Mystery Chinese Arisaka?

[Joep0331]

I've surfed the web hoping to find something definitive about this odd ball I just picked up. It is a Model 99 Arisaka...but it isn't. It's got a star stamped on the receiver where the mum would normally be. It's got a one piece stock with Chinese characters on the right side. I've got a couple "last ditch" Arisakas but this one is better made, though still very rough. I haven't yet tried to see what cartridge it takes. My thoughts...the star would denote communist China, or so I thought, but that didn't happen till 1948. Doesn't make sense. It's got a four digit serial number, just a roughly applied as the rest of the rifle is made. I also saw in some web thread that some Chinese warlord made some of these. Stranger things have happened I reckon, but for now I'm completely baffled as to who made this beast. ANY suggestions will be greatly appreciated, but facts are even better yet. Refer to photos. Please let me know if the photos are visible. I'm having a problem attaching them to the thread.

 

[9mmepiphany]

Photos will not appear unless that are hosted of a separate site...and I would love to see some.

My first thought is that it was a captured M-99 that was re-stamped.

A couple of facts:

The Chinese War of Independence (from the warlords) was over long before the quality of the M-99 would have started downhill. They were mostly armed with Mauser rifles (for some reason I'm thinking 7x57mm) and machine pistols.

China did not refer to Japan's War of Imperial Expansion as WW II...they refer to it as the Anit-Japanese War and it started long before the Western Powers were drawn into the conflict. During their war, the Mao forces were very poorly supplied (Chiang didn't share well) and they would pickup any rifle they found on the battlefield. If this rifle was indeed manufactured in China, it would have been much like the the Afgans did during their earlier wars (pre-USSR)

 

[jonnyc]

The Chinese commonly used 7.92x57 and 7.7x58 ammo, so it should be in one of those. There were a few Chinese arsenals that produced 7.92 rifles prior to the 1949 Communist take-over, and it would not have been impossible for any of them, especially any in Northern or Eastern China, to have produced copies of the Type 99.

 

[Motega]

The photos are not visible.

 

[NCsmitty]

To post pictures, you need to go to the advanced posting, scroll down to "manage attachments", browse to the directory where the picture resides and select, then click upload. The file name of the pic should appear above the "manage attachment" inset, then hit "submit reply", and the picture should be in your post.



NCsmitty

 

[KodiakBeer]

The Japanese annexed Manchuria in the 30's and maintained a Chinese "army" under the Chinese puppet emperor they put in place. I don't how the rifles would have been marked.

 

[otomik]

http://www.amazon.com/Generalissimo-Chiang-Kai-shek-Struggle-Belknap/dp/0674033388
The Generalissimo by Jay Taylor
page 317
"In Manchuria, the CCP immediately began the process of incorporating 75,000 former Manchukuo puppet troops into its forces as well as thousands of other fresh recruits from the mass of unemployed Manchurian youth and the 80,000 or so bandits roaming the mountains. Meanwhile, the Soviets were quickly turning over to the Chinese Communists a huge collection of liberated Japanese weapons and military supplies. The Red Army sent the more advanced weapons and machinery back to the USSR and kept older Japanese tanks and artillery in an arsenal on the Sino-Mongolian border at Manzhouli to be turned over later. They also gave the Chinese Communists a number of captured Japanese armament factories, and the CCP itself found several underground arsenal that the Soviets had missed."

time period referred to above is summer of 1945. The soviet August Storm operation.

also
wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_99_rifle
"The Type 99 was produced at nine different arsenals. Seven arsenals were located in Japan, with the other two located at Mukden in China and Jinsen in Korea."

mukden is modern shenyang in north east china. likewise jinsen is an older name for Incheon in central korea, probably soviet occupied side.

 

[zhyla]

I thought the Chinese Arisakas were 7.62x39mm... and that they were converted type 38's, not 99's. Sounds odd.

 

[Joep0331]

Thanks. I'll do that right now. I'm beginning to think this is a Korean arsenal piece, but I can't find anything yet on the web that will verify this. I am certain it is a late manufacture...toward the end of the war. It is very crudely made, though not as crude as a couple of "Last Ditch" examples I've got.

 

[9mmepiphany]

I think the best answer you have comes from otomik...I'd forgotten about the government in Manchukuo with the Last Emperor of China.

