Arisaka identification

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Progress being made.

Cut the front unsupported area of the Weaver rail off. Ported it so the gas escape holes aren't covered. Learned that the rear hole wasn't threaded all the way down so I had to shorten the rear screw .03 of an inch so it actually puts pressure on the rear mount instead of free floating it.

Funny the person who tapped it didn't drill the rear hole all the way through. It's so close. But now it's rock solid.

Then I added medium height Millet scope rings. Found them in the clearance section of Gander mountain for $10.

Also bore sighted the scope so it should be ready for the range. If only I had a back yard range here.
 
This is a picture from before the work but does anyone know why the safety doesn't have a notch cut in it or raised section to enable/disable the safety?



It really looks like mine was just drilled an had a turned peg put in it. Obviously by some previous owner instead of the ones like these.

t44safety.jpg


t2safetyon1.jpg
 
From what we can see in the pictures, it looks like the correct one except for the pin and missing raised area. Maybe it was ground off? Most of the carbines had a safety body that looked as if it was machined from a slug. The full size rifles usually had a safety that looked cast. Some really had a long tang. After you see enough of them the carbine ones just look manufactured differently. There really were a lot of safety styles and it could have been replaced with a late war T-99 safety that was missing some machining, but the form of the steel LOOKS correct. Take the safety off and see if the last 3 digits of the serial number are one the front of the stud.
 
Gee, Gunplummer, you sound like some of the folks on the political debates.

As to safeties, the early Type 38 safeties were like that shown, fully knurled and with a "lump" (aka a "tang" to provide leverage and to allow a visual check of the safety position. The sides of the safety were serrated. Later, the tang was made thinner and the side serrations were dropped. Finally, the tang was replaced with a rounded notch, still with knurling on the back. That layout was continued in the early Type 99's.

All those safeties were made in two pieces. The Type 38 studs were threaded, screwed into the cap and staked. On the Type 99 safety, the stud was force fitted, welded and smoothed down before being knurled. Later the knurling was dropped and still later the weld was left rough. Since all the safeties of each model are interchangeable, the safety is not really a reliable indication of the period of manufacture.

Jim
 
Looks like the number is *310. That doesn't match the serial.
Click to expand...

Is it supposed to match the serial number? I thought Arisakas matching was done by an assembly number that was stamped on the bottom of the action. Maybe it is just the early ones, mine is a no-series Tokyo carbine, dates to WW1.

Does the number on the safety match the number on the bolt and bayonet lug?

My T38 the bolt is mismatched, but the assembly numbers match on the action, trigger and bayonet lug. None of those numbers match the serial number.
 
It depends. A lot of the 6.5's were rebuilt and there are crossed out numbers and some new numbers. On some the old numbers are not stamped out, but there are new ones added. The gun looks so complete I just thought the safety would match the bolt and bayonet lug. It seems a lot of 6.5 extractors are not marked at all. I don't know if this is a replacement thing or what with the extractors. The thing I always thought was odd is that it can have all matching numbers, but if you look close the shape of the number stamps are usually different from each other on the same gun.
The one I still have has a number on the extractor that matches the safety, but there is no number on the bolt at all. The bayonet lug # is close, but not the same. The serial # is different, but also close. I am not going to pull the stock off. You see this a lot, the numbers being close. I think it was after war switching because of not being re-stamped. It just looks as if a small lot of consecutive numbered guns were pulled apart and not kept separate to reassemble. You have to keep in mind that the Chinese used the guns and machinery for years after WWII. I shot a lot of Chinese made ammo that was late 50's manufacture. 15-20 years ago the Chinese dumped a boatload of 6.5's on the U.S. I don't know when the import marking started, so these guns may be marked, may not be.
 
The pre-68 import marking was the Country of Origin (COO) mark that was mandated originally in (I think) 1906. It consists of "Made in XXX" or just "XXX". That marking on ordinary products was usually put on by the foreign factory, but with surplus arms was generally put on in bond. The people doing the marking were not gun experts, so some times you see something like a Savage-made Rifle No. 4 marked "ENGLAND".

The original marking is still used on most products, but GCA '68 changed the marking of firearms to allow better tracing. (In the pre-computer days, it took several days to trace Lee Oswald's Carcano, since the importer was not known.) The current mark must include the importer (may be abbreviated) and the caliber, something not usually part of the marking on a military weapon, as well as the country of origin.

Most Japanese guns in this country are not import marked, since they were brought back by American GI's, not imported commercially.

Jim
 
There was a huge influx of Japanese (Mainly 6.5's) from China. That is why you see so many with the untouched MUM. There was even Hokey rifles converted to 7.62x39 by the Chinese. I just never saw any with an import marking on the barrel. I see a lot of Mausers and Russians with the import marking. Maybe they funneled them through another country when it was still illegal to import from China?
 
A 7.62x39 Arisaka would be a nice cheap shooter. Of course they probably only made them out of 7.7 barrels and didn't turn special barrels.

Even due to ammo price I still like shooting my T38 over my SKS.
 
The country of origin mark should show just that, so Japanese rifles brought in from China pre 1968 should have been marked as made in Japan, not China, After 1968 they would be marked something like "6.5 Jap XYZ Co." with the caliber name doing double duty as the COO.

Did importers sometimes fail to apply the mark? Possibly, but sometimes they also hid it so as to not reduce the collector value of the gun.

Jim
 
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