Jammed bolt on an Arisaka 99

[theyoyomaster]

My in laws just gave me a pair of Arisakas that belonged to my now deceased grandfather in law. I'm new to Arisakas so feel free to educate me but they appear to be a 99 rifle and a 38 carbine. The rifle is seized and I can't open the bolt.

The bolt won't budge forward or back and the handle won't rotate down fully into battery. using the cleaning rod I determined that it is unloaded but other than that I made no progress. I tried disassembling it but the two screws in the take down lever won't come all the way out and I can't get anything to come free of the action after backing out the screws. The safety won't rotate but I can push it in a fraction of an inch. It is also pushed in a bit more than the free safety on the carbine which operates normally. If anyone has any ideas on how to free the bold on the rifle I would greatly appreciate it.

 

[chris in va]

I had a similar issue with a cosmoline caked SKS. I placed the bolt and small parts in boiling water for a few minutes. The stuff floats to the top.

I say that because the trigger looks like it's caked with it.

 

[DnPRK]

Have you tried removing the sear and trigger assembly? Push out the forward pin and see if that frees up the bolt.

 

[theyoyomaster]

The cosmoline is pretty thick but this feels more like a mechanical jam than anything. It could be making something miss-aligned on the inside but we'll see.

Taking the trigger/sear out was my next guess, I just hadn't found any videos showing how to do so. So you just punch out this pin and it drops out?

I'm a little nervous about it simply because I don't think these guns have been touched since before I was born so taking apart an out of battery gun that I can't see into the chamber makes me hesitate. I used the cleaning rod to check the barrel and it appears to be unloaded but I'm still a little gun shy.

 

[theyoyomaster]

Got it. The safety was slightly mis-aligned and completely jammed. The shorter one (I think it's a 38) has the safety engaged at the 12:00 position and disengaged at 10:30. The longer (jammed 99?) is engaged at 10:30 and disengaged at 9:00 so I couldn't figure it out just by comparing the two.

Thanks for the advice guys, I can't wait to find out more about these.

 

[tahunua001]

they are fun rifles. I have the type 44 carbine(like the type 38 but with a flip up bayonet) and a type 99, they are both the pride and joy of my collection. glad you got it figured out.