What rifle is this?

[ExAgoradzo]

My friend inherited this. I took off the forward grip but saw no markings. Hoping (expecting) you all will know what it is.

Thanks,
Greg

 

[Jim Watson]

Japanese Type 99 Arisaka, 7.7mm
WW II issue. Looks pretty rough, probably late war when they were losing.
Details at

Type 99 Basics

The first step to identifying your Arisaka will be to determine if it is a Type 99 Long or Short. In addition to the more common short Type 99's, early on it was planned to make a long version which...

type99arisakas.weebly.com

 

[ExAgoradzo]

Rough is right. The barrel under that front guard was not polished at all.

I was thinking it was from one losing side or another because it looks thrown together.

Thanks!

 

[Dave DeLaurant]

From what I just gleaned from Hunnicutt's book Military Rifles of Japan, the arsenal marking is for the Torimatsu factory in Nagoya. The kana in the circle left of the serial number looks a bit like series 21 but it's hard to read. More likely it is 10th series, which would match the arsenal marking. There's a photo on p105 of a 10th series showing the same kind of huge stock crossbolt.

Relatively late war. Is there a metal buttplate or just a slab of wood nailed onto the butt?

 

[Gordon]

I would not risk firing a "last ditch" Arisaka. Just my opinion after hearing that for 60+ years. The earlier Arisakas were one of the strongest actions made. I saw PO Ackley and others trying to blow them up.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

I would not risk firing a "last ditch" Arisaka. Just my opinion after hearing that for 60+ years. The earlier Arisakas were one of the strongest actions made. I saw PO Ackley and others trying to blow them up.

Pre-war 6.5mm Arisakas are usually cited as hard to destroy.

But the Japanese did start cutting corners too closely as the war got closer the home islands and the possiblity of invasion by the Allies (US, UK, USSR) loomed closer. 1945 especially.

And there were training guns (full size replica rifles and light machineguns) never meant to be fired with as-issued military ammo; some were safe with reduced charge bulleted ammo or blanks but failed with standard ammo, including a blowback only trainer that sorta resembled the LMG.

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

From what I just gleaned from Hunnicutt's book Military Rifles of Japan, the arsenal marking is for the Torimatsu factory in Nagoya. The kana in the circle left of the serial number looks a bit like series 21 but it's hard to read. More likely it is 10th series, which would match the arsenal marking. There's a photo on p105 of a 10th series showing the same kind of huge stock crossbolt.

Relatively late war. Is there a metal buttplate or just a slab of wood nailed onto the butt?

It's also got the simplified non-adjustable rear peep sight.
Very late war, just before the "last-ditch" half-stocked guns. Might have a cast aluminum buttplate too.

Only way I would shoot it is using one of the Shooter's Box .32ACP adapters. Some were still good steel, others not so much by that point. No sense in risking it.

 

[Gbro]

Was a Chrysanthemum ground off and the ring polished on this Gun?
Or were they not stamped onto late war guns as this one is labled?

 

[ExAgoradzo]

I saw no Chrysanthemum. Nor did I see grinding marks. I dont know military guns well, but I know enough to know that.

I think the chances of Dan firing this are small, but thanks for the tip. I will pass that along for sure.

Greg

 

[tark]

"Last ditch" is not really the word to use when discussing these rifles. "Substitute standard" is more correct. A 1903A3 is a greatly cheapened version of a c1903, but it is still quite serviceable. We don't call them "last ditch."

The "last ditch" type 99s had to pass proof testing just like their earlier versions.

There is a very simple way to tell if the gun was intended to be used with live ammo. Is the upper tang detachable from the rear of the receiver? If it is, the gun MIGHT be safe to shoot. If the upper tang and the receiver are one piece, absolutely not! If you do try to shoot it, strap it to a tire and fire the first round remotely...just to be safe. That's assuming you can find any ammo.

The substitute standard type 99s had the following modifications:
A tacked on wooden butt plate.
Non adjustable sights
No forward upper handguard.
No protective wings on the front sight.
A "keg" shaped bolt knob
a cruder and rougher finish
Monopod omitted.
no knurling on the safety.
No chrome lined bore. That was the first thing omitted.

