35 Remngton in the 7.7 Jap

[Char-Gar]

I was reading a little piece in a 1947 issue of the American Rifleman about a teenage boy who managed to hammer a 7.7 Jap bolt shut on some 35 Remington rounds. He did ok for three rounds, but the fourth sent the rifle into destruct mode. The dumb kid wan't hurt.

"What fools we mortals be.."

[Dutch4122]

Kinda like the Mosin Nagant I took out of the back seat of a car occupied by a couple of dopers we stopped for one of the local drug squads 10 years ago. Had a badly mangled shotgun shell chambered. Removed it with a cleaning rod from the other end. Then their was the cheap european pot metal .32 revolver ("Klerk" was the brand, I think) with 4 rounds of .380 ACP pounded into the clylinder and looking like a hammer was used to do it............It's a wonder that the stupidest people always seem to survive long enough to breed the most offspring.

[StarMetal]

Chargar,

One of my good high school friends son not only shot a 35 Rem out of his 98 Mauser, he killed a deer with it too.

I'd like to see that stunt done with the 7.7 Jap. The NRA too one, welded the barrel shut, took a case, sized it, then soldered the bullet in it, then filled it full of Bullseye from the primer hole, then primed it. Then fired it in a safe fixture. It blew the barrel out of the action, blew the bolt open, and blew the extractor off the bolt. The threads that stripped were the barrel, not the receiver. With a new extractor, one of the fellows built the action back into a bench rifle. The rifle you speak of had to be defective in my opinion. Good Arisakas are one of the strongest rifles ever made.

Remember the Jumptrap had to try his damnest to blow up a Nagant Mosin?

Joe

[Ricochet]

Yeah, I forget where I read it (Hatcher's Notebook?), but somebody meant to rechamber & rebore a 6.5mm Arisaka to .30-06. Got the rechambering part done, but forgot the reboring. Shot some .30-06s through it without incident.

[StarMetal]

Yeah John, exactly the kind of stuff I'm talking about. Like I said the good one, because there were bad ones toward the end of the war, are brute strong.

Joe

[DLCTEX]

A local young man was given a rifle by his brother-in-laws dad with three rounds of 300 Savage ammo. He brought it by to show me as it was chambering hard. The rifle was a 7.7 Arisaka. When I questioned the man who gave the rifle, he said he had always shot that ammoin it, but it never shot too well. Another local Yokel had a 22 revolver with a swing out cylinder that he tried to put 22 mag. in, it wouldn't fit so he tapped it home with something and shot himself in the leg.

[NickSS]

About 35 years ago I bought a sporterized Jap rifle. It was listed and stamped on the barrel as 7X57 Mauser caliber. So Off I went to the range and sighted my new rifle in with factory ammo in 7X57. I used it hunting that year and decided to start reloading for it. I loaded a bunch of loads starting from the light loads in my Lyman loading manual and working upwards towards maximum. At the range I noted that i was getting pressure indications way before I expected to see any but I was getting good accuracy. I decided to see what my bore size was so I slugged my barrel (first time I ever did that. I found that the bore was .2645" in the lands. Apparently someone had rechambered the rifle for 7X57 and it was perfectly safe with the underpowered factory loads available at that time. I sold the rifle shortly after that.

[ebner glocken]

Yep, you sold it and I think I may have it in my vault. Found a jap for little to nothing about a year ago. Shoots underpowered ammo just fine but S&B factory stuff will expand the primer pocket enough that it will fall out upon extraction. Chamber head expansion with this same ammo is usually around .006-.007". Since that test firing it sits unshot.

[StarMetal]

All testimonial to the strength of a Arisaka action, thank God. Hey fellows which by the way if a pretty close copy of the 93 Mauser.

A friend bought a sporterized Jap, said 300 Savage on the side of the barrel. He called me said it don't shoot for hoot. I said bring it over. First thing I did was looked it over real good (noticed right off the barrel was the original military) then slugged it, yup .312 or larger, forget exact numbers. I had thought a smithy set the barrel back a few threats and rechambered with a 300 Savage reamer but measuring the length of the barrel didn't show that. Still kind of puzzled on that one. He sold it.

