Shot my Type 99

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It’s a common mistake that Japanese training rifles were made just to fire blanks.
Some of the trainers like the Type 38 7/8 scale rifle were made to only fire gallery rounds. Standard ammo and blanks can’t be loaded into the magazine of the 7/8 scale rifle.
Here’s a pic of Japanese ammo. The two rounds on the right are gallery rounds that were used in school trainers.
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Very interesting. My training rifle does not have rifling and I assume the barrel is not screwed into the faux chamber. Would it have used gallery rounds? Would they blow up my rifle?
 
I decided not to even use blank or gallery rounds in my 7/8 scale school gun. I just took some used Berdan brass and crimped the mouths shut so that they would feed through the action more or less. Real Arisakas have tough actions. School guns, not so much.
 
Very interesting. My training rifle does not have rifling and I assume the barrel is not screwed into the faux chamber. Would it have used gallery rounds? Would they blow up my rifle?
The smooth bore school rifles were only meant to fire gallery rounds.
The Japanese wood blanks are not hollow like others and have a good bit of powder in them. A friend told my that he had an uncle that was shot with one and the wood fragments caused him trouble for years.

I decided not to even use blank or gallery rounds in my 7/8 scale school gun. I just took some used Berdan brass and crimped the mouths shut so that they would feed through the action more or less. Real Arisakas have tough actions. School guns, not so much.
I have to have the firing pin fixed on my 7/8 scale rifle. I plan to make gallery rounds for it one day.
 
I think the myth about Japanese soldiers using wooden bullets in combat, is just that(a myth). maybe in the island battles some were used when the Japanese ran out of ball ammo. but I think the wooden bullets were used so the rounds would feed thru the bolt actions for practice ect. the swedes also loaded wooden bullets . pic,s of my 6.5 Japanese 38 trainer that is a smooth bore and by the condition of the bore(just plain alfull) it looks like it was never cleaned.
 

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I think the myth about Japanese soldiers using wooden bullets in combat, is just that(a myth). maybe in the island battles some were used when the Japanese ran out of ball ammo. but I think the wooden bullets were used so the rounds would feed thru the bolt actions for practice ect. the swedes also loaded wooden bullets . pic,s of my 6.5 Japanese 38 trainer that is a smooth bore and by the condition of the bore(just plain alfull) it looks like it was never cleaned.
The solid wood bullets were made for short range training, approximately 25 meters, but were dangerous out to 200. The Japanese used a solid bullet unlike some countries that used a hollow bullet. The blank adapter for hollow bullets would cause the bullets to shatter. Here is a Finn adaptor.
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Here’s one of my Type 99s. It ain’t pretty. I bought it a few years ago at a pawn shop just as it looks. It appears to have been a war trophy that was put away for a long time.
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The Marines and Army that fought the Japanese hated them. The Marines gave no quarter because that’s the way the Japanese fought.
I had the honor to meet several survivors of the Bataan Death March about 16 years ago. I was at a Veterans Day event at the USS Kidd in Baton Rouge, LA. I was sitting with other veterans when the speaker asked the Bataan Death March survivors to stand up. There were about 11 men in red sports jackets that stood up.
I had been sitting next to one. I talked with a few. Most had forgiven the Japanese, but some had not.
 
Swedish blank fireing device, in the late 40,s-50,s they threaded their rifle muzzles for this unit. it had no exit hole thu it, but had side vents to vent the splinters away from any thing in front of the muzzle. I guess you didn,t stand on the sides of the shooters.
 

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I’m not an expert on 1890-1940 military executive thinking, but I could imagine that the military elite in most Countries were looking for rifles with enough energy and range to drop enemy cavalry horses at distance as well as enemy soldiers. Horses and oxen still moved the bulk of battlefield materiel until WWII, so this may be a reason heavier calibers were chosen by these Armies.

The 7.9x57, .30-‘06, .303, 7.62x54R, 7.7 Japanese, 7.65 Argentine, etc. were all of relatively similar power/bullet weight/ trajectories, etc. and all have the juice to kill horses or other draft animals on the battlefield.

