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There is also a matching shaped block of metal attached to the breech end of the barrel to butt against the receiver when the rifle is assembled. The front tang of the trigger guard is fitted into a milled recess in the bottom of the receiver and held in place with a screw. The extra metal in the receiver and on the barrel adds over a half-pound to the weight of this rifle compared to the regular Type 99 Short Rifle.

Type 99 Arisaka

The takedown system of the Type 2 appears rugged enough and, with the wedge drawn tight it is probably anchored as securely in the receiver as is the bolt in the receiver.

Because Type 2 rifles are not very common they would be worth much more as a collector’s arm if left “as issued.”

Type I Japanese Rifles

One of the unusual Japanese military shoulder arms is the Type I rifle. Very little is known about its history except that it is a hybrid, made in Italy for Japan. It has features of the Italian M91 Carcano rifle and the Type 38 Arisaka. Chambered for the 6.5mm Japanese cartridge, they were made by the Pietro Beretta firm in Gardone, Italy, perhaps even by other Italian firms. I don’t know when or how many were made.

The Type I rifle has a 30.5” barrel, weighs about 9 pounds and is 49.75” overall. The barrel and sights are similar to those on the regular 38 Arisaka rifle. A half-length wooden handguard covers part of the barrel. It has a cleaning rod in the forend under the barrel and the rifle accepts the regular Arisaka bayonet. The barrel bands, and the method by which they are held in place with spring clips, the grasping grooves in the forend and the sling swivels, are patterned after the Type 38 rifle stock. No tangs are employed.

Top view of the Japanese Hook Safety action. (Bolt handle is not original). Note the two gas vent holes in the receiver ring and the one in the bolt.

The receiver, bolt and trigger mechanism are near copies of the Italian M91 Carcano action, and the Mauser-type staggered-column magazine is a close copy of that of the Type 38 action. The trigger guard bow is large like that on the Carcano action. The bolt, firing mechanism, trigger mechanism, safety, extractor, bolt-stop and ejector are practically identical to the same parts in the M91 Carcano action, though they are not interchangeable. The receiver differs from the Carcano in that its magazine well is wider, with cartridge guide lips milled in to handle cartridges from the staggered-column magazine. The front of the slotted bridge is grooved to accept a stripper clip. The trigger guard, magazine box, floorplate, floorplate latch, follower and follower spring are nearly identical to these parts in the Type 38 action.

Type I action specs follow:

Weight . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .42 oz.

Magazine well opening: Length . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3.125 ” Width, front . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..550” Width, rear . . . . . . . . . . . . . ..540”

Receiver length, receiver ring diameter, bolt diameter, bolt travel and striker travel are about the same as in the M91 Carcano action. See the chapter on the M91 Carcano for more details.

Of the thousands of military rifles I’ve seen, only two were Type I rifles, so I doubt if many are around. At any rate, if anyone wants to remodel or convert this rifle that’s his business, but I think it would be better to sell or trade it to a military arms collector and use an M98 Mauser, which is plentiful.

Japanese Training Rifles

The Type 38 Training Rifle is one of several variations of training or drill rifles the Japanese made. Outwardly, none of them appear to be much different from the regular Type 38, but outward appearances are deceiving. No discussion of Japanese military rifles would be complete without mention of them. The reader should be warned, however, that these rifles are positively dangerous if fired with live ammunition.

Although I’ve only been able to examine four of these rifles in the past, all were essentially alike in appearance except for bolt and receiver details. There probably are others that are different from the ones I have seen, but I believe they can all be classed in the same category. Outwardly, these training rifles are identical, or nearly so, to the regular Type 38 infantry rifle. They are approximately the same weight, length and size, and are stocked in the same manner and usually have sights similar to the Type 38. A bayonet can be attached to them, and often they’re complete with a cleaning rod under the barrel. All have smoothbored barrels and are chambered for the 6.5mm Japanese blank or training cartridge. The barrel may be a worn out one salvaged from a regular Type 38 rifle and then bored out smooth, or merely a piece of tubing screwed into the heavier (reinforced) breech end of the barrel.

Most 6.5mm training rifles have a cast or forged iron receiver, the upper tang integral with it. Often the outside finish of these receivers is very rough. Some have a receiver made of steel tubing with the rear tang welded on. Practically all have the receiver grooved for the sliding breech cover, and a couple of them I examined had these covers. All have a rough cast trigger guard with an integral lower tang. Instead of a rear guard screw, these actions usually employed a tang screw connecting the two tangs. On one rifle I examined, only the barrel bands held the barrel and action in the stock and two wood screws held the trigger guard and magazine in place.

