Bolt Action Rifles. Wayne Zwoll

to our 30-06. This was unfortunate, since many servicemen reading these reports before they were inducted for duty in the Pacific area, didn’t have the respect they should have had for their opponents’ weapons. I could cite a couple of instances of this from among my own acquaintances, but suffice it to say they soon learned better, and it was not long before the “puny” 6.5mm Japanese cartridge, and later the 7.7mm cartridge, were rated among the world’s best military cartridges.

      It took somewhat longer, however, to establish the fact that the Japanese rifles firing these cartridges were also good. The Japanese knew this, of course, but it took some convincing to change the minds of some of our gun experts that the Japanese Arisaka rifles were good. The fact is, we discovered that the Type 38 and 99 Arisaka actions were perhaps the world’s strongest and safest bolt actions, and that it is almost impossible to blow them up.

      Development

      Japan’s first important breech-loading military shoulder arm was the Type 13 (1880) Murata chambered for the 11mm Murata cartridge. A single shot bolt-action rifle, it was later modified and made as a repeater by installing a feed mechanism and a tubular magazine in the forend. Then, in 1887, Japan adopted an 8mm cartridge (8mm Japanese Murata) and used it in a further modification of the Murata rifle, again with a tubular magazine.

      In Japan, as was done in many other countries, a commission was appointed to study, develop, test and adopt new military arms. In the late 1890s the superintendent of the Tokyo Arsenal, Col. Nariaki Arisaka, headed such a commission, which in 1897 recommended the adoption of a 6.5mm cartridge and a new rifle to handle it. The rifle adopted was the Type 30 (1897), the cartridge a semi-rimmed, bottlenecked, smokeless-powder one now commonly known as the 6.5mm Japanese. Although Col. Arisaka probably had little to do with the designing of either the cartridge or the rifle, his name is usually given to them, as well as to later versions. The Type 30 was a further development of the old Murata design, but with a staggered-column box magazine, a separate bolt head and a finger-hook safety. First made in about 1889, a still further development came around 1902 with the adoption of the Type 35 (1902) Arisaka rifle, of which only a limited number were made.

      The Type 38 Arisaka

      Having by this time perfected the 6.5mm cartridge, the commission, still under Col. Arisaka, continued looking for a better action. By 1905 they had found it. The rest of this chapter is about the Type 38 action, its modifications and the rifles built on it.

      Before going into details of the action, I’ll briefly describe the rifles and carbines based on this action the Japanese adopted in 1906, all of them chambered for the 6.5mm cartridge.

      1. Type 38 (1905) Rifle. About 9.5 pounds, 31.25” barrel, 50.25” overall. The standard Japanese infantry shoulder arm from 1906 to 1940.

      2. Type 38 (1905) Short Rifle. About 8.5 pounds, 25.25” barrel, 44.25” overall. Not many made.

      3. Type 38 (1905) Carbine. About 7.75 pounds, 19” barrel, 38” overall. The standard carbine.

      4. Type 97 (1937) Sniper Rifle. Same as the Type 38 rifle but fitted with a short 2.5x

      scope attached to the left side of the receiver; the detachable mount holds the scope off-set to the left to allow loading the magazine with a stripper clip. This model has a bent down bolt handle.

      The above rifles have two-piece, pistol grip stocks. The bottom piece of the buttstock, a separate piece of wood, is glued to the top part. All have a one-piece cleaning rod in the forend and are made to accept a bayonet. All have sliding breech covers, and all but the sniper rifle have straight bolt handles.

      5. Type 44 (1911) Cavalry Carbine. About 8.75 pounds, 19” barrel, 38.25” overall. Straight bolt handle, sliding breech cover and a non-detachable folding bayonet.

      The 6.5mm rifles and carbines of late manufacture usually have the bore and bolt face chrome-plated.

      The Type 38 Action

      A modified Mauser design, the Type 38 action has several features distinctly of Mauser design, but a couple of others which were new and entirely Japanese designed. These new features make this action different from any other military bolt action made before or since. In some ways it is a crude action, not being very easy to operate, but it is simple and extremely strong.

      The receiver is a round steel forging of the same diameter for its entire length. The front is bored out and threaded to accept the barrel shank. There is no collar inside the receiver ring as in the Model 98 Mauser action; instead, a collar forms part of the breech end of the barrel, this becoming a shroud for the front end of the bolt. More on this later. Ample-sized locking shoulders are left in the rear of the receiver ring, in which the locking lugs on the bolt engage. The forward corners of these shoulders are beveled off to form inclines, so that the final closing draws the bolt forcibly forward.

      6.5mm Japanese Arisaka Type 44 (1911) Cavalry carbine, a folding bayonet recessed in the bottom of the forend.

      The top and right side of the receiver center are milled away to form an opening, leaving the left receiver wall quite high. To the rear of this opening is the receiver bridge, of the same diameter as the receiver ring. Stripper-clip slots are milled into the front of the solid bridge. Raceways milled in the left receiver wall and in the right of the receiver ring and bridge allow passage of the locking lugs and extractor. The rear part of the bridge has an L-shaped slot milled from the top rear to the right front for passage of the bolt handle. The forward side of this slot, beginning at the corner, is angled slightly forward; this provides the initial camming power for extraction when the bolt is opened, and helps to rotate the bolt when it is closed smartly.

      6.5mm caliber Japanese type “I” rifle, made in Italy for Japan.

      The bolt and bolt handle are of one-piece construction. The straight bolt handle, at the rear of the bolt, has a large oval-shaped grasping knob. The base or root of the bolt handle is squared. The large dual-opposed front locking lugs lie ahead of the receiver locking shoulders when the bolt is closed, holding the cartridge securely in the chamber. The right (bottom) lug is solid, the left (top) lug is partly slotted in front to allow passage of the ejector, this slot extending partly into the bolt-face recess.

      7.7mm Japanese Arisaka Type 99 (1939) rifle, shown with the breech cover and monopod, but minus cleaning rod.

      There is also an auxiliary lug (not a locking lug) just to the rear of the left (top) locking lug. This acts as an activator for the ejector, and as the bolt-stop lug when it engages with the bolt-stop when the bolt is opened. An inclined slot in the rear of this lug prevents the bolt hanging up on the ejector, and trips the ejector when the bolt is fully opened.

      The bolt face is recessed to about the depth of the cartridge rim. Part of this rim recess is undercut to allow the cartridge head to move up and under the extractor hook when the cartridge is fed from the magazine, as in the Mauser 98 and Model 1903 Springfield actions. This prevents double loading, since any cartridge bolt-fed into the chamber from the magazine will be extracted and ejected upon opening the bolt, even though the bolt was not fully locked during this procedure. The lower left edge of the rim recess is slightly higher than the rest of the rim and is slightly undercut. This affords extra bearing surface for the cartridge rim, from the slight side pressure of the extractor, so that on opening the bolt the cartridge or cartridge case will remain in place until forced out by the ejector.

      The extractor, of Mauser design, is a long one-piece spring affair held on the bolt body by a collar around the bolt. Longitudinal movement of the extractor is prevented by a lip under the front part of the extractor engaging in a groove in the front end of the bolt. The extractor is non-rotating; that is, while it does rotate on the bolt, it does not rotate in the receiver or on the cartridge.

      The Type 38 action has the