Japanese Militaria at Castle-Thunder.com

[Smokey]

Over the years I've obtained a couple of Type 38 school rifles.
One appeared to be in very good condition. The other had been beat into a wreck. The butt plate, and magazine parts were severely rusted and the stock was a mess. Nothing looks worse than badly scuffed, scratched and battered varnish. As it turns out the "wreck" shoots extremely well with 160gr 0.268 Hornady bullets. The "nice" one wouldn't even stay on the paper at 25 yards!
Since the rifles were made of mis-matched parts anyway, I swapped parts around to make one really nice Type 38, and one junker.
I took the "junker on as a project. First, the muzzle was out of round from cleaning damage, so I cut off one inch from the muzzle. That got it shooting nice groups at 100 yards. The rusted parts were wire brushed to clean out the heavy corrosion, leaving them deeply pitted and eroded, but still usable. They were treated with cold blue and oiled. The stock finish was removed with steel wool and rubbing alcohol. the severely dented areas were smoothed with a rasp. Cracks were glued and deep gouges were filled with a paste of glue and sawdust. I then started treating the stock with raw linseed oil. The rear sight was modified to hit right to point of aim at 100 yards.
I now have a decent utility rifle with one of the strongest and safest actions ever made. The long barrel (still over 30 inches) allows heavy charges of slow powder with long heavy bullets, for potent loads against bear and other big mean critters.

[gwsiii]

Smokey, thanks for the update, any chance you have before/during/ and after pictures? Trey
_________________
Subscribe to BANZAI!
Fill out a Japanese Rifle Datasheet.
I didn't pay to much for that old Arisaka, I just bought it a little bit too soon!

[Smokey]

Sorry, I didn't take any pictures. It's still looking pretty hard used. I'm missing the forward receiver screw, so I'm using a hex head (6mm) bolt and washer until I get a replacement, makes the rifle "theftproof" (who would want it?). Interesting enough, it's not so long that it gets in the way in the woods. Even with my near maximim loads with 160gr bullets, recoil is almost pleasant. Each time I use it, it gets cleaned up a little more. I'll let the stock stay battered looking, this rifle will get used in all kinds of weather.

[Smokey]

I worked up some fairly stiff loads for my "nice" Type-38. They shoot well, cycle reliably and extract with no problems. I tried one in the fixed-up Type 38 and had very difficult extraction. Clearly it's too much.
Just a warning about using stiff handloads in different rifles that use the same cartridge.

[Smokey]

Has anyone had any experience with the .260 Remington?
I've been considering re-chambering my "resurrected junker" for the cartridge. It's basically the .308 Winchester necked down to 6.5mm. Seems like a good choice for the rifle.

[DEFUC]

Ive owned/own several in 6.5x57 based around the 7x57 or the .257 roberts round,with the 264 bullet. the 260 rem is an interesting round, I belive, the .260 rem is shorter than the 6.5 arisaka round by a couple 1/100ths so it might be as simple as rechambering for the cartridge and loading the right size projectile to fit your gun..Id like to try one of those myself one of these days.

[Smokey]

I've been working the bore with copper-removing solvents. What once appeared to be a slightly pitted bore is starting to become smooth and shiny. The patches are still coming out dark blue, so there's quite a bit of fouling left to remove. This is starting to become a pretty decent rifle.