30-06 Converted Arisaka - No Mum !

[DoctorBill]

Was looking for a 7.7mm Arisaka in decent shape at a Pawn/Gun Shop and
ran into this. (pics below)

It being sold as a 7.7mm and chambered a 7.7mmx58 empty case that I carry in my car.

However, having learned the hard way that many of these rifles have been
converted and not marked as such, I challenged the store owner to try to
chamber an empty 30-06 case. Had to convince him, but he did it.
He wanted me to buy it and THEN chamber cast it ! Lord !

The 30-06 fit perfectly. Had him run Head Space Gauges in it.
Go worked.....No Go didn't go - an unmarked 30-06 converted rifle !

He wanted $114 for it.....couldn't pass it up.

WHAT IS IT ? ! No mum, nor any evidence of a Mum having been ground off !
That is a Bishop Stock ! Is that Ivory on it ?







I have not slugged it yet, so don't know the exact bore size.

What kind of Arisaka would not have ever had a mum ?

Pictures show the Serial number - Series two - 70,848 of 99,000 made
and has a pictograph after the Nagoya Arsenal symbol.
What does that mean ?

No evidence of a Chrysanthemum or it being ground off has me wondering.

A friend says the rear of the receiver may have been set up for a rear
adjustable, folding peep sight. ?????

Will this work with a .308 cast bullet ?

DoctorBill

[Bret4207]

I've seen a few Arisakas that looked like there was never a Chrysanthemum on the recv'r. Maybe there was and someone just did a nice job grinding? Who knows.

The screws are probably for a recv'r sight although that stock doesn't appear to be cut for the slide. A simple alteration to make to fit a Lyman 48. The "ivory" is more likely a nylon or plastic. If it's actually ivory it should yellow over time. You might use your Google-fu to look into how to ID it if it is ivory.

.308 cast through a 7.7 (.311-.314) barrel? Doubtful it would give good accuracy. This is one of those guns that really needs a chamber cast and slugging before venturing too far. Clean the barrel really well and see what you have before investing in dies and moulds. If it is a 7.7-06 then treat it like an 8mm-06 and start low.

[3006guns]

It had a mum......trust me. I have at least two type 99's that were bubba'd back in the fifties and the receiver rings were carefully ground/polished to remove any trace of the mum stamp. To verify, remove the action from the stock and look at the receiver ring. You'll notice it's just slightly out of round because of the polishing.

Dovetail had to be for a receiver sight.

Sure it'll take a .308 bullet.......but not very well. You'd be better off with any bullet made for the .303 British or 7.65 Argentine.

All of the conversions on your rifle were common "way back when" new rifles were in short supply and guys were trying to get anything to shoot. I have a similar gun, but the 30-06 conversion was done by setting the barrel back one thread and rechambering which is far better. Still leaves a rather generous bore though!

You did a good thing by saving this gun. If you look at it someone went to a fair amount of trouble to make it look nice and it deserves a good home.

[DoctorBill]

Slugged the barrel.

0.302 to 0.313 inch.

Rounded off lands - Metford rifling.

This bunch of old cast bullets (0.309) should work fine.
I washed the old, "powdered from age" Lube off with Mineral Spirits and they look
very good now. Mike to 0.309.



The yellow-white stuff on the stock has fine cracks running the length of the material.
My wife who is into gems and jewelry thinks it is Ivory and the black
strip between the white and the wood may be Ebony.



The Butt Plate says "Bishop". I wonder what the Stock alone is worth ?

DoctorBill

[DoctorBill]

One damned good job of concealing the removal - quite symmetrical.

I cannot see any out of round or sloping or scratches, etc.

Could this have been filled with some weld and polished off ?

If that was done, the guy is an artistic and mechanical genius.

The barrel slugged to .302 to .313.

DoctorBill

[Artful]

I know 7.7 in late war production were produced with steps skipped - no metal butt plate but wood one actually nailed on etc. so it's possible it came thru without a mum. End of war production lacked quality control - so if it is you might want to rockwell test the receiver.

[Reg]

Just to be on the safe side, you might want to run a chamber cast. Have noticed years ago that even with having the barrel set back one turn then rechambering, that a few times the chamber is quite a bit oversize at the rear. Get a piece of brittle brass and you could have problems. Some were not set back at all and they could also have this oversize condition. Not all were oversize and not saying this one is. Just saying a quick check would ease ones mind. Thats a lot of pressure running around right in front of your nose.
Have also seen a few in the past that had no mum and showed no signs of ever having one.
If ever in any doubt it a simple matter for any good gunsmith to put on a new barrel in any caliber you can get to feed through the magazine. They are far more than strong enough for anything you would ever want to shoot through it.
Very classic looking old stock.

