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Old June 19, 2014, 05:30 AM   #1
trigger643
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I think this is turning out well...

Found this rusty old rifle moldering for the price of a tank of gas. Decided to try the bag of metal cleaner I've had around for a couple of years (I think it's a nickel/manganese alloy wool). About 5 minutes elbow work... Still has a ways to go, but I might have to pick up some more of this stuff.

Before and After:


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Old June 19, 2014, 08:30 AM   #2
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It is a 6.5 Arisaka. I still have one that had a bore sooo rusty I had to go after it with a wire brush, oil and a drill just to get a patch through. At a hundred yards it is a real menace to deer now.
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Old June 19, 2014, 01:55 PM   #3
kilimanjaro
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It may still be a junker, but that unground Mum makes it a good junker. You did good.
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Old June 19, 2014, 10:10 PM   #4
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For some reason, an intact MUM on 6.5's is not really that unusual. I suspect it is because of the thousands that China got their hands on. It does seem that more of the carbines were defaced. I don't know why.
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Old June 19, 2014, 10:18 PM   #5
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It looks good. Nice find!
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Old June 20, 2014, 02:20 PM   #6
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some full body shots would be nice... not a bad cleanup job.
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Old June 20, 2014, 06:16 PM   #7
trigger643
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It's a carbine from the Mukden arsenal. Completely matching #, beautiful bore. Only sore spot was the rust and a broken firing pin spring (ordered from Numrich).


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Old June 20, 2014, 07:33 PM   #8
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Looks like fun to me. I have a sporterized type 38 6.5 with intact mum so i'm told but apparently when my grandfather was trying to drill and tap it for a scope a lot of drill bits didn't do the job so the mount was welded in place over the mum. So the world will never know.

This was done to a $25 barreled action back in 1983. But it doesn't matter since my grandfather probably bagged 40 deer with it since then and many around 200 yards.
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Old June 23, 2014, 08:50 AM   #9
Mike Irwin
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My gunsmith in Pennsylvania mounted scopes to a LOT of Japanese rifles after World War II.

He said that the steel was so hard that he finally obtained, at substantial expense at that time, diamond bits.

Apparently once you got through the hard candy shell, it wasn't such a chore to drill and tap.
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Last edited by Mike Irwin; June 23, 2014 at 10:40 AM.
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Old June 23, 2014, 05:30 PM   #10
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Arisakas are in the 4140 range of steel. Around 38-45 RC, no case on the exterior. I suspect your gunsmith wanted to charge more for a scope mount job. I have done a LOT of arisakas. Probably the closest gun steels I can relate it to would be the MAS 36 and the Savage M99. Even later in the war when the barrels and screw on stuff went to cheaper steels, the receivers had the same recipe, except for the cast experiments. They are so rare I have only ever seen one.
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Old June 23, 2014, 08:15 PM   #11
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Gunplummer,
What kind of drill bits are you using to drill these Arisakas?

My grandpa and uncle bought arisakas at the same time from the same buy. My uncle being a mechanic at the ford garage drilled his out just fine but he said when it came to the other one it broke an assortment of bits all day long.

As for Mike I'm sure what he's saying is once you get a hole started it cuts like butter instead of insisting that there is an out shell on the action.
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Old June 23, 2014, 09:11 PM   #12
Mike Irwin
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He wasn't the only gunsmith I've talked to over the years who complained about how difficult Arisakas were to drill, and given that in 1985 he was charging about $20 to drill just about any rifle for scopes, I sincerely doubt that he was making a fortune on it.


"As for Mike I'm sure what he's saying is once you get a hole started it cuts like butter instead of insisting that there is an out shell on the action."

Oh no, not at all. It's a well-known fact that Arisakas have the M&M coating. They don't melt anywhere.
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Old June 24, 2014, 06:34 AM   #13
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Arisakas are easy to drill, it is the tapping that you have to be careful with. Heat treated 4140 is very abrasive and wears drill bits fast. It helps to sharpen the drill once and a while. I don't care what kind of set up a guy uses for gun work, what works is fine, but years back the drill press was pretty much the standard. Jigs and hand drills were common. Low RPM is everything with tough steels, and these tool types usually did not have much adjustment on RPM. It is easy to "Work harden" 4140 with high RPM and oil. I have worked on hundreds (Used to collect them) of Arisakas. Made bolts, shortened receivers, made takedowns, and NEVER had a receiver that was heat treated to the point of deflecting a drill, UNLESS somebody had messed with it (Applied a torch to loosen something). Type "I" receivers were cased, but I would not classify them as Arisakas.
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