Hel me ID this rifle

[SharpTJ]

A friend gave me this gun since he don't ever shoot them. His dad had it buried in his basement for who knows how long.




It is fully operational, bolt-action with magazine. The only thing wrong with it is that it is missing the rubber piece on the end of the stock. I'm not even sure what caliber it is. Writing looks far eastern...but who knows.

Perhaps an Arisaka?

[eastbank]

it looks like a jap rifle,model 38 (6.5cal.) or 99 (7.7 cal.). with the airplane sights i lean toward the type 99. eastbank.

[James K]

Well, it is indeed a Japanese Arisaka, and the marking says it is a 99 type. Unless someone has messed with it, it should be chambered for the 7.7x58 (also called the 7.7 Japanese.

The buttplate would have been steel, not rubber or plastic. Some very late war rifles have buttplates of wood, tacked on, but yours does not appear to be that late.

You probably should have it checked out by a gunsmith or by someone familiar with those rifles. Except for very late ones, they are very strong and well made rifles.

Jim

[Gbro]

Welcome,

I will put a $1.00 on this one having a wood buttplate.

Is the Mum ground off or destroyed?

Please check out the posts just below this one. In particular the link Scorch attached.


And the link to the Mum mystery recently posted.

[James K]

The pictures show the "mum" ground, but the type year left intact, the common situation with rifles taken from depots or in mass surrender. Contrary to some statements, Japanese soldiers did not carry grinding wheels around with them so they could grind off the "mum" if they had to surrender. That story belongs with the absurdity that the Type 94 pistol was designed so it could be fired while pretending to surrender it. (In fact, few Japanese surrendered at all in combat; it was much against their military and personal code. So-called "captured" rifles were usually just picked up when their original users didn't need them any more.)

The rifle does not appear to be late, and I suspect the butt plate is simply missing rather than its having a wood buttplate. The bolt knob is the standard shape (not the cylinder of late guns) and the aircraft sight was replaced on late rifles by a simple non-adjustable peep sight.

FWIW, I have fired my late war rifle (against some advice). Not only did it not blow up, it turned out to be a tack driver, giving me about 1-1.5 inches with Norma ammunition. "Last ditch" they might be, but enough people with them could have made that "last ditch" a costly one for Americans to take. I know it is not politically correct to say so, but the atomic bomb probably saved many more lives, American and Japanese, than it cost.

Jim

[James K]

I will likely take heat on this, but I don't think there is any "mystery" about the ground "mum". The Japanese were allowed to grind the symbol before surrendering rifles that were stored in depots or surrendered in mass after the end of the war. Those rifles were then passed out to about any American service member who wanted one.

An unground "mum" would almost always indicate a rifle picked up in a combat zone (as noted above, few Japanese rifles were actually surrendered). The person who brought the rifle back may not have been the person who "captured" it, as those rifles were common "trade stock" among Army, Marine and Navy personnel in the Pacific. Further, no combat soldier or Marine could carry two rifles while fighting a war, so support troops and shipboard personnel ended up with many of them.

But if a soldier or Marine got a "ground" rifle at the end of the war simply by taking one or having it handed to him, he might not find it impressive enough to state the truth. It would be better to tell how he wrestled it from a Japanese soldier in a life or death struggle.

Of course, if someone suggested that a ground "mum" would not be consistent with the capture story, the now-veteran might just embellish the tale with a story about how the doomed Japanese ground off the crest, or how the Navy removed it on the ship, or how he mailed the rifle and the Post Office ground it, or how the FBI came and made him remove it, or... You get the picture. As any politician knows, you never let the facts get in the way of a good story.

Jim

[TEDDY]

how true Jim.it sounds much better than I was a cook and traded for it.