I have seen three different types of bolts and receivers in these training rifles. One had a standard pattern bolt with dual-opposed locking lugs which engaged in the receiver ring, and was fitted with the standard long, non-rotating extractor. Another had a bolt with thin dual-opposed locking lugs which engaged in the receiver ring, but with a thin spring extractor mortised in the bolt body and extending through a slot through the right locking lug. The last one had no forward locking lugs, the extractor fitted in the bolt head, and a rib on the bolt which engaged forward of the receiver bridge to hold the action closed. All of these bolts appeared to be castings.

These training rifles can usually be identified by their smooth bores, but the surest method is to remove the barrel and action from the stock, and if the tang is integral with the receiver, or welded in place, then you know for certain that it is a training rifle. Regardless of the type of bolt it has, these rifles should never be fired with bulleted ammunition or the action used for building a rifle.

Markings

Regular issue Japanese military bolt-action rifles in calibers 6.5 and 7.7mm have the Japanese imperial seal stamped on the top forward part of the receiver. This seal is round, up to about 7/ 16” in diameter, and resembles a sunflower or daisy blossom with sixteen petals. It is often referred to as the “rising sun” or “chrysanthemum” marking. On many Japanese rifles this seal has been partly or entirely ground away, indicating these particular rifles were surrendered. Rifles with the seal untouched were generally captured arms.

The Japanese Hook Safety action. Note: The bolt handle on this action is not original. The original bolt handle has a straight shank, oval-shaped grasping knob and it projects straight out to the right when the action is closed, straight up when the action is open.

Japanese Hook Safety Action

General Specifications

Type . . . . . . . . .Turnbolt repeater operated by bolt handle.

Receiver . . . . . .One-piece steel construction, mostly round with no prominent recoil lug.

Bolt . . . . . . . . . .Two-piece; rotating bolt body with dual-opposed forward locking lugs and separate non-rotating bolt head. Root of bolt handle serves as an auxiliary locking lug.

Ignition . . . . . . .One-piece striker (firing pin), coil mainspring, cocks on closing the bolt.

Magazine . . . . .Staggered-column, non-detachable magazine. Detachable floorplate.

Trigger . . . . . . .Double-stage, non-adjustable.

Safety . . . . . . . .Rotating finger hook safety locks striker.

Extractor . . . . . .One-piece spring steel hook mounted in bolt head.

Bolt-stop . . . . . .Pivotal type mounted in left receiver wall. Stops rearward travel of bolt and activates the ejector at the same time.

Ejector . . . . . . .Sliding ejector dovetailed into the bolt head.

Below the imperial seal are stamped the Japanese characters indicating the type and year designation of the rifle. These markings are illustrated nearby. The imperial seal is not found on Japanese training rifles, but a few are marked with Japanese characters to indicate they are for use with blank cartridges only. Sometimes there is another marking on the receiver ring of these training rifles, probably the mark of the arsenal which made them. The Type 99 (late version) rifle carries the imperial seal, but has no type or year markings.

On all 6.5 and 7.7 Japanese bolt-action rifles I’ve seen, the serial number is stamped on the left side of the receiver, below the groove for the sliding breech cover. I have no information on the serial numbering procedures followed in Japan, so the serial number in itself means little. The Type 38 action pictured in this chapter has a serial number well over 5,000,000, which may be some indication as to the number of these rifles produced.

One or more various small markings often precede or follow the serial number marking. These marks may be arsenal identification marks and/or arsenal proof marks. On Type 38 actions part of the serial number is usually stamped on the underside of the bolt handle base, and on some of the other parts as well, such as the trigger and trigger guard.

I will end this chapter with a description of perhaps the rarest and most unusual Japanese military rifle action of all.

I have never seen or examined a Japanese military rifle which, because of its hook-like safety, is usually called the Hook Safety Japanese rifle. I have seldom read anything about it either. Therefore I can write only about the action, an action which I obtained on loan from a kind reader, an action which originally had the bolt handle replaced. The most I have ever read about it is in the book Shots Fired In Anger in which the author, Bradford Aniger, describes this rifle he obtained while in the service in the South Pacific during WWII. He identifies it as the “Thirty Year” Japanese Carbine. It evidently was a forerunner of the Type 38.

Left side of the Japanese Hook Safety action.