The characters do look Chinese, but you have them turned sideways...up is toward the muzzle

 

[x0y12004]

It's not a Chinese rifle

Those are Chinese characters. But it seems like the name of a Japanese (probably the owner of the rifle?)

 

[Vaarok]

That appears to be a North Korean issued T99 from the Vietnam War era.

 

[otomik]

That appears to be a North Korean issued T99 from the Vietnam War era.

what makes you think that?

 

[jonnyc]

Not an expert, but I have to agree those are Chinese characters, and not Korean or Japanese.

 

[BrocLuno]

Oohh, Arisaka fun - and there can be lots of that. Love this one. I assume (without evidence) that it was made in a "liberated" arsenal using Arisaka tooling, but modified for the local supply chain.

We'll know a lot more when we know what round it chambered for?

 

[otomik]

Oohh, Arisaka fun - and there can be lots of that. Love this one. I assume (without evidence) that it was made in a "liberated" arsenal using Arisaka tooling, but modified for the local supply chain.

We'll know a lot more when we know what round it chambered for?

I'm placing my bet on 8mm

 

[Joep0331]

I've got a couple of "experts" looking at it. The serial number is what really confuses me. I'd never heard of a North Korean T99, particularly from the Vietnam era. Weapons had advanced so far by then, all either SKs or AKs. The closest star mark I could find was from the Korean armory during the second world war, but it had an image inside the star. Once I come up with something conclusive I'll post the results, as I will when I pour the chamber sometime this week. Thanks for the interest.

 

[otomik]

http://www.radix.net/~bbrown/japanese_markings.html

 

[Joep0331]

OK, I finally got the scoop on this mystery relic of mine, or pretty much so anyway. Last week when I tried to pour a mould to see what the chamber measured up to I found that it hadn't been properly milled for a round; One diameter chamber, then a hard shoulder, not a bevel for the neck, with another diameter which came pretty close to the actual barrel. Very confusing. On top of that I finally realized the bore was smooth, no lans and grooves whatsoever. I began to suspect this may have been one of those rifles that had been reported to have been issued to "schools". Today I asked a Japanese friend of mine what the writing was on the stock. It read "Nakashima", then "school", but he couldn't make out the last figure. On the opposite side of the stock was another blaze, the number "8" in Japanese. Sooooo, I'm gonna have to conclude that this is one of those school rifles manufactured in the Jinsen armory in Korea between 1931 and 1940, not a last ditch weapon at all, even though the star doesn't appear to have the extra do-dads within the marking. The book says that armory made 1300 of'em with serial numbers from 0-1300. I still can't explain the "D" in the serial number, but at least the numbers all match throughout the rifle. If anybody out there ever sees another one, I'd sure like to compare it with mine. As far as I'm concerned, case closed. Thanks for the various inputs.

 

[isc]

I have a type 38 arisaka rechambered by the Chinese for 8 Mauser and a Type 51 Chinese Mosin. Both are interesting pieces of history and completely functional.

 

[Ian]

A couple days ago, I posted a bunch of info and photos of a couple of Type 38s converted to 7.62x39 by the Chinese over at Forgotten Weapons.

 

[CZguy]

If anybody out there ever sees another one, I'd sure like to compare it with mine.

I don't have one, but worked on a friends a couple of years ago. I came to the same conclusion that you did, when I notice the absence of rifling in the barrel.

 

[OFT]

If it says "Nakashima School" and it's smoothbore it is likely a Japanese training rifle made to shoot blanks only. Try googling "Japanese Training Rifle".

 

[KodiakBeer]

I think part of the confusion is that the Japanese use two different sets of writing symbols.

On of these (kanji?) uses Chinese characters, while the other uses a newer system based on vowels and consonants. It's been 20 years since I've been to Japan so my memory is a bit foggy on all this, but the Japanese do use Chinese characters for many applications.

 

[Trebor]

I saw the twin to the OP's rifle come through my local Gander Mountain when I worked there a few years ago. The seller had inherited it and had no idea what it was. No one in the store could ID it at the time but one of the gunsmiths tracked down an Arisaka collector he know who gave us the skinny. Same blank-only chambering, no rifling, and (from what I remember) very similiar markings.

I didn't think to get a pic of it at the time and now wish I had.