I'm not sure of the best place to ask this, but here goes. I inherited a Japanese rifle from WW II. My father got it in Burma. I'm looking for some basic information on it. The cell phone pics are not very good, especially the one with the markings that I believe are the emperor's stamp.

 

 

 

 

 

The "mum" crysanthamum is the emporars symbol. I can't tell by the pic. There are 3 symbols below the mum. The first means "Type". The other two are the numbers. This rifle is either a type 38 or a type 99. Easy way to tell is is the other two symbols are identical (99) or not (38).

You have a dust cover which covers the bolt, most were removed. On te right side of the receiver there is a serial number which follows symbols. The symbols will tell you the armory which the rifle was built and will tell you a little more about the serial number. If memory serves: every 100,000 rifles got a series symbol and the serial number started over.

There is quite a bit of info available through searches.

USA propiganda told the troops the Arisaka Rifles were crap and tended to explode. This isn't true, in fact the Arisaka action is very strong. The Government wanted to discourage troops from taking the rifles. The issues about strength came true with the "Last Ditch" rifles that were being built at the end of the war where supplies were running short.

You do not have a last ditch.

What else do you want to know?

Thanks very much. That is very helpful.

 

What caliber are these? Are they rare or common? I am not going to sell, but any idea how much these are worth?

 

I do remember my father saying that it was junk. I believe he traded cigarettes for it. I think that GI's were issued cigarettes as part of their rations, but he did not smoke. He would trade them for souvenirs. They were a form of currency.

Rifles with the chrysanthemum intact are worth more money. The Japanese and even American soldiers with captured weapons were told to deface the chrysanthemum as it was the emperor’s symbol and the Japanese did not want to disgrace the emperor and the Americans did not want to offend the Japanese. The dust cover is also a plus as troops frequently removed them. They rattled when the action was worked which gave away the soldier's position.

Yes, it has the chrysanthemum symbol intact.

 

The dust cover is loose, and it sometimes comes off when you move the bolt.

 

Thanks again.

It is chambered in either 6.5 or 7.7 Jap. Not hard to figure out which. If it was captured on Burma, then it is probably 7.7. It is based on the Mauser action, and is reported to be one of the strongest variants.

 

It looks to be a short carbine variant of the Arisaka, as it doesn't have the typical rear sight with anti-aircraft ladder sights, and is noticeably short.

Type 38 fires a 6.5mm round.

Type 99 fires a 7.7mm round.

Ammo is hard to come by at a reasonable price.

As with all milsurp rifles the value is determined by condition and serial number, matching numbers, etc...

100 on up.

That's a Type 38 Carbine. The Kanji characters below the mum says "three eight type". Shoots 6.5 Jap. Mum looks intact. Carbines are a lot more rare than rifles. If all numbers match including the dust shield then it's worth a lot.

Here's one on GB. You can get an idea how much they go for. This one is NOT all matching (front band does not match) and does not have the dust shield.

 

http://www.gunbroker...?Item=265586815

It is indeed a Type 38 chambered for 6.5 Jap. Dust covers aren't really seen on rifles since they were ditched in the field cause they were a pain in the balls when working the action of the rifle in the middle of combat. If you get a shot of the left side of the receiver where the serial number is, I can look up what factory and production number it is if all the stamps are there.

 

I'm not sure about T38's, but T99's were done in production blocks of 99,999. Type 38's may have been produced in the same way. This is the easiest way of telling when it was made, and what factory it came out of.

Thanks everyone for the information. My mother has the rifle right now at her house in PA. The next chance I get, I am going to bring it back to my house and take some better pictures.

I finally got this rifle back home. Some better pictures are here

 

http://rdsmith3.smugmug.com/Other/Firearms/21565488_RgTq2R

Very Nice

A guy brought in an Arisaka on the show "Sons of Guns". They found some ammo, pulled the rounds and reloaded with a light charge. There was almost no recoil, must have been a 6.5mm, and looked fun to shoot.

Very nice rifle. We have 2 of them in the family. Great shooters.

I finally got this rifle back home. Some better pictures are here

 

http://rdsmith3.smug...21565488_RgTq2R

 

Beautiful rifle.

 

Ammo doesn't look to be too cheap though, if you buy 200 rounds you're looking at about 75 cents per round.

 

http://www.sportsman...970&stk=1&d=121

 

I would still invest in the ammo though, definitely worth shooting, if not for the history lesson.

 

Enjoy!

I still have some ammo from 65 years ago and still shoots good

Thanks for the history lesson guys, I really enjoyed this thread.

Beautiful rifle.

 

Ammo doesn't look to be too cheap though, if you buy 200 rounds you're looking at about 75 cents per round.

 

http://www.sportsman...970&stk=1&d=121

 

I would still invest in the ammo though, definitely worth shooting, if not for the history lesson.

 

Enjoy!

 

My father told me that the firing pin was removed many years ago, so I won't be shooting.

OK!

Jap. Type 38 (6.5mm)

Nagoya Arsenal (Production dates: 1923-1945) [Type 38's were stopped around the late 30's early 40's for Type 99 production]

Series 4 (?)

Serial is from mid production of that block

 

Those clear pics really helped, nice looking rifle.

 

After some further reading, you might have a Type 38 Carbine which there was only one known production run of.

 

Further edit:

You might be able to find a cheap Type 38 on Gun Broker or a gun show, or even just find a bolt and scalp the firing pin from that. The problem with taking the bolt down is that the safety is spring loaded and has the tendency to shoot little springs all over the place if you aren't careful.

mgralley,

 

Thanks for that excellent information.

No problem, I love finding information like that.

 

Anyone that has a Type 38 or Type 99 this is the site I use for identification of markings:

 

http://www.radix.net/~bbrown/japanese_markings.html

 

Once you've narrowed it down to a couple possibilities all you really have to do is search for your rifle on Google. The wealth of information just floating around is amazing.