There may be a mix of early and late parts. My Substitute standard rifle had a metal butt plate and protective wings on the front sight. It shot very well.

Many years ago Frank DeHaas tried to blow up a "Last Ditch" type 99. ( I know, you young Padawans are wondering "Who the hell is Frank DeHaas? ) " Never mind. Google the name. Suffice it to say he finally fed the thing a round that was full of 2400, a pistol powder, which would have generated over 100,000 PSI. He blew a hole in the barrel, right ahead of the chamber. The receiver and bold held.

Crude and ugly doesn't always equal "unsafe."

 

[Slamfire]

Last Ditch Arisaka's are scarce, I only remember seeing one on a wall of a gunstore in the 1970's. The ones that were in the country at that time were all WW2 bring backs, rifles that came back in duffle bags.

There are scattered reports of last ditch rifles being as "strong" as regular production, maybe some are and where. However Last Ditch rifles were made when Japan was under extreme duress. It is impossible for well feed Americans to comprehend Japanese bombed out cities, bombed out factories, bombed out railroads/shipyards/roads during the last part of the war. Gen Curtis LeMay was running out of targets! My Dad was there in Feb 1946 and virtually everything standing had been blasted off the face of the earth. He remembered charcoal powered vehicles chugging away in the street, Japanese civilians huddled around charcoal cookers. And then, the Japanese used Chinese/Korean slave labor in the smelters and steel factories. The Japanese used slave labor whenever and where ever they could and treated the slaves badly. Slaves did things to sabotage the products they were making even though the punishment was death. Given the uncertainty of slave labor steels, I would not trust a late period Arisaka regardless of any claims that Last Ditch rifles are as good as regular production.

A got to meet an Engineer who worked on firearms product liabilty cases. He had seen a lot of blown up firearms. It was a shocker to hear him say "don't shoot war time production, and that includes ours!"

This reflects WW2 attitudes in the US

2020 Sept Military History Magazine

Close Enough, -the proximity fuze was the best kept Billion dollar Allied Secret of World War II

Program Manager Merle Tuve directives, posted on John Hopkins APL Maryland Laboratory walls:

I don’t want any damn fool in this laboratory to save money. I only want him to save time.

Shoot at an 80 percent job; we can’t afford perfection

Don’t try for an “A”; in a war “D” is necessary and enough, but an “F” is fatal

The best job in the world is a total failure if it is too late

Our moral responsibility goes all the way to the final battle use of this unit; its failure there is our failure, regardless of who is technically responsible for the causes of failure. It is our job to achieve the end result

The Japanese were in worse shape than the US, so a D would have been an A at the end.

I would have liked to have owned a Last Ditch just to show to people what happens at the end of modern industrial wars, when Nations and people are ground to immiseration. It makes a good morality play as modern industrial wars don’t end with a decisive battle, as TV’s and Movies pretend, in fact, they don’t end for years. They go on and on, with both sides grinding each other down until the weaker runs out of people and their industry collapses. The winner is the one with the most people and production at the end. And the victor's don't feel like winners, rather they act like surviors.

 

[tark]

I would not trust a late period Arisaka regardless of any claims that Last Ditch rifles are as good as regular production.

Well, obviously they aren't "as good," but if the rifle has proof marks on it it did, at least, pass proof.

 

[tark]

Last Ditch Arisaka's are scarce,

Not really. When I bought mine, Simpson's Collector Guns in Galesburg, Ill. had about a dozen of the things laying around.

 

[Jeremy2171]

One of my better shooting arisakas is a late substitute standard rifle.

Fixed rear sight ...non chrome bore which slugs tighter than my earlier guns. My assumption is the reamers were worn but they kept using them.

I still buy the 30rnd feed strips of T92 ammo when I find them usually for a buck a round.

The brass is brittle so I never shoot it even though it will chamber in a few of my rifles despite it having a rim.

I pull the bullets and powder and move them to new brass and then use for cheap range fodder. Usually 3" or so if I sort the bullets.

