Shot my Type 99

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M5-Shogun

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I've had my Type 99 Arisaka for about 10 years now, but never got to fire it due to a combination of "concerned family" and lack of ammo availability. I recently got some FMJ ammo, and took it to my family's property to shoot.

It's a Series II, Nagoya Arsenal, about 1941. Fit and finish is excellent other than some minor stock damage.

It fired without issues. No injuries, no damage etc. I had checked the headspace before buying it years ago.

It kicks like a mule, and I guess I underestimate the average Japanese soldier, as I cannot imagine a 5'4" rural young adult who at the time was probably malnourished firing that and not falling backwards. Totally different from my friend's Type 30... that's for sure.
 
They're not pretty or well refined, but they were a very durable and reliable combat arm for the tropical conditions they were intended for. The Japs used very good steel until very late in the war, and the design is very strong. I'll probably be getting another one as the prices are still hanging relatively low compared to other milsurps.
 
They are very good and strong guns. Some thing the 7.7 was a mistake for the japanese.....unless the thread wants to go down that road I will not comment on it. To me it is on par with other "big" bolt rifles of that era, 1903 (something about that really hurts me) smle, mosin....all hit you about the same....only "common" bolt gun that I think is softer to shoot is the MAS36. Not sure if it is the bulk of that rifle or that 7.5 french is just a little softer shooting.

I have been looking for a "good" to my standards 6.5 jap rifle, but the right one has not come long...took almost two years to find my 99.

They are very underrated.
 
I've been enjoying my Type I.
It's amusing to have a Carcano that's dressed up like an Arisaka Type 38 and set up to fire 6.5 Japanese... and still selling for $150.00.

I really don't think there was a "bad" issued rifle in WWII.....but if I had to pick carcano would be pretty close to the top......that said I do have more then a few of them, and with attn to loading you can make them shoot on par with anything else in like shape. I guess I would say they are not THAT bad.
 
I’m not an expert on 1890-1940 military executive thinking, but I could imagine that the military elite in most Countries were looking for rifles with enough energy and range to drop enemy cavalry horses at distance as well as enemy soldiers. Horses and oxen still moved the bulk of battlefield materiel until WWII, so this may be a reason heavier calibers were chosen by these Armies.

The 7.9x57, .30-‘06, .303, 7.62x54R, 7.7 Japanese, 7.65 Argentine, etc. were all of relatively similar power/bullet weight/ trajectories, etc. and all have the juice to kill horses or other draft animals on the battlefield.

(Just a thought that was not backed by any real research on the subject :) .)

My former shooting buddy has a nice pair of 6.5 and 7.7 rifles with mums intact, I wish I had a chance to shoot them before he moved away (and turned into a jerk to all of us who knew him.)

Stay safe.
 
For anyone who has the chance to fire a 6.5 Type 38 they should definitely do so. They are very pleasant to shoot and fairly accurate at 100 yards. I literally could shoot one all day. I have the loading dies for 7.7 but need to find a decent Type 99 long rifle for myself.
 
I remember back in the late 50's and early 60's nearly every hardware store sold commercial firearms and surplus military guns. The 03 rifles were considered the cream of the crop and then Mauser. The Japanese rifles were considered junk and their sales prices reflected that. A friend had a Russian rifle that was deemed only a small step above the Japanese rifles.
 
I remember back in the late 50's and early 60's nearly every hardware store sold commercial firearms and surplus military guns. The 03 rifles were considered the cream of the crop and then Mauser. The Japanese rifles were considered junk and their sales prices reflected that. A friend had a Russian rifle that was deemed only a small step above the Japanese rifles.


Heck in the 1990s I would see them at auction selling in the 8 to 12 dollar range and the old auctioneer would really have to cry to get it...
 
I'll post images when I get the chance.

Did I shoot groups? Yes, but at only 75 ft it was less than half an in - and it was into a large tree, so I didn't use paper targets. I don't have a lot of space to shoot as if I go any farther it would be going across a property driveway and that's dangerously stupid and illegal. And no way am I paying $500/year to shoot at my local range. Too much for me.

The Type 38 and Carcano are not terrible rifles. Low recoil, good accuracy, much faster for followup shots etc. The worst rifle of WWII? I 'd have to say the Mosin - don't get me wrong, I LOVE my mosins, but the sticky bolts, gritty action, and high recoil, plus rimlock possibilities, and the like, I can't say they're great compared to all of the wonderful Lee-Enfields and Mauser-based actions out there.
 
these Japanese ww-2 items are all bring backs (second one down was sent home from the south pacific by my uncle). all have ex crome bores and with my reloads shoot as good as other ww-2 issue rifles(.311 dia174gr horandy bullets with 47gr imr 4350 for 2500 fps with 1-3/4" groups at 100 yards) and they are strong. I have killed deer one of them. the bad rap comes from last ditch rifles made at close to the end of the war and rifles that were built as blank(only) firing trainers.
 

