Dave DeLaurant
Member
Yesterday I finally got my hands on a Japanese Type 99 in good original shooting condition.
I'd been looking around for one of these for a couple years, but the ones I found until now either carried ridiculous price tags or were beat to death with bores like sewer pipe. Last month I spotted this one at Simpson's for just under $500 -- mum ground off and bolt mismatched, but the bore is very good, the metal isn't pitted and the two-piece buttstock hasn't separated. I took the action out of the stock last night and the metal was just as good in the places it doesn't show.
This one should have had the plum bolt knob, but the later cylindrical knob bolt works slick. I'll rent some headspace gauges before shooting, though I'm pretty confident it will be OK. I was a bit shocked at the rough exterior finish at this stage of production -- it's clear the last ditch model was right around the corner.
I'd ordered this rifle through the FFL at my local indoor range, since my usual guy is stuck in paperwork limbo while moving his store across town. And since I was at the range anyway to pick up the Type 99, I brought along one of my three 8x58R Swedish rolling block rifles to zero the sights. This rifle had been originally sporterized sometime in the early 20th century; I had two very similar full-length sporters, so I decided to chop the barrel and forend back on one of them to try in a handier carbine length. I cut the barrel back 9" from the muzzle, removed the front sling mount and shortened the forend by about 3".
Ordinarily I would have had a local gunsmith reattach the front sight for me, but I no longer have a local guy I can trust. After mulling over some expensive out-of-town options, I decided to see whether I could do a halfway decent job on this myself. I went with a Mauser 95 banded front sight, using a 5/8" annular cutter with an 8mm pilot intended for muzzle threading on the end of the barrel and a matching bridge reamer to open up the inside of the sight band. Plan A was to sweat the band into place, but after seeing how firmly the sight fit with just the set screw holding it in place I decided AcraGlas would do the job with less fuss.
At the range my first group printed about 2" right at 10 yards. I have a neat adjustment tool that works great on this type of front sight, so it wasn't hard to walk the groups into the center.
I kept losing the front sight against the dark target so my groups were pretty pathetic, but the main thing was that I eventually got them centered. All-in-all, pretty good range trip.
I'd been looking around for one of these for a couple years, but the ones I found until now either carried ridiculous price tags or were beat to death with bores like sewer pipe. Last month I spotted this one at Simpson's for just under $500 -- mum ground off and bolt mismatched, but the bore is very good, the metal isn't pitted and the two-piece buttstock hasn't separated. I took the action out of the stock last night and the metal was just as good in the places it doesn't show.
This one should have had the plum bolt knob, but the later cylindrical knob bolt works slick. I'll rent some headspace gauges before shooting, though I'm pretty confident it will be OK. I was a bit shocked at the rough exterior finish at this stage of production -- it's clear the last ditch model was right around the corner.
I'd ordered this rifle through the FFL at my local indoor range, since my usual guy is stuck in paperwork limbo while moving his store across town. And since I was at the range anyway to pick up the Type 99, I brought along one of my three 8x58R Swedish rolling block rifles to zero the sights. This rifle had been originally sporterized sometime in the early 20th century; I had two very similar full-length sporters, so I decided to chop the barrel and forend back on one of them to try in a handier carbine length. I cut the barrel back 9" from the muzzle, removed the front sling mount and shortened the forend by about 3".
Ordinarily I would have had a local gunsmith reattach the front sight for me, but I no longer have a local guy I can trust. After mulling over some expensive out-of-town options, I decided to see whether I could do a halfway decent job on this myself. I went with a Mauser 95 banded front sight, using a 5/8" annular cutter with an 8mm pilot intended for muzzle threading on the end of the barrel and a matching bridge reamer to open up the inside of the sight band. Plan A was to sweat the band into place, but after seeing how firmly the sight fit with just the set screw holding it in place I decided AcraGlas would do the job with less fuss.
At the range my first group printed about 2" right at 10 yards. I have a neat adjustment tool that works great on this type of front sight, so it wasn't hard to walk the groups into the center.
I kept losing the front sight against the dark target so my groups were pretty pathetic, but the main thing was that I eventually got them centered. All-in-all, pretty good range trip.
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