Type 99 arisaka

[sixpointfive]

Just bought a type 99 arisaka and it's been rechambered in 300 savage. I'm wondering if I should just leave it in 300 savage or ream to 308 win? Also anyone recommend a bullet weight and load faster I leave in 300 savage

[OptimusPanda]

Wouldn't it have needed rebarreling to go from 7.7 to 300 savage? In either case, were it mine, I'd leave well enough alone and keep it in 300.

[curator]

.300 Savage and .308 Winchester; both are loaded with .308 diameter bullets. The original M99 Arisaka has a .312 diameter bore. Either of these rounds will work fine if loaded with the correct .311-.312 diameter bullets. Nothing wrong with the .300 Savage but brass is not as common as .308 Winchester. Just sayin'.

[TCLouis]

Unless you know for sure, I could check to be sure it is 300 Savage.
Barrel would have to be set back to make that work . . . Not a big deal to a smith and many type 38s and 99s were modified to some other chambering to make ammo available. I have heard that 300 Savage was a popular choice for the 99.
300 Savage is 1.871" and 7.7X58 is 2.270"
If you are lucky it will have a tight barrel and will shoot .308 bullets and .309 - .310 boolits just fine.
I was and do with the Type 99s I have.

[sixpointfive]

Ok, the barrel stamped 300 savage. It appears to be original barrel. I took it all apart and cleaned it. The rifling is superb. What weight billets would you recommend for 300 savage in this type 99. I do have the Lee tumble lube 312-160 , I also have a 311291 Lyman bullet. I was thinking about using unique because I have had great success in my 7.62x39 and sweed mausers

[sixpointfive]

Bore slugged out and measures .315

[sixpointfive]

I'm going to buy some 300 savage dies and attempt to size 308 bras

[sixpointfive]

Do you have a bullet preference for the rifle? I plan to use unique

[earlmck]

Yeah, gunsmiths just chopped a little barrel breach end off and rechambered for -- usually .308 but also 300 Savage. Especially if the work got done back before there was a 308 round...

And since you have lots of room in that magazine you may (depending on the throat in your rifle) be able to lessen the biggest drawback to the 300 Savage cartridge with cast boolits -- the short neck. You may be able to seat your boolits out so they don't have much, if any, boolit hanging down into the powder space. Again depending totally on your throat. It's not rally a deal breaker if those boolits project down into the powder space, but many of us do try to avoid that condition just so we don't wonder about gas checks falling off or lube getting into powder.

[sixpointfive]

Thanks . I'm wondering about the Lee 312-160 sized 314.

[Sur-shot]

One of my 99s was re-chambered to 30-06 and it was surprisingly accurate for sand bank style soda can shooting out to 100 or so. I used un-sized, as cast, 180gr 30 cal Lyman bullets at times with it. The as cast worked pretty good with a cake style lube. The 99 I have now is unmodified so I use 303 RN bullets in it. By the way, all of the 99s have chromed bores so the rifling should be nice and crisp even after 70+ years. The 99 came after the 38s and they started chroming the 38s because of the jungles/swamps. The pre-war and mid war 99s have very strong actions, the late war guns are obvious at a glance, due to the very poor workmanship. If you work with that butt ugly safety you can make it function with a left turn thumb twist. One of the most common guns in the NE woods was an old military surplus rifle from some country, sold by Sears. Trappers, especially, favored old military rifles, anything that was stout and tough, it had to be a pry bar, rifle or a club.
Ed

[dualsport]

Shoot a few factory .300 Savage rounds thru it. See what it does.

[sixpointfive]

We were poor growing up so my dad bought us boys $30 Mauser rifles from Woolworths and he had a 7.7 jap

[sixpointfive]

Do you think heavier bullets then the 160 gr are necessary for the twist rate? I do have a 311291

[TCLouis]

I shoot RCBS 150 RNFP GC, C312-150 RNFP GC GB, and 165 RNFP GC GB Ranch Dog sized .310 - .311"out of mine, but it is standard 7.7X58. Loaded long like I originally did my hunting load with the Ranch Dogs, the gun would pull the short loaded (boolit probably only 1/2 the way down the neck)165 grainer in cold weather. Boolit was firm, but NOT jammed into the rifling, more in contact with the throat all the way around.

Unfortunately this is about the time I started my poor record keeping, I was going to shoot a little more and then write it all down cause I had all of that load information in my head. Oops off to another gun/caliber/cartridge and POOF case of CRS and all of that worked up data is GONE!

If someone will post a jpg for me I will provide target info for the latest known loading. Load data will be of little use since powder used is 10B101.

I will email you the same pictures direct.

Oops, no way to do an attachment in email direct from the site. I guess wewill see if there is a volunteer to post the target picture here.

[sixpointfive]

I have the Noe rnfp bullet (30-30). But I don't think this type of bullet would feed well from the arisaka. Have you found this?

[TCLouis]

A mauser I Have been working with recently feeds every cast boolit I have tried.

The type 99s never fed well with any boolit for me. Yours may well be a different story!