Any Arisaka shooters out there?

[lathedog]

I reload 7.7 Arisaka with Remington brand .311 180gr bullets I buy from MidwayUSA in a bulk pack of 500. They are cheaper than pulling apart loaded ammo for bullets (although that is a good strategy for saving bullets from ammo that is corroded, has hangfires, or when you absolutely have no other options).

I have heard that Graf's has cheap brass in this caliber, but I always cut 30-06 brass to length and resized in a 7.7 die. 8x57 is so close dimensionally that it does not need to be trimmed before resizing. I stick with 30-06 to keep consistent head stamps and because 8x57 is so damn close that there is tremendous room for error if you ever lost track of what you did with the brass. 30-06 headstamped brass that is 57.5 long is instantly recognizeable for what it is. I also use permanent marker to stain the case heads for visual ID. My advice is to be very careful if you make a decision to go this route.

Lots of folks will mention that 7.7 has a different head size than 30-06. I have reference books that show them .001 apart, but I have also ran a mic over actual Japanese military ammo and it reads .473" every time. Chambers in these rifles are often oversized and case heads will stretch. This can be dangerous if you are using tired old '06 brass rather then new high quality Norma brass. That is the best reason not to use trimmed and sized 30-06 brass to form 7.7 Arisaka.

I like to load moderate to light loads with 4895 powder for a pleasant shooting experience. Start with a minimum load from the powder manufacturer's data and see how your accuracy runs. Why beat yourself up?

You can also set back the barrel to shorten the chamber to .308 Win length. I hate screwing with historical rifles in this manner. Folks used to ream the chambers out to 30-06, which is damgerous due to the thin chamber walls at the new cartridge shoulder and neck location due to the quick taper point of the barrel profile. Also difficult to ream due to the chrome chamber and bore. I have one reamed to 30-06 way back when by God knows who, and I shoot it, but it makes me nervous. The US government did this in the Korean war so it must be reasonably not-too-unsafe.

I think the Type 99 Arisaka is a great shooting rifle and the rear peep/ghost ring sight is an excellent feature.

 

[fireflyfather]

Spiggy, some reason the name tag is in katakana instead of hiragana or kanji? I know sometimes modern Japanese use katakana for sounding out names on official documents, but didn't realize that was common during WWII for soldiers' nametags.

Like I said, brass and bullets can be had at Grafs for reasonable prices. No need to mess around with fireforming and weird headstamps. Hell, even with full powder loads and premium bullets, it's no more expensive than factory 30-06. Then you get to re-use the brass. Silly to fireform brass for it unless you already have tons of it lying around that you won't use for an actual 30-06 or 8mm.

Now let's all email Lee Precision and get them to make a run of 7.7 arisaka lee loaders.

 

[Spiggy]

oh, it's in katakana because I havent learned how to write in kanji yet

It says "Subigii"

 

[elmerfudd]

If you put a little circle, rather than the ", after the 'hi' then it will say "Supigii".

 

[elmerfudd]

The rifle that was firing the 30-06 cartridge through a 6.5mm bore had been rechambered in 30-06. Here's an article that references it: http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0BQY/is_5_50/ai_114283920

 

[Spiggy]

it's phoneticly correct, a hard "P" sound isn't so mellifluous- plus mixing Rs and Ls and Bs and Ps and Bs and Vs is very common in japanese

 

[kBob]

Wrong ammo in a Arisaka story.

It's the late 1960's and highschool buddy has me over and is showing me the guns in the bedroom he shared with his brother, then away at college.

The Sharps Carbine was a wonder, as was a beautiful Marlin 25-35 leveraction with buck horn sights, marble like peep rear mounted on the tang, and a external adjustment slide scope of about 3/4 inch diameter in a side mount (any of the sight systems could be easily used) a nice looking Winchester 94 in .32 Special, and finally a nice looking Type 99 with AA sights and Monopod. Oh yes and a Marlin Model60 and Cortuna Mauser 98 in the closet.

We talked about the guns and when we got to the Type 99 I was informed that it had not been fired since WWII except for two years earlier and that accuracy was so poor and that it seemed to leak gas so much and it so mangled brass that they had stopped shooting after less than a half a box. This was a nice rifle and in good shape The Mum did have some file marks through it but was not totaly removed and the bore and chamber looked very nice. WHen I told my friend I found his report hard to believe he grunted and searched in the back of his desk drawer and pulled out three mangled cartidge cases. All had experienced blow outs at the shoulder and one had a long split down the side. He then proudly showed me the half box of "Jap Ammo. " I am not sure how they managed to get 6.5 Jap to feed and fire in a 7.7x57 Arisaka. I guess brute force and ignorence can accomplish great things with a bolt action. Went boom. Chamber was not sealed well, likely because of the blow outs up front floated the case . Bullet bounced its way down the 1.2mm wider barrel. Not accurate? You think?

-Bob Hollingsworth

 

[fireflyfather]

it's phoneticly correct, a hard "P" sound isn't so mellifluous- plus mixing Rs and Ls and Bs and Ps and Bs and Vs is very common in japanese

I beg to differ. B and P are distinct sounds in the Japanese language. The V sound does not exist, and neither does the L sound.

Also, you could find kanji that have the same pronunciation as those katakana, but it would make no sense if you strung them together as a word. Katakana is probably the best way to write "supigii". I should have asked you why you didn't use a real Japanese name in hiragana/katakana (yours or a stage name).

In any case, that's a nice rifle, a nice costume, and you can feed that rifle cheap, quality ammo if you get some dies and components from grafs. A single stage press would be fine, I'm sure. If you don't mind using a gallery load (13 grains of Red Dot, or similar), you can shoot that thing even cheaper (cheaper than factory handgun ammo).