Beat Arisaka type 99 'Sporterized'

[CMUnderWoody]

Just joined you folks, howdy.

My godfather had to relocate from the lesser part of the city to the better part of the country. He promised me a cache of arms if I helped him and since I am not one to turn down guns, I obliged. Nothing very impressive, a couple Yugo Mausers, a couple .380 autos, a .357mag, 1000 rnds of 8mm and a bunch of other goodies. in the mess was this beat up stock with a goofy bolt. The gun was very rough, nut again; a guns always got a home in my home, no mater what condition. So away we went. upon some investigating, I determined that it was a Japanese 7.7 Arisaka. 99 by the single relief hole. Unfortunately someone tried 'sporterizing' the poor thing and mounted it on a very shabby stock and ground down the sight mounting set. So its very naked, with no way to mount a scope. So here I have a 7.7 bolt action i am going to be shooting open..errr...negative sights. Should be entertaining. It is too bad, I have heard good things about them in the field. This is by no means my first day with a secondhand gun. I am quite fond of adopting orphaned boom-sticks. In fact, my list of guns I have bought new is very short.

So off I go into the desert with a bucket full of bullets to see how she shoots. Anyone fancy with these things? If I like how she shoots I might be interested in updating the stock for real, and then maybe fixing the mount issue... Although, if yo can hunt a deer at 100 yards with a WWII rifle and no sights, you are pretty bad ass....

 

[CMUnderWoody]

here's some pictures after I cleaned her up a bit. Gonna hopefully get out sunday and shoot. My dad just picked up an SKS. '54 Russian. So we should have some fun...

 

[MachIVshooter]

That's a late war production gun. Probably fine, probably been shot plenty, but just so you know, the heat treating on those was very inconsistent, if done at all. Not all of them are safe to shoot.

 

[Vaarok]

The late war guns were built just as safely as the early and midwar guns, they just skipped more steps in finishing. If anything, it'd be more rugged due to excess metal.

 

[CMUnderWoody]

Good To Know

i assumed it wasn't much in the way of a fine firearm. If you take it off safety too quick, say in the heat of battle, the fire pin goes off. lol. good thing i am not one for slapping rounds in a gun right off the bat. so we'll see how long she lasts

 

[rondog]

Probably what's called a "last ditch" rifle, as in their last ditch effort to produce rifles as fast and cheaply as they could to get them into the hands of The Emperor's sacrifical sheep headed for slaughter. No frills, no buttplate? Might want to make sure it has rifling in the barrel to make sure it's not a training rifle.

And check to make sure it hasn't been converted to .30-06 too, see if an '06 round will drop into the chamber. Don't try to load one, just see if it'll drop in all the way. The 7.7 Jap and .30-06 are close enough that people use '06 brass to make 7.7 brass out of, but the '06 is longer and shouldn't drop in all the way. If it does, don't shoot 7.7 in it!

 

[CMUnderWoody]

first thing I did

I checked to make sure it wasn't updated to the 30.06
No buttplate, and the stock has to be something someone added later. It has been cut to fit the bolt release and any hole that weren't needed in the stock were filled with wood putty. Its pretty rough. But the barrel is straight and she definately has rifling.

 

[CMUnderWoody]

Stocks

do they have much out there in the way of aftermarket stocks for these. maybe one that has a pic rail on it?

 

[mokin]

Check out Numrich Gun Parts. A lot of thier lists say sold out but you may get lucky.

 

[BrocLuno]

That's the original Jap stock. See what looks like a crack in the butt stock - it isn't - it's the dovetail joint from a two piece built up stock. they did that from the pre-war Type 38 up until the end of production.

See that steel lug sticking down from the receiver? Bed that or make sure it rests on the cross bolt and you won't have to worry about the action moving back at all. Take care and rebuild the rifle after test firing. It can be a very good hunting rifle. As you may have noted during handling - that's one light rifle in it's current configuration. Certainly less than 8 Lbs.