(Just a thought that was not backed by any real research on the subject :) .)

My former shooting buddy has a nice pair of 6.5 and 7.7 rifles with mums intact, I wish I had a chance to shoot them before he moved away (and turned into a jerk to all of us who knew him.)

Stay safe.

Being very valuable resources great effort was made to keep the "pulling stuffs around" horses out of harms way...they generally did not get the type of training that other horses got....combat animals. They moved everything food, wounded, ammo, equipment.....very important.

The thought went back to the dawn of smokeless....and is really too hard to go into with a broken thumb.
 
Ya, that’s why I was thinking that killing those critters may have played a part in military thinking when these rounds were accepted into military service. If you can’t move materiel... your army stops.

Who knows what was in their minds... but it’s a fun exercise to put ourselves in their place and wonder why X cartridge was chosen as battlefield standard over W,Y and Z.

Gunny; my family and I were in Baton Rouge the Sunday before last poking about... we drove past the Kidd, but after 2 hrs at Oak Alley in the heat my kids weren’t up to crawling around the decks at 1 in the afternoon... we did do the WWII museum earlier in the week so we did get a good dose of military history Louisiana style :thumbup:.

Stay safe.
 
Ya, that’s why I was thinking that killing those critters may have played a part in military thinking when these rounds were accepted into military service. If you can’t move materiel... your army stops .


You guys are so small arms fixated you can't conceive of other weapons being around.

this is the 3.2 inch M1890 American Field Artillery,

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This is one field artillery unit that Pershing took with him when in 1914 the US invaded Mexico. It is surprising how few know of the siege of Sara Cruz or of this whole debacle.

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Field Artillery around 1922, not that much different from pre WW1

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I expect the field artillery would engage your unit around 7,000 to 10,000 yards out.

This is a copy of a French Howitzer, you can look up the type of howitzers around in the 1890's, typically they were 105mm to 155mm. Maybe their range is a little less than 20,000 yards. But I guarantee, if they could see troop or horse concentrations, lets say 10,000 yards away, they would blast them. If the horizon is seven miles away, given a flat part of the earth, (12,320 yards) then this thing could shoot over the horizon. You think they are worried about rifle shooters hitting their horses?

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Of course these were the bigga badda boomers. Not portable at all. I think they would make 50 foot wide divots in the ground. There were mortars of similar size.



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Why would anyone from the time period be thinking about killing horses with rifles, at lets say, under 1000 yards, when field artillery could blow any visible unit into shreds out to 12,320 yards? And the 12 inch gun would shoot maybe 20 miles?
 
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I have a type 38 and have found it very accurate with 139 or 140 gr bullets it winds up being 6.5x50, easy to load and soft shooting but factory ammo is about 30$ + a box.
 
I have a type 38 and have found it very accurate with 139 or 140 gr bullets it winds up being 6.5x50, easy to load and soft shooting but factory ammo is about 30$ + a box.

If you want to play with this old stuff you really need to roll your own.....reload.
 
I do reload for pistols and rifles I have, I don't reload for the 50bmg. I purchased some brass and bullets for the 6.5 and loaded it for a little more than purchasing a box of ammo. I was fortunate enough to find an estate auction that had reloading stuff and not many people cared, I bought over 20 boxes of primers for 15$ and a banana box of powder for 20$
 
You guys are so small arms fixated you can't conceive of other weapons being around.

this is the 3.2 inch M1890 American Field Artillery,

View attachment 851354

This is one field artillery unit that Pershing took with him when in 1914 the US invaded Mexico. It is surprising how few know of the siege of Sara Cruz or of this whole debacle.

View attachment 851355

Field Artillery around 1922, not that much different from pre WW1

View attachment 851356

View attachment 851357

I expect the field artillery would engage your unit around 7,000 to 10,000 yards out.