Joe

[NVcurmudgeon]

Not a dangerous ammo situation, but a foolish one, occured when I left my rebarreled Ruger 77 in .35 Whelen in the rack behind me at the range. The gentleman next to me picked up the wrong rifle. He had to overlook that my rifle weighed about a pound more than his, was two inches longer, and had an old B&L 4X scope with tapered crosshairs instead of his 3-9 variable with duplex reticle. He realized his mistake after firing a .270 factory round (940 fps) and looking at the strange, fatter neck on his brass!

[Four Fingers of Death]

When considering these guys, you have to agree that maybe they should be subject to gun control. Mick.

[Char-Gar]

Dale ... It was a very common practice just after WWII for the 7.7 Japs to be rechambered to .300 Savage. Many, many thousands were given the treatments so the returning GI could use their war bring-backs to hunt.

I think they knew the difference but just didn't care. A .308 bullets rattleing down a .311-.312 bore was still good enough to kill a deer with at woods range. It was most often called the 30 Jap and that was good enough.. a 30 is a 30 right!

Accuracy was low, but so were the pressures and most American's thought that Jap rifles were made from cast pot metal and we happy to get low pressure. It took a while for Ackley and others trying to blow them up. to destroy the myth of the cast pot metal Arisaka.

The 6.5 Jap was most often called the 25 Jap and reports were often heard that getting shot with one amounted to nothing more than a bee sting. I hear allot of that kind of stuff growing up when the War was just over.

I remember as a boy buying several Arisaka type 99s for $5.00 a piece. One even had the dust cover and the aircraft sights still intact. A friends has an early Type 38 and it was one of the best finished miliatry firearms I have ever seen. Shoot well when we could find ammo. We didn't handload and only Norma made in those days. Costly stuff for a kids of 13 or 14.

[45 2.1]

most American's thought that Jap rifles were made from cast pot metal and we happy to get low pressure. It took a while for Ackley and others trying to blow them up. to destroy the myth of the cast pot metal Arisaka.

Actually, one Jap arsenal did produce rifles that had a cast receiver. These were not training rifles either. The difference here was that the bolt locked up to the barrel extension, not to the cast receiver.

[TCLouis]

a mistake when someone should have used the 6.5X257 reamer to make a decent performer in the Type 38.

I shoot .308 coated bullets out of my Type 99 all the time. 0.309 - 10 should work with boolits. That is one reason I bought the 311041 wantabe 6 banger mold.

I have a type 99 that I bought several years ago and have yet to figure out what it is chambered for. Good job of sporterizing it. I may have to see if I g=have any 300 brass. Guess I could do a chamber cast also!

[Slamfire]

I was reading a little piece in a 1947 issue of the American Rifleman about a teenage boy who managed to hammer a 7.7 Jap bolt shut on some 35 Remington rounds. He did ok for three rounds, but the fourth sent the rifle into destruct mode. The dumb kid wan't hurt.

"What fools we mortals be.."

Well he did better'n P. O. Ackley, he wasn't able to blow up either one of the Arisaka actions. He did manage to blow the barrels out of the actions, but rebarreled they still worked just fine.

[BruceB]

P.O. Ackley wrote (many years ago) of rechambering a .30-06 rifle to .35 Whelen, with enough throat clearance to chamber the .35 round. Note that the .30 bore was left unchanged! This was before the .35 Whelen bacame a factory-loaded cartridge. I don't recall for certain what action was used, although I have a sense that it was a Mauser 98.

He then proceeded to fire a considerable number of .358 bullets down the .30-caliber bore. He wrote that pressures weren't at all bad, and accuracy was even pretty decent. He id say that the recovered bullets looked kinda strange, with their cores extruded out the back of the jackets!

I always admired P.O. for his willingness to chuck up a barrel in the lathe and actually TRY some of the "you-better-not-do-THIS" ideas of his time.