Hows this for a Garand copy

[Lead Fred]

Thats right a Japanese Garand

Is NOTHING sacred?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUBvrCACNDQ

[Dale in Louisiana]

They tried. Never got them to the field.

You see that they headed toward the Garand aperture rear sight.

I liked the idea that they side-stepped the en-bloc Garand clips.

dale in Louisiana

[John Allen]

I never knew they tried this.

[rondog]

I never knew they tried this.

Yep, they made motorcycles copied from the Harley 45 WLA scout bikes too. And the Russians copied the B-29 down to the last detail.

[Multigunner]

I've heard these prototypes were pretty good. I suspect the propellants the Japanese used were hard on the gas ports and probably didn't provide reliable gas port pressures, but they had experience with gas operated LMGs so they most likely had figured out how to work around that.

I've seen an old news reel clip of a Japanese soldier firing an autoloader rifle in China. It was a very different rifle than this. Most likely one of the many oddball autoloaders bought by the Chinese before the war and captured by the Japs.
Pratt & Whitney had manufactured a few Chinese designed autoloader rifles before WW1. It was not very successful but ahead of its time.
Italian companies sold many autoloaders more or less as test batches. I've seen photos of Halle Salassie's body guards with these. Those may have been captured from Italian troops.

There were a lot of autoloader rifle designs before WW2, most were just too expensive or too fragile for combat.
Heat resistant stainless steel alloys suited to tubes and pistons had to be developed.

[MtGun44]

Didn't know about this, but I sure want one if I was a Jap soldier going up against the M1!

Bill

[abunaitoo]

These are extremely rare. Kind of like the holy grail of Japanese rifles.
Many years ago a guy blew one up at our range.
He was fine. Rifle was a total loss.
I just about cried.
Only one I've ever seen.

[country gent]

Before and during WW2 japan was great at reverse enginneering, They copied almost everything at some point. The Garand was state of the art in rifle at that time. Id be willing to bet if germany had the resources they would have tried to copy it also. The truest compliement there is is in being copied. The Garand was one of the finest battle rifles made. Efficient functinal and easy to learn to use. It did everything but load itself for the user. No empty clips to remove, no strippers to fumble with. Just keep stuffing enblocs in and go. The only draw back to the enblock I found in years of compepting with one was finding the clips when finished with a string. At one time you could buy the "clips" for .50 apiece. One aspect of war is copying finding new technologies being used aginst you. Alot of german?japenese equipment was saved dismantled and rebuilt looking for flaws or new Ideas.

[BNE]

"Before and during WW2 japan was great at reverse enginneering, They copied almost everything at some point."

This is an interesting comment. The reverse engineering is part of the cultural difference between the Japanese and Americans. I worked for Hitachi for 8 years in the past. I remember my Japanese VP making almost the exact same comment. He thought Americans felt more freedom to be innovative than the Japanese. He stated that the Japanese were much better at copying and then figuring out how to mass produce cheaply.

The cost of failure in some countries is much greater than here in the U.S.

[clownbear69]

These are extremely rare. Kind of like the holy grail of Japanese rifles.
Many years ago a guy blew one up at our range.
He was fine. Rifle was a total loss.
I just about cried.
Only one I've ever seen.

Wow. But they must be a holy grail, only heard about this today. The only other holy grail for the Garands was the Tanker. I haven't seen once since I was 12. I was trying to convince Dad to buy. We went back to the next day, gone. I haven't seen one again.

[roverboy]

"Before and during WW2 japan was great at reverse enginneering, They copied almost everything at some point."

This is an interesting comment. The reverse engineering is part of the cultural difference between the Japanese and Americans. I worked for Hitachi for 8 years in the past. I remember my Japanese VP making almost the exact same comment. He thought Americans felt more freedom to be innovative than the Japanese. He stated that the Japanese were much better at copying and then figuring out how to mass produce cheaply.

The cost of failure in some countries is much greater than here in the U.S.

Yeah, I agree with that completely. Mass production is their specialty.

[graphic914]

Glad that never saw action!

[Artful]

Guess what....
http://tgfblog.wordpress.com/2010/06/11/m1-garand-made-in-china/


I was recently in Beijing, and visited the Military Museum of the People’s Revolution of China. In addition to wonderfully delightful propaganda, the museum includes an impressive array of weaponry from around the world, including many US and Japanese arms “liberated” by the People’s Liberation Army over the course of the past several decades. Their collection of modern small arms is quite impressive, perhaps second only to the NRA’s National Firearms Museum (at least, that I’ve seen).

One particular item, though, caught my attention. It was an M1 Garand, but the plaque next to the rifle said it was made in China. What? I looked carefully, and noticed unusual markings on the oprod and gas cylinder. That made me wonder what was on the receiver, so I got my camera up as high as I could to get a shot at the receiver heel, and here’s what I got:

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4049/4689568868_a6911d205c.jpg

nyone know anything about these?

BTW, that is not a Nazi symbol (the “arms” on the Nazi symbol point clockwise). The original symbol co-opted by Nazis has a deep root in Asia, and is often seen in Asian cultures in contexts completely unrelated to Nazis (for instance, in Japanese maps, they used to be used to mark temples and shrines — not sure if they still are).

Jimmy wrote:
I’m Chinese so I guess I’ll take a shot at it.
The sign next to the M1 says “中国重庆造”
Chongqing was the WWII war-time capital of Nationalist China. With so much aid from the United States going over to the Nationalists through the Burma road and transport planes flying “over the hump” from India, it is very likely that the tooling for M1 Garand production was transferred to supplement Nationalist armories.

[JeffinNZ]

They copied the British Bren gun also and lots of other items.

[Multigunner]

The machining of what I can see of the receiver of the Chinese copy looks rather odd.

Japan copied the Lewis gun and used a clone of the .303 British cartridge for all their 7.7mm aerial guns.