The BM 59

Background and Development

Setting the Scene

At the end of the Second World War, the Western Allies, and in particular the United States, wanted to quickly rebuild Italy and thus bring them on-side as a strong, successful, western-aligned state. To this end, the reconstruction of the Italian industrial base was a key policy, as was the expansion and re-equipping of Italian military and para-military forces. Consequently, Italian military industries, centred broadly in the North and specifically in and around the city of Brescia (a region home to both Breda and Beretta, along with the state-run FNA) received investment and support from both the Italian and American governments, and when the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in 1948, Italy was a founding member of NATO. 

As with many other nations in the post-war era, the Italian Armed Forces sought to move from their bolt-action rifles (primarily the Carcano, but also reasonable quantities of Lee-Enfield No. 1s and No. 4s which had been supplied to Italian co-belligerent forces both during and just after the war) to self-loading rifles of some sort. The obvious choice was the American M1 Garand - the USA had enormous quantities of surplus examples and was more than happy to generously give them out to their allies. The M1 was thus adopted as standard-issue by the Italian Army, with the Enfields (and other .303 weapons such as Bren Guns) being transferred to the Navy as far as possible. At the same time, stateside production of the M1 was being wound down. Thus, in order to both clear space for new projects in the US and to kick-start the reconstruction of the Italian economy, a full set of tooling and machinery to manufacture them was shipped from the Winchester Repeating Arms Company to Italy, where both Breda and Beretta began to produce, first, spare parts and, later, complete rifles. These were made firstly for domestic service, but were also offered for export - buoyed by NATO's decision to designate Italy the primary supplier of spare parts for M1s. Garands were sold widely on the international market, with a major contract being received from Denmark in 1950, and smaller batches being sold to Indonesia, Yemen, Iran and others. It is not uncommon to find rifles with a mixture of parts from different factories, marked with BMB or BMR for Breda, and PB for Beretta.

The Road to 7.62x51mm NATO, and Beyond

Simultaneously, NATO was looking to adopt a standard cartridge for its member states (and ideally, a standard rifle in the form of the FAL, although that was unsuccessful). In 1955, following a great deal of deliberation and testing, the 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge was adopted as standard. Italian stockpiles of M1 rifles were, therefore, chambered for the wrong cartridge, but to upgrade was a reasonably easy fix. To begin with, rifles were simply fitted with newly-produced barrels with chambers cut for the shorter cartridge (the case head dimensions being identical and so not needing a new en bloc clip or bolt face) to become the M1 Tipo 1. Barrels, though, contain a fair amount of very high-grade steel and require highly-specialised machinery to manufacture, and so are one of the most expensive parts of a rifle. As a result, a new process was developed, whereby the old barrel would simply be removed, cut down by 1cm or so at the chamber end, have a new chamber cut, and then be re-fitted. This method, which became the M1 Tipo 2, allowed the Esercito Italiano to be very cheaply equipped with self-loading, NATO standardisation-compliant battle rifles. Both Breda and Beretta also manufactured M1s as brand-new rifles with .308 barrels, mostly for export. 

These conversions, though, were no more than a stop-gap. The writing was on the wall, plain to see: if Italy desired a truly modern service rifle then she needed a select-fire design, fed from higher-capacity, detachable, box magazines. In 1957, Domenico Salza and Vittorio Valle, both engineers at Beretta, began work on developing an upgraded Garand - their design would be a truly modern rifle, capable of being fired both fully- and semi-automatically, from a bipod or unsupported, with ball ammunition and Energa rifle grenades, and would be fed from detachable 20-round box magazines. However, by reusing the Garand action, they were able to drastically cut costs by reusing receivers, parts, and factory tooling. In only two years, the design was ready for evaluation and thus was named the Beretta Modello 1959 [Beretta Model 1959], or BM 59 for short.  Competing with their design was one from Breda (the Model 39, which had a rather classical, sporting appearance) and two others from Beretta - the BL-62 (derived from the SIG SG 510-4, which Beretta had assisted in producing for export to Chile and Bolivia in order to get around some of the more restrictive Swiss export control laws) and an unknown design similar in layout to the Polish Wz. 38M. Information on these trials is very scarce, but, in the end the BM 59 was the winner, and was approved for full introduction as the standard rifle of all of the Italian Armed Forces in 1962. 