They can be scoped. The top of the receiver is nearly Rem 700 contour. The heat treating is good and that steel is tough. You may need a machine shop to drill and tap the scope mounts - I would and I have a pretty good shop. If you add a scope, have them drill another gas relief port out the right side.

I see a crack in the left side of the wrist. I'd strip that stock all the way down to bare wood, pry that crack open slightly and soak it in penetrating epoxy to make sure it rebonded. Then I'd soak the whole stock in same and add two coats of matt spar varnish. you'll never make that wood pretty, but it's tough enough (and light )

The reason they cut off the rear sight was because it was a fixed peep and zeroed at 300 meters. It shoots about 6~8" high at 100 yds. and lots of folks find that too much to compensate in the field. I'd use epoxy to bed the action and the barrel out to the front of the old iron sight sleeve cut-out. It will really quiet the action and barrel down and the accuracy should be around 2" at 100 yds. You may get luckier.

There are still trigger kits for these, but the stock trigger can be worked by the home gunsmith

Fun project - Oh yeah, look at Mr Nambu for ammo right now. PPU brass and decent prices

 

[WardenWolf]

The Arisaka 99 receivers are plenty thick and strong. Stronger, in fact, than even the German Mausers. Tapping it for a scope mount should be no big deal. I have an early-production Arisaka in wartime configuration that my grandfather brought back. I'd never change a thing on it, but since that one's already sporterized, go for it.

 

[MachIVshooter]

The late war guns were built just as safely as the early and midwar guns, they just skipped more steps in finishing. If anything, it'd be more rugged due to excess metal.

Say some.

Because of the manufacturing conditions and the inconsistencies that are the very issue with "last ditch" rifles, it's not like anyone can check a couple and thereby submit that they are OK to shoot. It would only prove that the examples tested were OK.

I have a clean 99 with a mostly in-tact mum and a last ditch. I shot the last ditch a few times before I knew of the potential problems, but now I use the nice one because there's no reason to shoot the late war gun. As with the OP's, it's probably been fired plenty and it's probably fine, but I like my eyes and my face, so I see no reason to chance it.

 

[Jeremy2171]

"Last Ditch" is a misnomer....a more correct term is "Substitute Standard".

They were making the rifles that way the last year or two of the war.

My Late war T99 will flat out shoot my MINT early war T99, peep sight, non-chromed bore, welded bands and all...

 

[BrocLuno]

Yeah, my Pops bring back "last ditch" shoots just fine, thank you. The fixed sights leave a lot to be desired. But that's fixable

I got a pile of the beasties in various stages of rebuild or upgrades. Look carefully at the bolt and you see all the features that folks tout about the Win70 like claw extractor and controlled round feed. The bottom metal opens. The mags work well. the barrels seem to be well rifled and well crowned.

Adding a spacer and a thick recoil pad brings them up to US length of pull norms and then they are pretty comfortable to shoot. I like the design, once I got started working on them

 

[CMUnderWoody]

BrocLuno, Thanks for the support. Great info, makes me feel alot better about the old girl. I took her down a few times, just familiarization, and I can't wait to shoot it. I might actually take it down and get it tapped for scope. Am i correct that it is a 99 then? Because of the single port? And When tapping for scope should I just have a port taped 45 degrees to the right?
You Might have just lit the fire in an Arisaka fan. I was trying to keep my overall excitement down in case it was a disaster of a rifle, but the truth is, the Yugo's weren't impressive, I've carried dozens of them and aside from a zombie apocalypse, its not one I want to carry around. I sold my .270 so I am in need of a field gun. I'm a hopin' this is it.

 

[CMUnderWoody]

And on the stock, I stripped it. Then I stained it just to see. i'm Not much for pretty, but if I can get a scope on it I Might go that route and keep the stock. It is a pretty light setup

 

[BrocLuno]

I use Weaver bases (poor mans Picatinny ). They made both a one piece base and two piece sets. With either, they are the same width for the contact area. Get your base(s) and find the help needed to get it aligned accurately and drilled, or do the work carefully yourself. Once you see where the edge of the base contacts the round of the receiver, you can go down a 1/16th on the right and drill another relief hole.

