I just want to make a statement about Mike's assessment of the Arisaka.
Quote:
Really all it had going for it was the inherent strength of the action and the fact that the Japanese were intelligent enough to copy the cock on closing feature.
They weren't, however, intelligent enough to copy the turned down bolt handle of later Mausers, meaning that of all of the bolt action rifles used in World War II the Arisaka had, by far, the slowest rate of fire and most awkward manipulation.
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though I have yet to spend any trigger time with an Arisaka(C&R is a dead hobby in my neck of the woods apparently so they are few and far between) I have difficulty imagining anything worse than the 91/30 for WWI/WWII era battle rifles. I see how a straight handled cock-on-close would be kind of awkward but the arisaka family did compensate for the straight bolt handle by making it long, giving the shooter more leverage to cycle the bolt. the M91/30 has the shortest bolt handle I've ever seen and matching the lack of leverage with the very crude, rough surfaces of the mosin nagant, I would be much more inclined to say that this is the slowest firing of the lot.
not that the arisaka's are overly renowned for their fine lines and high quality machining either. this is all purely conjecture on my part as well, some day I hope to add one to the collection so I can actually have a
real opinion about them.