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I remember the WW2 generation and how much they hated, and I mean hated, all things Japanese. Rattlesnakes were nicer creatures in their opinion. Looking back, we can say Japanese soldiers were brave, but they were fanatics to the WW2 generation. And to reinforce this were the stories of cast iron Japanese rifles. It only makes sense that crazy people would be using cast iron rifles that would blow up in your face.

This is one of them. It turns out this was close enough to looking like a real rifle that the local gunstore had it out on the floor as a 6.5 Arisaka. It is not. The barrel is a smooth bore tube not even screwed into the receiver. It just looks like a rifle. This is a training rifle that was used at schools to train the kids in preparation for the real show. I can mount a standard bayonet, you can load it with a standard cartridge, but it was only meant for blanks, if that. Probably they had dummy rounds with no powder. You have to know enough about firearm construction to recognize it as not a firearm, and enough American Dogfaces brought these back, stuffed a round in them, and blew themselves up, that all Arisaka rifles received a bad reputation.

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I do have the 6.5 Arisaka and a short barrel M99. I consider the recoil of the 7.7 round to be less than that of a 30-06, which is far more vicious. Another WW2 story, GI's claimed the Japanese built a rifle of larger caliber so they could use captured American ammunition, but that we could not use their 7.7 round in a 30-06. Well that is nuts. A 30-06 will not fit into the magazine well of my type 99 and I can't close the bolt as the round is too long.

I think highly of the Arisaka action. In all respects it is superior to the M1903. Less parts, more durable, easy take down, simple operation. The Japanese thought long and hard and made an improved Mauser. Because of superior case head support it has taken crazy over pressure charges that demolish M1917 actions and M1903 actions. Not that the Japanese were into reloading for these things, but they did build a very strong and safe rifle. They also reinforced the pistol grip with iron straps so you can smash a man's head to a pulp without the stock breaking through the pistol grip. The Japanese were very aggressive with the bayonet and the rifle was designed for the hard contact of hand to hand combat.

The rear sight is very simple, adequate for someone who just receives the barest of training. The 03 sight is a horrible combat sight, too complicated, too small, easily gets out of adjustment, and is not a very good target sight. About the worst of both worlds.

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well said, the Japanese rifles were up to the task at hand in ww-2, I think the semi-auto m-1 garand gave the US soldiers a advantage over all the axis rifles used in the war. my uncle was in a fire fight in the phillipines with a Japanese patrol and thanks to the m-1, he and the men with him killed them all in a close incounter with using m-1 garands.
 
I never thought much about the Japanese rifles for many of the stereotypical perceptions my uncles that served would share with me when I was a kid. And I get it, these guys saw and experienced some messed up stuff.Then my brother gave me a sporterized Type 99 which prompted me to do some research . I was pleasantly surprised by what I found, i.e. strong action, reliable, good power round. I've yet to shoot it, but he said it was plenty accurate for deer. I'll work up some loads and look forward to taking it in the woods this season to try and fill one of my antlerless tags. 20190720_143322.jpg 20190720_143340.jpg
 
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I’m not an expert on 1890-1940 military executive thinking, but I could imagine that the military elite in most Countries were looking for rifles with enough energy and range to drop enemy cavalry horses at distance as well as enemy soldiers. Horses and oxen still moved the bulk of battlefield materiel until WWII, so this may be a reason heavier calibers were chosen by these Armies.

I have no idea either if the armies picked rounds so they could kill horses but I know they used a lot of horses in both world wars and killed a lot them to boot. I just finished watching "Apocalypse WW1 and Apocalypse WW2" on Youtube and they were a good watch. If you like to study these wars they are worth the time. What those people, soldiers and civilians went through is hard to comprehend.
 
The worst rifle of WWII? I 'd have to say the Mosin - don't get me wrong, I LOVE my mosins,
The Italian Carcano's weren't all that hot, either.

I consider the type 99 to be the best bolt action of the war. Simple, few parts, easy to manufacture, accurate enough and enormously strong, it also had the enormous advantage of a chromed bore that ignored corrosive primers. The Japanese were the first nation to realize that a chrome plated bore in a rifle used in a tropical environment was a good combination.
 
’m not an expert on 1890-1940 military executive thinking, but I could imagine that the military elite in most Countries were looking for rifles with enough energy and range to drop enemy cavalry horses at distance as well as enemy soldiers. Horses and oxen still moved the bulk of battlefield materiel until WWII, so this may be a reason heavier calibers were chosen by these Armies.

The 7.9x57, .30-‘06, .303, 7.62x54R, 7.7 Japanese, 7.65 Argentine, etc. were all of relatively similar power/bullet weight/ trajectories, etc. and all have the juice to kill horses or other draft animals on the battlefield.

