My father-in-law's "Japanese 30-06"

D

DarthNul

New member
My FIL mentioned his "Japanese 30-06" that he bought by mail order back in the 1950's several times. Last time I was in North Dakota I got a look at it. It seems to have started out as a surplus Arisaka. My FIL shortened the fore stock, refinished the wood and did some remodeling of the front sight.

The chrysanthemum stamp has been ground off. I read that the Japanese did this when barrels were too worn for regular service and this meant they were only suitable for training or ceremonies. I suspect it may also have been done with weapons before they were surrendered but that's just a guess.

I asked my FIL what ammo he puts in the thing and he's just using American 30-06. Then he added that "it takes a while to get a second shot off though, because the shoulder of the cartridge doesn't quite fit in the chamber and that makes it slow to reload".

I thought these things were either 6.5 or 8mm. I didn't see any caliber markings in the barrel or receiver.

I heard some people tried to re-chamber these things but he didn't think that was the case with his since there was just as much rust in the chamber as there was in the barrel when he got it.

Is this thing safe with 30-06 ammo? what might be a better (safer) fit? I don't know if he's "fire swaging" .308 bullets down to 6.5mm or rattling them down an 8mm barrel. He says it's always been "accurate enough" and he's taken more than a few deer over the years.
 
Original chambering was 7.7X58mm, a .311" bullet on a case not quite as long as a 30-06. There were many Arisakas rechambered with a 30-06 reamer, so many in fact that about 30 years ago it was downright common to find them in that condition, more common than finding them unaltered. So it's hard to say what your FIL has, but it sure sounds like that's what it is. As far as why it won't feed properly, could be the magazine length, or it could be that whoever ran that chamber reamer into it did a poor job.

As far as the chrysanthemum being removed, this was done at the time of the surrender of Japan at the end of WW2. It signified removing the rifles from active service, and was done to allow the Emperor to save face. It is also a great way to tell a real battlefield capture from a rifle someone bought and brought home (which most did, few wanted to carry around someone else's hardware when shots were still flying).
 
Many many years ago a guy showed up at the NRA technical department with an Arisaka, asking why it had such terrible recoil and hard extraction.

He said it had been rechambered to .30-06 by a gunsmith, from whom he bought it.

.30-06 certainly fit, except the smith never bored out/replaced the barrel, so the bullets were being fire swaged from .308 to .264.

We had both the rifle and some of the recovered bullets in Publications Division's technical firearms library.
 
Mike,

What did it do to the accuracy? I would think that it would alter the boat-tailed profile too much, by swaging the bullet down, for it to be accurate.
 
The way I heard that was the guy supposedly bought the reamer & did it himself but wound up grinding the pilot off because it was stopping the reamer from fully entering the chamber and he didn't understand that he had a 6.5, not a 7.7.
 
if the rifle was a model 99 and had .311 barrel there would not be any swaging going on, the pressure would be less, same for the 7.65mm53 when chambered to 30/06.

Then there is that story about the extra kick and loud 'report' when a 30/06 is fired in a 6.5. .264 diameter barrel with a diameter difference of .044" ?? and no one ask why an 8mm57 will render a 30/06 to scrap on anything less than a very strong receiver. The difference in diameter between the 8mm and 308-30/06 bullet is .025".

Then there is the case, firing an 8mm57 in a 30/06 chamber will crush the case head and open up the primer pocket and flash hole.

Upset, the case head of the 8mm57 case head will crush and expand .040" ++, after being crushed the case will not fit a shell holder, even the loose ones like the Lee and RCBS.

Accuracy, how was the accuracy? it goes back to the kick, and the loud report, and the assuming as in it is assumed the bullet in a very disciplined manner was swaged down and behaved like nothing bad just happened.

F. Guffey
 
On another forum I reported trying to fire 7.7 Japanese in a .30-'06 (a Model 1903A3 Remington) after a WWII vet claimed to have done it in combat. To my astonishment, the round not only fed and chambered easily and fired, but the Japanese clip worked fine. The fired cases have short necks, but no signs of other than normal firing and no signs of high pressure.

8mm in a .30-'06 chamber (it would have to be forced in) would be a different story; the bullet is larger and the pressure (at least with German WWII ball) is greater.

Jim
 
"To my astonishment" A very boring story, for me starts when someone says " Hatcher said etc.." The 1903 and A3 is a control feed, meaning the rim of the case hangs on the rim of the case, then it is said the case head spaces on the extractor long enough for the firing pin to crush the primer.

So I am not astonished when this sort of thing happens. I am astonished when someone disregards the difference in diameter between the 30/06 at .308 and the 6.5 at .264 them claims the 8MM has more effect on pressure than the .308 bullet in the .264 barrel.

Then you left out the 308 W when fired in the 30/06 chamber, like the short necked case of the 7.7 the 308 is ejected with a hint of a shoulder and no neck. The 308 W head spaces in the case body/shoulder juncture.

F. Guffey
 
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I think it's time to slug the bore and get the chamber casted.
Click to expand...

I personally wouldn't waste money doing this. From the info we've received, he's got a "bubba'd" rifle that is neither historic nor truely sporterized. Finding out what it is only gets him halfway there.

I would simply replace the barrel with either the correct jap chamber or replace it with a barrel in a modern sporter caliber.
 
The U.S. military actually converted a couple thousand T-99's to 30-06 during the Korean War. I had one and auctioned it off about two years ago. It had U.S. CAL .30 stamped on the left side of the receiver ring. This marking is usually also ground off when you come across one. The gun was a weird phosphate green color and an endmill had been run down through the rear of the receiver ring to allow feeding. I doubt you have one of those models. The only trouble you may encounter is using commercial brass. MIL SPEC brass is a lot heavier and usually bigger. Commercial brass may be a little small back near the head and could make a difference if the original chamber was on the large size.
 
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