The receiver of the Japanese Hook Safety action is of one-piece construction probably being machined from a forging. It is basically round except for a flat area around the magazine box and on both sides of the front guard screw stud. There is no recoil lug worth mentioning, although the stock may have been fitted with a separate steel lug into which the guard screw stud fitted. The receiver tang is several inches long, the loading port opening about 2”, with the receiver proper minus tang 8 inches long. The top of the bridge is nicely contoured and its forward edge has a cartridge clip slot similar to that of the Model 98 Mauser military action. A bolt-stop similar to that used on the German Model 88 Commission rifle and on the Mannlicher/Schoenauer action is fitted in the rear left side of the bridge, and the right side wall notched deeply for the root of the bolt handle. This notch is similar to that found on the Japanese Models 99 or 38 Arisaka actions. The rear end of the tang is squared off.

The inside of the receiver is machined to accept the two-piece bolt with its dual-opposed forward locking lugs, and this means that raceways are cut to allow passage of the locking lugs and shoulders machined inside the receiver ring for the lugs to engage with. Both locking lugs are solid. A separate quick-detachable bolt head with a flat face is fitted into the front of the bolt body and held in place by a small lug on the bolt head engaging in a matching slot inside the bolt body. This bolt head does not rotate with the bolt body. Fitted in a groove in the right side of the bolt head, and between it and the bolt body, is the simple one-piece spring steel extractor, while the sliding ejector is fitted on the left side in a dovetail. The arrangement of the bolt head, extractor and ejector is almost identical to the system used in the German M-88 Commission and early Mannlicher/Schoenauer actions. And as on these rifles, the breech of the barrel is recessed and slotted on both sides to accept the front end of the bolt head, extractor and ejector. There are no gas vent holes in the bolt body or head, but there are two small angled vent holes in the top of the receiver ring in junction with the breech of the barrel.

The bolt handle (Note: the original bolt handle on this action has been replaced with a modern-styled one) is an integral part of the bolt and its root serves as the safety locking lug which fits into a deep notch machined in the right receiver bridge wall. A flange encircles the rear end of the bolt and serves to seal off the locking lug raceways. Just ahead of this flange the bolt is machined to provide a preliminary cocking cam for the firing mechanism.

While the front end of the bolt with its separate bolt head arrangement is a familiar one, not so the arrangement of the parts on the rear of the bolt. To say the least, it is a very odd arrangement of parts that make up the safety, cocking piece and other parts to cock the striker. I was puzzled by it and I had the bolt on my desk for ten days and still could not discover how to disassemble it to find out just how it worked. It was not until I read about this action in Bradford Aniger’s book did I get the striker mechanism disassembled. I wondered just what the designer of it had in mind because it was surely one masterpiece of incompetency.

The bolt is drilled and bored out from the front to within about 1.5” from the rear end, leaving a collar at that point through which the rear end of the striker projects. The one-piece striker also has a collar near its tip and the coil mainspring is compressed between these two collars.

Thus far it is simple enough, but wait, it gets complicated. The rear end of the bolt is also machined out for the collar and a safety/half-cocking cam opening made into it while still leaving a collar.

What follows is reassembly of a completely stripped bolt, in proper order. Taking the striker with mainspring slipped over it, position it into the bolt. Next comes the part which I will call the striker sear, a small part which has a triangular sear projecting from it and which has a hole through its center partly threaded. This striker sear is then positioned inside the rear end of the bolt so that the rear end of the striker can pass through it.

Next comes the hook safety, a part that can also be called a cocking piece because the striker can be cocked with it, and it is slipped into the rear of the bolt, with the hook opposite the bolt handle. This part has twin projections on its forward end that engage in matching notches in the rear threaded end of the striker sear, the purpose to be explained later.

Next comes the striker head. It is a split two-piece part threaded at its front to slip into the safety and threaded into the striker sear. The rear end of the striker has two grooves turned into it, and the inside of the two-piece striker head has two matching collars so that the parted halves can fit over the rear of the striker and engage with it with the two halves held together by the safety and the threaded end. Now, to assemble it, the striker must be pushed back into the bolt to compress the mainspring fully. The two halves of the striker head are slipped onto the end of the protruding striker, and the striker is allowed to go forward again, drawing the striker head partly into the safety. To finish the job, the striker head is then turned clockwise until it is fully threaded into the striker sear, which will require about four turns. There is a small plunger in the knurled end in one of the striker head halves, and it must be depressed on the last two turns in order to slip past the safety. To disassemble this creation, remove the bolt head first, and with a metal rod which will slip into the bolt body held in a vise (Note: the cleaning rod in this carbine has a head specifically made to serve as this tool), and with the bolt in one hand and the striker tip on the end of the rod, press down on the bolt to push the striker in as far as it can go. The rear end of the striker will then project far enough out of the bolt and safety to allow the two halves of the striker head to be slipped in place; that is, if your fingers of the other hand are adept at handling two parts. When in place, relax the pressure on the bolt and the striker head will move into the safety and the threaded end will contact the striker sear. Now turn the striker head clockwise until tight. The striker head is fitted with a small spring-backed plunger, and it has to be depressed to slip under the safety on the last two turns. Conversely, this plunger has to be depressed on disassembly. The procedure for complete disassembly is to turn the striker head counterclockwise until the threads are out of engagement, and using a rod as mentioned before, push the striker into the bolt as far as it will go, remove the split striker head, and presto, everything comes apart.

