Japanese Militaria at Castle-Thunder.com

gwsiii · Joined: Aug 21 2003 Posts: 2240 Location: Hayden, AL

At the Blevins shoot, I got to play around with a Lothar Walther .22 LR conversion kit for a Japanese Type 14 Nambu.
The kit includes a threaded barrel liner, barrel muzzle bushing, knurled assembly nut for keeping the barrel liner in place, a ramrod, a cleaning brush, and 3 (we now know) varying-in-length center fire to rim fire-conversion firing blocks.

As the instructions were in German: YeKindleyOldeEditor enlisted the aid of the resident CrashTestDummy to assemble and fire said mechanism. Assembly was pretty straight forward, with the Type 14 barrel assembly removed from the frame, insert barrel liner in to the existing chamber, align the flat of the barrel liner with the ejector and slide in to place, add the barrel bushing at the muzzle, and thread on the knurled assembly nut and the pistol is ready for reassembly. Once assembled (with the same dextrous level of skill necessary to break down a Type 94 Nambu pistol), its just a matter of inserting the .22 LR bullet and seating it down the chamber of the barrel liner, and following it with the proper firing block.

CTD's (CrashTestDummy's) first few attempts to fire, after trotting gleefully down to the firing line: cock-click, cock-click, cock-click, 'damn!' were met with failure.

Replacing the springs (main and firing pin) with new Wolff springs and running back to the firing line, met with the same response: cock-click, cock-click, cock-click, 'damn!'

After removing the aforementioned kit and offering the owner $25 American for his broken kit, CTD noticed that the 2 spare blocks the owner had been bragging about, were indeed different from the first. In varying degrees they were longer than the first. "Aha" went Mr. Eistein as he quickly reassembled the kit and trotted down to the firing line. Cock-click, cock-click, cock-click, carefully replace with last, longest firing block....Cock-Bang!, manual eject, add another shell, replace long firing block, after dropping it twice in excited anticipation, Cock-Bang! "Yeah!"

With a little practice, this could be a really fun thing to have. Dibs!

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I didn't pay to much for that old Arisaka, I just bought it a little bit too soon!

Francis C. Allan · Posted: Sat May 31, 2014 8:47 am Post subject: Very neat

When was this thing made?

Frank
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oopy38 · Joined: Aug 27 2003 Posts: 80

I once had an Erma (German) conversion kit for Luger pistols. It was adaptable to 4 or 8 inch barrels and had a 10 shot (I think) magazine and operated as a semi-auto. It was very similar to this kit for the Nambu.

gwsiii · Joined: Aug 21 2003 Posts: 2240 Location: Hayden, AL

It would have to have been made before "Mr. Gorbachev, tore down that wall" as it is marked West Germany.
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I didn't pay to much for that old Arisaka, I just bought it a little bit too soon!

oopy38 · Joined: Aug 27 2003 Posts: 80

Mine was made before WWII.

ronin48 · Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 12:51 pm Post subject:

Years ago I had one, just the barrel liner probably home-made, for a 94, don't think it screwed onto the muzzle like the 14. The chamber "bulge" held it from sliding forward. I passed it along to Azgunso thinking he might find time to make a firing pin, now its "Where's my hammer?"
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