Many folks don't do this and some use the existing gas vent for a scope base hole. I think it's too big and you'll have to mount a bigger base screw to use it. Once you have your base screw holes drilled and tapped, I use a bit of Emery cloth to rough up the area on the bottom of the base and top of the receiver. Then I use some JBWeld to seat the bases in. Screw them down snug and they are not going anywhere.

The cured JBWeld will hold up 350+ for heat, so if you are going to bead blast or sand blast the action and barrel to do a KG Guncoat baked finish or CerrKote, the bases and the bedding will still be intact and find after an hour in the oven. It'll all be one color and it'll be ready to go

From that point on, you have lot's of options. Install your scope. I like the vertically split bolt together rings, usually on discount at Wally World. Assemble loosely with the scope and mount it all. Snug down the bottom bolt first, get the scope cross hairs true to the rifle. If the action is out of the stock, put it on a level surface and use a nearby equally level object like a door frame to look at through the scope. When the flat surfaces are all happy, snug it down a bit more. Then tighten the top screw and you'll be good to go.

I really don't like gasses blowing back at me, hence the advise for another port. And on that subject, lots of folks get opinionated about the big safety knob at the back of the Arisaka bolt. By now I guess you've noticed that this may be the fastest bolt on the planet to field strip and clean That big knob also catches any gasses that come back from a ruptured round through either the bolt channel or through the firing pin cavity and the bolt itself. It's really hard to get an Arisaka to light up your face. But, I'd still add the relief port.

If you use aluminum Weaver two piece bases, aluminum rings and a light scope - it'll still be a featherweight by most folks standards. Hard to beat for a cheap brush gun. That .312/7.7mm bullet will do a number on most meat critters walking around south of mainland Alaska. If you need to go for moose, bear or big elk, I'd be paying the extra for the round nosed loads with heavier bullet weights.

We used to have a company in the South (Kinetics Research) that loaded 180 grain round nosed that would put the hurt on big animals. But, unfortunately, they had an explosion in their loading shop last year so that round is not available right now. The PPU brass from MRNambu can be reloaded: http://www.mrnambu.com/Brass.htm. The barrel wants the same range of bullets as the British 303 (.312) and the powder you would use for 06 or 308 will work fine.

All in all - these old sportered Arisaka's will give good service as a light rifle alternative to an 06. The 06 will have some more energy, so having both - I scope the 06 for longer range work and keep one of my Arisaka's light for carry in close cover

OH, and I noticed that only one of your action screws has the steel sleeve. ASAIK, they all do on a factory build. YOu might want to get some steel tubing (brake line?) and make a couple more. I glue mine into the refinished stock and put a bit of Never Seeze on the shank of the screw going in so they don't bind. I don't get crazy torquing them down. There is a lot of bearing surfaces in the design to hold the action in place. You don't need to kill the screws.

 

[CMUnderWoody]

Man you are a book of knowledge! You made me way excited on this damn thing. And all the screws have the sleeve, two just decided to stay in the wood at the time.
I've got a NcStar 3-9X40E Scope I really like. That's what I would like to get set up on it. You should drop a picture of your set-up for some reference. If you wouldn't mind. Although i am probably going to get it to a smith. I'm a mechanic, not much in the ay of fine machining.

 

[Hocka Louis]

Arisakas were a well regarded arm that people sporterized often in some circles back in the day. They were considered a better arm than most surplus for this. Not as reknowned as the Mauser and others though for whatever reason -- maybe 'cause they are a little "different."

 

[CMUnderWoody]

Took her out to a range today with my father. First of all, I hate ranges. For you range lovers, I am sorry. I'll take shooting tires full of sand in BFE over a range any day. My apologies.
Second I am very pleased. Considering there are absolutely no sights, at 50yds I could hit the paper. at 100yds I hit the frame once out of my last 3 bullets. At 25 yds however, I could smash all around the black from standing. Very easy to maneuver and has earned a spot on my mantle. I am for sure going to build it up and use it as my field/scope. Are gunsmiths outlawed in California, or can you still find a few good ol' boys left? We shall see