Arisaka model??

[knucklehead0202]

many trainers were made to shoot wooden bullets but some had iron receivers, which are NOT safe to shoot. that thing has cues from 99 and 38s. the floorplate release is type 38, one gas hole like a 99. I don't know a ton but I do know they made and used them in china and korea as well. definitely talk to the good folks over on gunboards as others recommended, they have been infinitely helpful to me over the years. if it turns out to be a shootable rifle, restore it and shoot it! either way, it's cool and I'd restore to at least look legit, new stock, sight, etc.

[gun toting monkeyboy]

What does the bore diameter look like? a 6.5 or a .30 caliber? As weird as this sounds, I know some of these were converted to shoot 7.62x39 in both China and in North Vietnam. Have you had the chamber cast?

-Mb

[Arfrsairbrush]

Looks to be 6.5

[Sampachi]

Not all Trainers were smooth bored. Some were meant to fire gallery loads.
I bet someone probably sporterized it and even took it hunting. Who knows how close the shooter was to losing a finger?

[emcon5]

Any markings on the left side of the receiver? Normally this is where the serial number, arsenal and series would be.

[Arfrsairbrush]

26810 is on the left side

[emcon5]

Just the number? No other marks or symbols?

[Arfrsairbrush]

Thats it... Again, this thing is a damn puzzle! I always get people telling me its different things, its driving me crazy!

[cplbuck]

Wrong rifle...

Doh!! Sorry wrong pic. My wife is Japanese and she can read the kanji characters. The character below the anchor is the number 1 and the symbol for fire. The character inside the star is Mei for Meiji meaning Meiji era which ended in 1912. I doubt it was made that long ago. That's all I can say about it.

[cplbuck]

That's actually a Japanese trainer. Kind of a hybrid Type 38/Type 99.

Book 'Military Rifles of Japan' lists the star as unknown origin. But the symbol inside is of Meiji University which is interesting. I don't know what the correlation is


Looks like sporterised stock

Not likely made to fire live ammo

My wife's Japanese and she doesn't think the symbol means Meiji University, more likely it's a symbol meaning Meiji Tenno or Meiji Emperor.

[Spiggy]

The bolt ejector was out, thats why it looked like that.

The barrel does not appear to be cut at all, and i do see a notch where the front sight would slide on and tighten down to.

My question about it being sporterised was: why would it be, if it couldnt shoot live ammo? And i do see a twist inside of the barrel rather than it being smooth.

A lot of folks didn't know what they had in their hands. And doesn't help that the gun has moonspeak scrawled all over it. This lead to people hacking war trophies apart and possibly exploding on the user.



that marking is unfamiliar to me. It says "mei" or "ming" and missing the second character for "meiji."

The gun is anachronistic if it's a type 99 and says "meiji" on it. It could've been a trainer, drill rifle, or some sort of commemorative. But there's almost 30 years and a whole empirical reign missing.