 

[JT-AR-MG42]

"Last ditch" is not really the word to use when discussing these rifles. "Substitute standard" is more correct. A 1903A3 is a greatly cheapened version of a c1903, but it is still quite serviceable. We don't call them "last ditch."

The "last ditch" type 99s had to pass proof testing just like their earlier versions.

There is a very simple way to tell if the gun was intended to be used with live ammo. Is the upper tang detachable from the rear of the receiver? If it is, the gun MIGHT be safe to shoot. If the upper tang and the receiver are one piece, absolutely not! If you do try to shoot it, strap it to a tire and fire the first round remotely...just to be safe. That's assuming you can find any ammo.

I agree with Tark and I have fired many of the later substitute standard short rifles over the years.

'last ditch' Japanese rifles are more accurately reflected in rifles like this one.



JT

 

[Slamfire]

Someone took down my post about rifles passing proof, but kaboomed in the field. And about Dutch/Slave laborers sabotaging Nazi machine cannons by high heat treatment temperatures, which allowed machine cannons to pass function tests, but fail in the field.

I had more, but since I don't know the agenda of the remover, even this may not last.

 

[tark]

Someone took down my post about rifles passing proof, but kaboomed in the field. And about Dutch/Slave laborers sabotaging Nazi machine cannons by high heat treatment temperatures, which allowed machine cannons to pass function tests, but fail in the field.

This got me to thinking... You raise an interesting point. As you mentioned earlier, slave laborers often sabotaged their work whenever they could. Just because a rifle made by a slave has a proof mark on it doesn't necessarily mean it actually passed proof. I would assume they ( the slaves ) were closely watched by a Japanese supervisor during this critical operation...but who knows?

 

[Slamfire]

This got me to thinking... You raise an interesting point. As you mentioned earlier, slave laborers often sabotaged their work whenever they could. Just because a rifle made by a slave has a proof mark on it doesn't necessarily mean it actually passed proof. I would assume they ( the slaves ) were closely watched by a Japanese supervisor during this critical operation...but who knows?

I know more about Jewish slave labor in Nazi factories because a few Jews survived and wrote books post WW2. Non Jewish Germans have not been interested in resurrecting this period, they just want it to go away. I don't read Chinese, Korean, and have no idea if there are any books written by Chinese/Korean slave labor. Though I did run across a news article of a very old Korean who sued Japan for being a steel foundry slave laborer. He was one of the last living Korean slave laborers, as I recall. I have a few books on American's who were taken as prisoners and their fate in prison camps, or coal mines, none were involved in industry. And I have got to say, I am not looking for more as the brutality of the Japanese was never ending, merciless, and disturbing. It does not make for a happy read. As a Nation, the Japanese claim to be the victims and are uninterested in re visiting the past.

What I know of Nazi Germany was that as men were pulled out of the workforce and put into military units, they had fewer and fewer Germans in the factories. We do know that the Germans used Kapos to manage other slave laborer’s in concentration camps, so it is possible the Nazi’s and Japanese used a similar system in factories.

Products of that period were built in haste by unhappy workers, and no one expected the weapon system or the solider to last all that long. And no doubt the unhappy workers hoped their product would hasten the end of the soldier using it.

 

[tark]

'last ditch' Japanese rifles are more accurately reflected in rifles like this one.

That is a good side by side comparison. The top gun has all of the features that were omitted on the bottom gun which is a 6.5 type 38. It is probably a training rifle not meant to fire live ammo. At the very bottom of the picture, not fully visible, is a type 99 substitute standard gun.

 

[JT-AR-MG42]

the bottom gun which is a 6.5 type 38. It is probably a training rifle not meant to fire live ammo.

No tark, the rifle is not a Type 38 or a trainer ( I have several versions of both as well).
Although when I bought the gun it was labeled a trainer. I think most of the 02/45s are sold and bought that way.
It was built with a three digit assembly number and the action is not serial numbered.
The top hand guard is nailed in place and has a trainer style stock .

A zoomed pic of the tag I made for it.



And one of the action.


JT

 

[tark]

I stand corrected! And I learned another tidbit of knowledge!

Danke...