I am going to claim,(after all I was not there) that killing horses was about the least consideration for a service cartridge in the early days of smokeless powder. It is apparent from remaining books, that flatness of trajectory and accuracy at distance were highly ranked characteristics:

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But they were far from being the only characteristics being evaluated, retained, racked and stacked. Horse burgers would be a non issue. For a good discussion of the issues of cartridges, realistic accuracy, realistic rates of fire, ammunition weight, weapon weight, I recommend acquiring a copy of "Automatic Arms their history, development and use" by Melvin Johnson. I bought mine in a Half Priced Books for $6.00, it has been reprinted from the 1941 edition. Starting in chapter 12, "Fire Effects, then Chapter 13 "the combat efficiency of the rifle", and following chapters, you can see the type of factors and discussions used in evaluating pre WW2 cartridges and weapons. And what the pre WW2 Army thought was important pretty much was proven to be silly in the post WW2 era. After WW2, extreme flat trajectory and accuracy at extreme range almost drop from consideration as the powers that be remember that eight months into WW2, the cadre who could hold and hit a target at long range were all dead. And there was not the years of practice available to train the cannon fodder who took their place. What you get from countries like Russia who suffered 20 million dead, was a realignment of priorities. I think the highest weighted decision factors was a cartridge to fit a simple, reliable, cheap to build gun that always went bang and only had to hit something around 300 yards away. Which was 250 yards further than what they expected the cannon fodder could hit with aimed fire. You can look up the numbers, but I recall that something like 60 to 80% of infantry were killed by artillery. Small arms fire lost a huge amount of the importance it had pre WW1.

If you examine the combat load, the trajectory, the recoil, weight of the weapon, WW1 cartridges cluster around an entirely different mean than the post WW2 service rounds.

And for pre WW1 Analysis of Alternatives, this was something Captain Nemo carried on the Nautilus

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I remember the WW2 generation and how much they hated, and I mean hated, all things Japanese. Rattlesnakes were nicer creatures in their opinion. Looking back, we can say Japanese soldiers were brave, but they were fanatics to the WW2 generation. And to reinforce this were the stories of cast iron Japanese rifles. It only makes sense that crazy people would be using cast iron rifles that would blow up in your face.

This is one of them. It turns out this was close enough to looking like a real rifle that the local gunstore had it out on the floor as a 6.5 Arisaka. It is not. The barrel is a smooth bore tube not even screwed into the receiver. It just looks like a rifle. This is a training rifle that was used at schools to train the kids in preparation for the real show. I can mount a standard bayonet, you can load it with a standard cartridge, but it was only meant for blanks, if that. Probably they had dummy rounds with no powder. You have to know enough about firearm construction to recognize it as not a firearm, and enough American Dogfaces brought these back, stuffed a round in them, and blew themselves up, that all Arisaka rifles received a bad reputation.

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I do have the 6.5 Arisaka and a short barrel M99. I consider the recoil of the 7.7 round to be less than that of a 30-06, which is far more vicious. Another WW2 story, GI's claimed the Japanese built a rifle of larger caliber so they could use captured American ammunition, but that we could not use their 7.7 round in a 30-06. Well that is nuts. A 30-06 will not fit into the magazine well of my type 99 and I can't close the bolt as the round is too long.

I think highly of the Arisaka action. In all respects it is superior to the M1903. Less parts, more durable, easy take down, simple operation. The Japanese thought long and hard and made an improved Mauser. Because of superior case head support it has taken crazy over pressure charges that demolish M1917 actions and M1903 actions. Not that the Japanese were into reloading for these things, but they did build a very strong and safe rifle. They also reinforced the pistol grip with iron straps so you can smash a man's head to a pulp without the stock breaking through the pistol grip. The Japanese were very aggressive with the bayonet and the rifle was designed for the hard contact of hand to hand combat.

The rear sight is very simple, adequate for someone who just receives the barest of training. The 03 sight is a horrible combat sight, too complicated, too small, easily gets out of adjustment, and is not a very good target sight. About the worst of both worlds.

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It’s a common mistake that Japanese training rifles were made just to fire blanks.
Some of the trainers like the Type 38 7/8 scale rifle were made to only fire gallery rounds. Standard ammo and blanks can’t be loaded into the magazine of the 7/8 scale rifle.
Here’s a pic of Japanese ammo. The two rounds on the right are gallery rounds that were used in school trainers.
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I think the retention of "large " caliber bullets can be traced to developments in powder, priming and bullet jackets. Early smokeless powder, priming and jackets were hard on barrels. Nations that transitioned earlier to smokeless maintained larger bore diameters. Nations that let it shake out a bit jumped from 10mmish BP rounds to 7mm or less. The Japanese and Italians are outliers, and perhaps not coincidentally have the lowest powered 6.5mm rounds.
 
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