[DoctorBill]

The serial number says "Series 2" and 70,848 of 99,000 made in that
series.

The series goes all the way up to Series 12 at Nagoya Arsenal,
then some were made at an unknown time later on.

I doubt that this is one of those "Last Ditch" Arisakas....

I saw one yesterday and it looked like it was made out of junk yard scraps.


"Have also seen a few in the past that had no mum and showed no signs of ever having one."
Holy Mackeral - Reg !

DoctorBill

[Reg]

Artful,
I think the ones you speak of are called " last ditch " versions. Dog butt crude they were to say the least. Most were cast receivers and were never meant for firing with live ammo. This one just dosn't look like one of these as it shows decent machining. Simple to tell though. Pull it out of the wood and look at the bottom of the receiver. If it looks like a casting, it is. If it shows machine marks its a good one.

[Bret4207]

Slugged the barrel.

0.302 to 0.313 inch.

Rounded off lands - Metford rifling.

This bunch of old cast bullets (0.309) should work fine.
I washed the old, "powdered from age" Lube off with Mineral Spirits and they look
very good now. Mike to 0.309.



The yellow-white stuff on the stock has fine cracks running the length of the material.
My wife who is into gems and jewelry thinks it is Ivory and the black
strip between the white and the wood may be Ebony.



The Butt Plate says "Bishop". I wonder what the Stock alone is worth ?

DoctorBill

Bill, .309 boolits are not going to do well in a .313 barrel. The only way to use then is to either "bump" them in your sizer or paper patch them. .309 down a .313 tube will lead and shoot wild.

I certainly don't want to disagree with your wife, or anyones wife for that matter, but if that butt plate says Bishop I highly doubt it's ivory. More likely it's resin or maybe bone. Bishop stocks were mostly economy jobs to medium quality, although I've seen a few higher grades hunks of Bishop wood through the years. Fajen tended to have the higher quality wood. The stock as is might bring $75.-100.00. Judging from the style I'd put it in the mid-60's which would make it a $10-25.00 stock new.

On the "ivory" - http://reviews.ebay.com/How-to-Ident...00000004233695

http://ivory4u.com/ID/

http://www.ivoryhound.com/articles_t..._for_ivory.htm

[DoctorBill]

I will look into this Ivory thing - my wife is probably wrong.
Having said that...she is usually right ! After all, she picked me !
She could have gotten a man with more money and income,
but never one as sweet as me.....

So you folks think these 309 bullets will not get spun up in this barrel...

Thinking that you may be correct, I figured that it ought to be easy to push
it thru (slug) the barrel.

I proceeded to lube one up and pound it into the receiver end
with a wood dowel and the rest of the way out with a steel rod.
Went fairly easily after the initial forming at the beginning.



You really don't think those four lands will grab this bullet and spin it up ?

There would be "blow by", but I ain't out to shoot no Elk - just out to
kill those pesky, iwwitating, wabbit paper taugets with weduced woads.

Ohhh...some of you may be too young to remember Elmer Fudd and his
quest to get that pesky Bugs Bunny.



That is a 30-06 Converted Arisaka that Elmer is carrying !

DoctorBill

[skeet1]

I think it will spin it but it will lead like crazy from gas going past the bullet and not be very accurate. Just my guess.

Ken

[DoctorBill]

I feel like I've been stabbed in the Heart !

Decided to take the barrel off the stock to have a look at the white "Ivory Like" material
on the Monte Carlo stock.

I about had a heart attack when I saw this.

What is this ! ? This is not a natural rupture - looks like some Frankenstienian
Metal freakout !

Can anyone tell me what I am looking at here ?

Will this barrel explode if I fire a 30-06 round in it ?



Has this barrel been cut and pasted back together with Gorilla Glue ?

I think I need to take some Pepto Bismol......

DoctorBill

[waksupi]

Not sure what it is, but it sure looks scary!

[DoctorBill]

I sent that photo composite to my friend who is a Machinist Genius and he said
all is well.

That is a technique of hot crimping metal barrels together with a hydraulic press while
the metal is red hot and when it cools the joint is essentially as strong as if it were one piece.

