.5×52mm Mannlicher-Carcano |
Comparable to the contemporary Italian 6.5x52mm (0.268 in) Carcano or the Japanese 6.5mm (0.264 in) Arisaka, it produced velocities of around 2,400 feet per second (730 m/s) with 140 or 150 grain (9.1 or 9.7 g) projectiles.
After studies at the Conservatorio in his native city and Milan, Cleva made his debut conducting La traviata in Carcano, near Milan, before emigrating to the United States in 1920, becoming an American citizen in 1931.
Lee Harvey Oswald stored the 6.5 mm caliber Carcano rifle that he used to assassinate U.S. President John F. Kennedy in Ruth Paine's garage, unbeknownst to her and her husband, Michael Paine.