This is a copy of a French Howitzer, you can look up the type of howitzers around in the 1890's, typically they were 105mm to 155mm. Maybe their range is a little less than 20,000 yards. But I guarantee, if they could see troop or horse concentrations, lets say 10,000 yards away, they would blast them. If the horizon is seven miles away, given a flat part of the earth, (12,320 yards) then this thing could shoot over the horizon. You think they are worried about rifle shooters hitting their horses?

View attachment 851358

Of course these were the bigga badda boomers. Not portable at all. I think they would make 50 foot wide divots in the ground. There were mortars of similar size.



View attachment 851359

Why would anyone from the time period be thinking about killing horses with rifles, at lets say, under 1000 yards, when field artillery could blow any visible unit into shreds out to 12,320 yards? And the 12 inch gun would shoot maybe 20 miles?
Wow, sorry to offend you.
 
Most rifles of this period were over-powered, primarily because they were expected to fill the niche later filled by the machine gun: beaten area massed fire beyond the range of the accurate aimed fire of the average soldier.
The Japanese, on the other hand, seem to have embraced the bushido-based concept that any unaimed shot is practically a dishonor to the Emperor. To fire beyond the range that you can guarantee a hit on your target would be inexcusable.
Thus, a round that would kill or disable an enemy within aimed rifle range is entirely acceptable.
This would change when the Japanese began to face large, semi-armored enemies using machine guns and indirect fire.
 
Most rifles of this period were over-powered, primarily because they were expected to fill the niche later filled by the machine gun: beaten area massed fire beyond the range of the accurate aimed fire of the average soldier.
The Japanese, on the other hand, seem to have embraced the bushido-based concept that any unaimed shot is practically a dishonor to the Emperor. To fire beyond the range that you can guarantee a hit on your target would be inexcusable.
Thus, a round that would kill or disable an enemy within aimed rifle range is entirely acceptable.
This would change when the Japanese began to face large, semi-armored enemies using machine guns and indirect fire.

And they also thought....well I have this rifle and it will shoot 2000 yards and I can still hit a target the size of a head....why would anyone ever get close again.....ok I can see that line of thinking so we can lose the bayonet now right.....HECK NO WE MIGHT NEED THAT......ahh ok.

It is so easy to sit back and tear history apart with 20/20 hindsight....any idiot can do that......what is harder is to sit in that chair and put yourself in 1900 thinking.....you have no clue how things are going to go. Where idiots come in is when they can see a big change coming, a good change and they refuse co see it....think M14.

I would really call the 3006 a mini magnum round, and you can say the same about any of the .30 flavors out there including 7.7 Jap....but it sure feels softer out of a type 99 over a 1903....I think the extra mass helps a bit.

Italy wanted to do the same thing but just did not have the ability to make them.....it seems everyone wanted a 30 around that time....funny how it changes.

You really can't look at the 8mm french with the same eye....that was so early and really hurt the french in things to come down the road....also shows what a bit of take your time can do for you.
 
let the other dummies figure it out for you!

Yup that huge taper on the french 8mm sure did serve them well....the rush to be first at all costs really did hamper them in the long run....but they did not know that going in. That taper and rim just don't do well in a box type mag....we know that now, but back in the late 1800's when the french started to work on their smokeless....box mag....whats that.....machine gun....huh.

Then again as we know switching flavors is a real pain in the ----- as well as very $$$$. The US said to heck with it at the same time the brits did with their own .2xx cartridge....not even getting into the logistics of your machine guns shooting something different has to be taken into account......we saw the same thing with the US change to 556, it was thought to be a very bad idea by many at the time....to the point of screwing up test rifles.

New ideas usually don't go smooth....and you have no hindsight.
 
I don't mind adding an Arisaka 99 actually them and Italian Carcano are missing in my stable because the corrosive ammo.
Sadly, they are almost gone and what I see on local shows are pretty bad. I should walk around the pawn shops more.
 
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I don't mind adding an Arisaka 99 actually them and Spanish Carcano are missing in my stable because the corrosive ammo.
Sadly, they are almost gone and what I see on local shows are pretty bad. I should walk around the pawn shops more.
I've never found one of those Spanish Carcanos, but I do have a few Italian Carcanos and one Finn marked one.
 
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