The linear marks are either stamping marks or marks left from pulling the
piece out while it is red hot.

And that may have been done even before they cut the bore in the barrel....very tough metal, also.

I had thought that the people/person who had converted it to 30-06 had bastardized the
barrel in some way - cut it or shortened it - whatever.
Aparrently what you see was done when the barrel was being manufactured - he thinks.

Anyway - normal metal forging stuff. I have so much to learn about these MilSurp rifles !
Every day is a new thing.

Perhaps someone reading this with metal working experience can comment further on it.

So it is OK. No worries, as Crocodile Dundee would say.

Had the c**p scared out of me - never saw that sort of thing before.

Ignorance is expensive. You learn more and more and then you die.

What a waste.

Onward.....

DoctorBill

[Reg]

Hate to put the scare back into you but no--- there is no such thing as "hot crimping" any barrel together. He might be refering to using "skelps" and hammer forging a barrel such as was done with the early flintlock barrels but you were only looking at very poor quality black powder at low pressurers. If you were to ever fire that form of barrel with the pressurers generated by the 06 I would for darned sure have my life insurance policy paid up.
What you see might be the remains of the old rear sight sleeve but what someone has done to it is anyones guess.
There also seems to be some "battering" on the bottom of the recoil lug. That also is not normal.
Your rifle has some issues. This really isn't the time for good ol boy guessing but you really need to see someone who is an experianced gunsmith. Do not fire it under any circumstances until it is carefully looked at.
These 7.7 and especially the 6.5 Jap actions are not normally poorly made unless they were origionaly made up as training rifles or the ones known as "last ditch" models. Many of the 6.5's were actually made up in Germany with the best German steel at the time. Other than a funky but usable safety, they can be made up into very nice sporters and are very safe to boot. P O Ackley , in his blow up tests of the late 40's to the early 60's , tried long and hard to blow a few of the things up and when he finially got the job done rather than actually blowing the action itself , he blew the barrel clean out the front , and it took one heck of a overload to do it. Not too shabby.
Life is too short and your vision too precious to take any chances. Get it looked at by a good gunsmith, someone with experiance with rebarreling. If you have a good action and a questionable barrel just get it rebarreled. It really dosn't cost that much and with the nice old Bishop stock you have the basis of a neat old vintage sporter.

[Bret4207]

I have seen other barrels with similar marks. Hard to say without having it in hand, but my impression has always been they are manufacturing marks of some sort. Maybe someone more familiar with Arisakas will chime in. It certainly looks like a sleeved section. I don't have any books on the Arisaka handy to research it further.

[3006guns]

That barrel scares me......and I ain't afraid 'o nothin' !!


I have over 35 Arisakas spanning several models, along with actions, parts, etc. and I've NEVER seen marks like that. The barrels were bored, rifled and finished machined like any other barrel with the exception of the chrome bore on the type 99's. Whatever you do, don't shoot it. A replacement barrel isn't expensive and will change out normally. At that point you have the choice of returning it to its original caliber or setting the barrel back and chambering for something else.

Edit: After looking at the pics again, that may be some sort of jaw mark left by whatever they used if they pulled the barrel. In any case its created a groove or seam running the length of the chamber and I wouldn't trust it. By the way, if you fit a custom barrel the barrel threads are 16.99 tpi but most lathes will cut 17 tpi which is close enough.

[Westwindmike]

Just to be safe, I'd put a couple of hose clamps around that barrel before I shot it. That should hold it together.

[DoctorBill]

A friend of mine looked in a book called "The Bolt Action Rifle" by
a Frank De Haas and said there were photos of this rifle.

It is supposed to be a Training Rifle designed to shoot blanks.....

People have been killed shooting real rounds in them.

I have about had it with Arisakas !

$115 for a piece of dangerous junk !

http://www.cruffler.com/trivia-September00.html Scroll to the Bottom.

http://oldrifles.com/japanese.htm About 3/4 of the way down the page.

My friend who saw this in Frank De Haas' book also saw two 7.7mm Arisaka Barrels
in a barrel in a gun shop. Didn't ask the price.

QUESTIONS:

What would a reasonable price be for a barrel ?
What would a reasonable charge be to take out this "Training" Barrel and install one of those
barrels in the barrel ?

I don't want to get screwed by some gun shop's gunsmith.
Brock's Gun Shop in Spokane, WA on Division Street.

DoctorBill