A New Italian Service Rifle

Beretta immediately set to work on converting the army's stocks of M1s. Rifles were stripped into their component parts, some being kept, some being replaced with newly-made BM 59-specific upgrades. Wartime US-made receivers were scrubbed of their original designation and calibre, but retained their serial numbers. The conversion process was wholly comprehensive, and aside from the receiver almost every part was modified or replaced. Production continued at full speed, and, as the supply of unconverted M1s began to dry up, rifles were also built on newly-made Beretta receivers. The BM 59 was issued to all branches of the Italian Armed Forces: Army, Navy, Air Force, Carabinieri, and the various para-military police forces. Specialised variants were made for the Alpini (mountain troops) and Paracutisti (paratroopers), alongside the standard 'infantry' model. M1s were relegated to rear-line units, such as the artillery troops of the Alpini, intended to eventually be replaced with BM 59s. However, due to the large size of the then-conscription-based Italian military, this process of rearmament (which was a low priority once the bulk of the army had had their M1s upgraded) was not completed by the time the AR70/90 was adopted as its replacement. With the subsequent downsizing of the Army after the abolition of the Naia (compulsory service), supplies of the new rifle could easily meet demand and some troops went straight from the M1 Tipo 2 to the AR70/90, bypassing the BM 59 entirely. Nowadays, the BM 59 has been fully withdrawn from service, although a large number remain in deep storage. 

Nomenclature

While we in the anglosphere tend to refer to the rifle by its Beretta designation, the BM 59, in Italy it is generally referred to colloquially as the 'fal' - fucile automatico legero [lightweight automatic rifle]. To avoid confusion with the FN FAL, I refer to the rifle here as is common in English. 

Technical Overview

Mechanically, the BM 59 functions identically to the M1 - it has a two-lug rotating bolt operated by a long-stroke piston/operating rod. It is fed from 20-round detachable box magazines, which lock into the action with front and rear tabs, and can also be topped off with stripper clips (a clip guide being added to the receiver as part of the conversion process). The rifle fires from a closed bolt in both semi- and fully-automatic modes, with a distinctive external trip sear actuated by the operating rod. At the muzzle, a combination flash hider/recoil compensator (known as a tri-compensator) is fitted, which also functions as a grenade-launching spigot. A flip-up ladder sight for grenades also serves as a gas cut-off. Underneath the handguard is a folding metal bipod to provide stability in full-auto fire, and the buttstock (on both fixed and folding variants) is fitted with a rubber pad to soften recoil. The safety catch is unchanged from the M1 - sliding forward for fire and backwards into the trigger guard for safe. A fold-down winter trigger is included for use with gloves or when firing rifle grenades. The sights are functionally identical to those of the M1, and are thus excellent, but the elevation dial is re-calibrated for 7.62 NATO out of a a slightly shorter barrel. 

Variants

Beretta produced the BM 59 in a number of variants for the Italian military, international export, and commercial civilian market sales. Three buttstocks were available: a conventional fixed wood stock, a folding metal stock, and a fixed wooden stock with pistol grip. The tri-compensator was available in long and short, as well as fixed and removable, versions. 

Italian Army Variants

The Esercito Italiano approved and introduced three variants of the BM 59: the standard model with fixed stock, a folding stock version for the Alpini, and a variant with folding stock and quick-detach tri-compensator for the paratroops. 

BM 59

The standard rifle of most branches of the Italian military was simply designated by the army as the fal BM 59, although Beretta's marketing literature calls it the BM 59 Ital. It features a fixed wooden stock with rubber buttpad and sliding trapdoor for a cleaning kit. The tri-compensator is full-length and fixed, with an integral lug for a bayonet. It is set up for a side sling, but, interestingly, the rear sling swivel can rotate down underneath the rifle to ensure it remains in the most comfortable position. Issued rifles were capable of both fully- and semi-automatic fire.

BM 59 TA

The Alpini, Italy's storied mountain warfare specialists, found that the standard BM 59 was a tad bulkier and longer than they would have liked. Particularly when climbing mountains with the rifle slung on their back, the butt would get in the way, and so a specialised variant of the rifle was developed for them - the BM 59 TA, short for Truppe Alpine [Alpine Troops]. this version was identical to the standard model, except for the addition of a collapsible, side-folding metal buttstock and a brown plastic pistol grip. The cleaning kit was relocated from the stock to a compartment inside the grip. As with the standard BM 59, the TA is set up for a side sling, with two options for rear swivels - one just above the pistol grip, and one on the buttplate. With the stock folded, the rifle really does become a lot handier to carry on the back or front, but even unfolded it moves the balance point of an already heavy rifle far forwards, hampering ergonomics slightly.

BM 59 Pc

For the various parachutist units of the Italian Army, a second specialised variant of the BM 59 was developed. Constrained by a need to fit through the door of an aircraft with the rifle slung across the chest for a static line jump, the BM 59 Pc (short for paracutisti [parachutist]) kept the folding stock of the BM 59 TA, but added a quick-detach tri-compensator. This was achieved with two locking lugs on the muzzle, a spring to achieve a friction fit, and a slightly widened base section of the compensator. While the tri-compensator was normally meant to be fitted when firing the rifle, the troops of the Carabinieri's Tuscania Regiment frequently used the rifle in its shortened form when patrolling the streets of Beirut during their United Nations deployment in the 1980s.