I acquired an Arisaka Type 99 (7.7x58) about 5 months ago that had been "sporterized". It wasn't exactly Bubba-ized, but I've definitely seen better jobs at sporterizing one. Still, it only cost $100 and the bore looked good and the wood looked good while still having a bit of character to it.
The firing pin would not fire, but disassembling the bolt and a bit of cleaning fixed that. The original front and rear sights are missing and the barrel was apparently cut and recrowned to remove the front sight. The new front sight is shorter than the original, so replacing the original rear sight would not help.
Also need to replace the buttplate. It is just not the right size -- a bit too long in one dimension and too short in another. Since it's not a cutdown version of the original Arisaka stock, I can't just use find an original steel buttplate and install it on there. That's a minor issue though.
Just finally got the dies for it and the case trimming guide for converting .30-06 brass to 7.7x58 about a week ago. My first load was 5.2 gr of Red Dot to test it out with since that was what my powder measure was already setup to drop for .45 ACP loads and I figured it would be a good test since I was shooting it in my garage. I recently loaned my chrony to my nephew, so I have no idea what the velocity might be, but it fired and didn't blow up in my face, so I'm happy.
Since I only ended up paying $100 for the rifle, I don't want to put too much into it. Someone along the way tapped the gas escape hole forward of the bolt opening for a scope along with adding another hole at the rear of the bolt opening to apparently mount a scope on it at some point. Of course, they are different sized screw holes. There are also two screw holes on the right side of the rear of the receiver, so I'm thinking that it might have at one point in its life had a side mounted aperture sight put on it.
I took the rifle to a gunsmith to see what he might have for a mount, but he could not determine the size of the existing screw threads. He also said that they don't keep much in stock anymore since most people that come in have ARs or something that need work on and not that many people that they deal with have bolt action rifles. Apparently, the old machinist type gunsmith is not that common anymore.
I tried making a rear sight drilling an aperture hole in a small pieces of lead that would screw into the hole to see if the eye distance was close enough to place a sight there. As a proof of concept, it worked, so I figured that I just needed to find the right screw size(s) for the screw(s) and work from there. As I was looking for something else in my reloading room last night, I stumbled across a slotted hex head machine screw that seemed to have a pretty fine thread on it, so just for curiosity's sake, I tried it out. Surprisingly, it worked in the screw hole that had been tapped into the vent hole. I think that the machine screw was from a computer motherboard or hard drive mount or something. I took the screw up to Sears Hardware to see if I could find a nut for it to see what size it was. Turned out that it was a #10-32. That got my hopes up since I figured that Bubba-smith had just used whatever standard screw thread taps that he had handy. So, I then bought 4 sets of machine screws and nuts -- #10-32, #8-32, #6-32, and #4-40 to take back to house to give it a try. I got the nuts so that in a pinch I could use them as a lock nut on the screw and use the slot in the screw as the rear sight for testing. I bought brass screws and nuts so that in a pinch, if it wasn't the exact correct thread, the steel of the receiver could cut the new threads in the brass machine screws.
Well, I lucked out pretty good. The #8-32 perfectly fit the hole on the rear of the receiver aft of the chamber opening. The #6-32 appeared to be the right diameter for the two side holes, but the wrong pitch. I suspect that with the soft brass, I could force it and make new threads on the machine screw if needed. The #4-40 was definitely too small for the threaded holes. So, I'm thinking a #6-40 might be a good candidate for those holes. So, back to Sears Hardware or Ace Hardware today to see if I can find that size.
The mold I'm using for this is the Lee C312-155-2R. It's the same mold that I use for the .300AAC -- the only difference is that I will not be resizing the bullets. For testing, I'm just hand dipping the bullets in molten pan lube wax and setting them aside to cool. I'll work my way up to around 13gr of Red Dot to see how it works for plinking before considering full power loads. I also have a Lee C309-113-F that I might try unsized to see if it will work. I had originally bought it for the an AR in .300AAC, but the bullets would not feed (probably just too short and not pointy enough).
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Originally Posted by Der Gebirgsjager
Not getting into the "last ditch" argument, but I remember a gun shop in (I think...) El Sobrante, CA, back in the early 1980s that had two of the last of the last ditch rifles welded onto their double entrance doors for handles. You had to wrap your fingers around the barrel and pull to gain access. I purchased a 7.7 mm rifle in that store that someone had already sporterized. Still in the cut down original stock, but the bolt handle had been bent and the sights replaced. The clerk commented to me that he knew the former owner, "He's been shooting it and he's still alive!" I bought a nice stock from Bishop, but have never done a thing with it including shoot it. The firing pins for these seem to come and go in availability, and I kind of got bamboozled on the one in this rifle when a guy from Idaho visiting his parents in Oregon called up my shop and asked if I had one, claiming that he had been shooting his 7.7 and the firing pin broke. "Sure, come on over." I replaced the part and he went outside and test fired it (last ditch, and he also survived) and went away happy. I wasn't too happy when I attempted to replace the one I had sold and found out they were about as scarce as lips on chickens. Eventually, several years later, somebody made some more and I got it working again, but never have fired it. You can bet that I bought a second one and put it in the parts drawer. Meanwhile, I added two as-issued specimens to my collection, one pretty ordinary, but the other has little brass plates with Japanese characters on each side of the butt. The plates are different sizes and shaped differently but appear to say the same thing. I've never gotten a satisfactory translation for them. It has a wooden butt plate, but is otherwise not very last ditch, although perhaps not as well finished as the early models. Anyone here read Japanese? Oh yeah--you gotta watch out for those Idaho guys.....