How does the bolt and striker arrangement function and how is it operated? To replace the bolt in the receiver, the safety (the safety-lever is the larger hook) must be to the left— opposite the bolt handle. Cocking occurs on closing the bolt, and on turning the bolt handle down the action is locked and cocked. Pulling the trigger will release the striker and fire the rifle. If the rifle is not to be fired and put on safe instead, then pull back on the safety hook, swing the hook upright and ease it forward or release it to fall forward. Either way the rifle won’t fire because the twin projections on the end of the safety no longer align with the notches of the striker sear, thus halting the striker well before the striker tip (firing pin tip) protrudes from the bolt face. With the safety in this position the hook obscures the sight line and locks the bolt closed. To fire the rifle, the striker must be cocked again and to do this it has to be pulled back via the safety and the safety swung to the left.

I imagine this is the reason why this rifle is called the Hook Safety rifle. Anyway, before the safety hook can be swung to the left, it is being held back far enough so that when it is swung all the way the action is cocked and ready to fire. Closing the action, putting it on safe and cocking it again cannot be quickly or conveniently done. One reason the safety is not conveniently operated is due to the puny finger hook.

Disassembly in the field of the firing mechanism surely posed a greater threat of losing parts at both ends of the bolt.

This bolt has not a single commendable feature, or at least I have not found it.

The trigger mechanism is a simple, but rather crude one comprised of the trigger, sear, sear spring and two pins on which these two main parts pivot and are held in place. On the front end of the sear, and extending upward through a hole in the receiver, there is a pin. There is a matching groove cut into the bolt body so that unless the bolt is fully closed the trigger cannot be pulled to fire the rifle. This same arrangement is used on the later Arisaka rifles as well as in the P-14 and M-17 Enfield actions.

The trigger guard and magazine plate is a one-piece machined steel unit with a hole at each end to accept the two guard screws which thread into the receiver to hold the action in the stock. The magazine floorplate is detachable and held in place by a spring-loaded catch positioned in the front of the guard bow. Fitted between the trigger guard and receiver is a sheet metal magazine box. The magazine follower is also a sheet metal stamping and it is provided tension by a zigzag wire spring fitted to both the floorplate and the follower. This is the first high-powered action I have ever seen using spring wire for a follower spring.

All in all, this action is well made but poorly designed. In particular, both ends of the bolt. For example, take the bolt head. Field-stripping this bolt while on anything other than a bare floor or bare ground, the bolt head assembly could easily be lost, and if not the entire unit, the extractor and/or the ejector could be more easily lost. I have come across quite a few German M88 Commission rifles with the bolt head missing or the extractor gone, probably due to having been lost. This surely is a deplorable arrangement for a military rifle.

A close-up detail of the hook safety.

The rear end of the bolt is just about as bad. This action could have been made to fully cock on the up-swing of the bolt handle, but instead it was made to cock on the closing of the bolt. This is not altogether bad, but I see no rhyme or reason in the design of the hook safety. To begin, the hook is too small. Rather than being designed as a safety, it appears to me that the hook was put there in order for the soldier to recock the striker in case of a misfire, but with the hook is too small to do this with ease. And as for a safety, after the action is cocked, this hook can only be swung down requiring that it be pulled back a slight amount first. When swung down, the striker is then put on SAFE. However, there is no positive halting point to stop the swing of the hook until its end touches the stock and then it is not easily swung back again. It is crude to say the least.

And cruder still is the entire cocking mechanism. Not having any instructions on how to disassemble the bolt and firing mechanism it took me hours to figure it all out. Anyway it was no wonder why this Hook Safety rifle with its rather complicated action was replaced by the Type 38 rifle.

Conclusion

A great many Japanese rifles were brought into the United States by G.I.s after WWII, and many more were imported and sold by dealers in military surplus arms, so the total number in the U.S. must be great. Many of them will remain souvenirs and many of the better specimens and the rarer ones are in collections or will be obtained for this purpose.