After the end of World War II, Italy, as a former fascist gang member, was also sanctioned by the Allies, allowing Italy to retain only 300,000 troops. And Italy itself suffered great trauma in the war, at this time the weapons in their hands are also outdated, after the Great Disarmament of the Americans, there is a lot of Garand left, Italy got a lot of Garand equipment to give to its troops. Moreover, the Italians produced their own Garand for later use.
However, war is also a process of promoting the development of weapons. In the war, the Germans began to use stG44, the Soviets equipped with AK47, and there were FAL, G3 and other things, and even we began to use five or six punches, five or six halves. At this moment, the Italians took a look at the Garand rifle in their hands, the eight-round missing clip feed, obsolete, semi-automatic shooting, obsolete, together is particularly obsolete.
Later, NATO adopted 7.62 * 51mm NATO as the standard gun, the Italians naturally have to change, after all, this is also a problem of standing in line, do you see when he stands in line and misses? The Italian military began to put forward new requirements, asking for a new automatic rifle, which can fire 7.62 *51mm NATO.
Beretta has been producing Garland for many years, and naturally it is the most familiar with Garland. Therefore, they planned to do some development on Garand, based on which to develop a new rifle. The so-called development is actually to change Garand to an automatic rifle and optimize it on this basis. The finished product that was born is the BM59 automatic rifle, which is the following goods, which actually looks like the M14.
The Italians' change to Garand is mainly to add a hammer release linkage, the automaton and Garland are basically the same, and the air conduction system is optimized. When selecting the fully automatic shooting mode, release this connecting rod. In the front end of the pull handle, there is a connecting rod end, when the bolt is re-entered, the bullet is loaded, the pull handle is re-entered with the bolt, when the bolt is locked, the front end of the pull handle will press the connecting rod downwards, so as to release the hammer and complete the firing of the second bullet. When choosing semi-automatic shooting, it is enough to lock the connecting rod.
Another big change was that the BM59 replaced Garland's eight-shot clip with a 20-round magazine for ammunition. This was already a routine operation at the time, after all, the clip was already obsolete in that era, and the magazine was also relatively mature at this time. Of course, this thing can also pull open the bolt and press the bullet directly into the magazine with the magazine.
The muzzle of this gun has a very long retractor, which is used for full-power bullets on the one hand, and this length is used to accommodate gun grenades on the other hand. The BM59 has a foldable grenade sight at its crosshairs, which can be used for aiming when unfolded. Of course, when this thing fires a grenade, it has to turn off the vent so that the gas doesn't enter.
This gun, like the automatic rifle with a full-power bullet at the time, was used on a bipod. After all, full-power bullets such as 7.62*51mm NATO are not suitable for standing posture and fully automatic shooting against the shoulder, and the controllability is not so good. The most effective way to lower the back seat is to add a bipod, the early G3, FAL are rifles with bipods, and it is not a strange thing that the BM59 added a bipod at that time. This thing has a bipod, which can actually be used as a pseudo-light machine gun.
In addition, the trigger guard of this gun is relatively small, not suitable for use when wearing gloves in winter, and the BM59, like Garand, has added a trigger linkage outside the guard. Fold it up when you don't need it, and when you need to, fold it down and pull it on the outside of the trigger guard. So, the question is, can't you increase the trigger guard a little bit?
Overall, this gun is much stronger than the M14 of the same period, not as pompous as the M14. Moreover, the price is not expensive, in 1962, each BM59 only needs 42 US knives, which is much cheaper than the M14. In addition to the standard BM59, there are several models of BM 59 Mark I to Mark IV, including pistol grip models, paratrooper models, light machine gun models, etc. It was not until 1990 that the gun was heavily withdrawn from active Italian forces, succeeded by the BEretta family's AR70/90 rifle.
This gun, which the Italians themselves equipped with, also exported to the outside world, as a military type, was mainly exported to Argentina, Ethiopia, Algeria, Indonesia and other countries. After all, those rich countries in Europe are all staring at the FAL, and the little brother of Europe also uses this gun, not to mention the AK47 exported by the Soviet Union. Under the competition of these guns, it can occupy a part of the market share, which also shows that this gun is still quite popular.
Moreover, the gun was also transferred back to the United States as a civilian rifle, and Garand, which was originally exported, turned around and bought the Garand-based BM59.