Any pet 6.5 Japanese loads?

[TAWILDCATT]

I bought privi partisian brass from Graf for $39 per 100.good stuff.my 2 japs do not expand 35 rem.220 swift expanded 19 thou. I have a hundred 220 I cant use as I wont chance the brass.the specs are way out.as to accuracy not yet.been to hot for me.at my age I cant chance the heat.shot my 1903[1914]with 13 gr red dot and 150 gr Lee tl.4 touching and one I let slip an inch out.I aalso have a cruise missle LEE at 170 gr and .267 I am going to try.
GRAF has 8 mm lebel,carcano,jap,and 7.65 X 53 all at $39 per 100.

[rayg]

Bruce, I loaded up six rds each of 15,16 and 17 grs of I-4227 and one with of 9 grs of Unique and tried them out in a T-38 rifle. I had trouble focusing on the tip of the front sight with my old eyes and the groups may have reflected that as none were under 2-1/2" at 50 yrs. The 15 gr 4227 load seemed to be the best and the Unique one next best. But that may not be an accurate assessment because of my sighting problem.
I am going to try these loads again but this time in my T-97 sniper rifle with the scope. The scope should improve my focus on the target and give me a better idea of the accuracy of the loads, Ray

[bruce drake]

Rayg,

Thanks for the update. That Unique load can be tweaked in pretty good. How did the brass look after firing? Any soot around the necks or backed out primers? That T38 has a nice long sight radius on that barrel don't it

Bruce

[rayg]

There was soot with the 4227 powders showing the cases didn't expand enough to seal the chamber but no backed out primers. There was no soot or backed out primers with the Unique.

Any suggestions? Ray

[bruce drake]

I was checking on the 4227 load mostly. Soot on the neck usually means its a pretty low pressure load as I am sure you already know. If you had soot on the cases but the lower amount had the better group, that makes me think the powder may not be the best combination for the case/bullet. Than again, if the soot isn't an issue for you (if it shoots fine, I don't worry about low pressure soot) than tweak the load. Try 14.5 and 15.5 and see which shoots better.

That Unique Load is close to what I use in my 220 Swift reformed cases. I usually shoot 8.5gr with mine as 9gr usually gives me flat primers in my reformed cases.

OK and now if you have settled on your powders, now we can delve into the other variables like lube, OAL, bullet weight, quality of the bullets fill out.

Each rifle gets its own special recipe for utmost accuracy. I found that my T38 hates the Lyman Orange lube but after a thorough scrubbing settled down nicely with Lars Carnauba Red.

The Funny thing is that both of my T99s with their chromed barrels prefer the Lee Alox Lube with a Herters 180gr Spitzer and the Lyman 311291 (170gr) sized to fit their specific bores.

Bruce

[rayg]

Well a failed mission. As I mentioned I would do, I took the T-97 sniper to the range with twenty rds of 9 grs Unique,
Now I don't know if any folks here ever shot a T-97 rifle with a issue T-97 scope but it is a very frustrating experience. For one thing there is no internal windage and elevation adjustments on the scope or mount and if they are not matched to the rifle at the arsenal, (very few found are), to a center point of aim which are two intersecting lines. You have to use Kentucky windage to find target center based on various other lines and numbers in the scope and these lines are not in a standard or uniform pattern and I found it a bit difficult to obtain the same sight picture each time using these lines for the Kentucky windage in order to evaluate the accuracy of the load.
I will relaod again and try another rifle. Ray

[725]

I've had some success with Hornady's #26302 bullet, a 140 gr GR SST, over 13.5 unique with the bullet seated .446 into the case. The trigger is so bad it's a toss up. (Type 38)

[bruce drake]

725,

MidSouth Shooters Supply (www.Midsouthshooterssupply.com) has Timney Triggers for Arisaka 6.5 for sale on their website. I bought one last night in fact for $60.91 with the hopes to cure my T-38's rough trigger. It should be at my home by next week and I'll install it in November when I get home.

Bruce

[rayg]

The trigger pull on my T-97 sniper is excellent. As you pull the trigger there is a slight click letting you know that a little more pressure and the rifle will fire. It's not the quality of a commerical trigger set up but not bad for a T-38 pattern rifle so I will probably try it to test the loads again but next time minus the scope. Ray

[bruce drake]

Rich,

Thanks for the link to Roy Boone. I sent several e-mail messages to him that he promptly replied to each one. He let me know that he's bringing in his harvest right now but I would have a set mailed to my house and waiting for me before I got home in November.

For everyone else with an 6.5 Arisaka, Roy's prices for the forming dies and punch is not out of line for what you'd pay RCBS for a Special Order Die set. ($50 including shipping)

I'm looking forward to getting this die set as it will make brass much more available for this slick rifle.

Bruce

[madsenshooter]

I wrote Norma about 4 years ago concerning the undersize dimensions of their 6.5 Jap brass. They responded by changing the dimensions. If I can figure out how, I'll include a pic here. The biggest problem with the old brass was the rim, it was only .050, and the Jap was meant to headspace on a .060 head, so right off the bat you have .010 excess headspace. Combine that with the too small dimensions, and your brass isn't going to last long. That old bulge is also going to cause some concentricity problems when resizing. This new stuff makes my Arisaka work like the proverbial well oiled machine, whereas the old stuff sorta bumped and rattled through the action.

[bruce drake]

followups for my last posts.

The Timney Trigger fo the 6.5 Jap really cleaned up the trigger pull. Bad point was that I had to file the sear slot a lot to get it to operate properly. For anyone else planning to buy the Timney trigger, realize that once the receiver is modified to fit the TT you can't use a stock trigger anymore.

Roy Boone's 308 Winchester to 6.5 Jap form dies. Very nice! You can't use an older LEE C- or O-press or a hand press for this job! Popped a linkage bar on my Challenger Press. Had to use my friends Rockchucker to finish the forming. The new cartridges fit my sloppy chambered T38 with no problems.

I bought another T38 last week. It is a Kokura Arsenal manufactored in 1934. The bore is a mirror and the chamber is extremely tight. My 220 Swift and 308 Win reformed brass just can't fit in the chamber even with the full-length size. Using the 35 Rem reformed cases let me use the rifle with no problem. Slugged the bore at .263.

I'm waiting for Buckshot to finish a .266 Push-thru sizing die for me so I used jacketed bullets for the rifle's baptism.

Using Hornady's 139gr SP and a few Sierra 140gr HP Matchkings, I loaded them with 30gr of IMR4895 with Win LR primers. I took them out today to fire them off with a friend of mine. 2.5" at 100yards. Impact was about 4" to the left (I'll need to tap the front sight over to bring her to black since there was no wind today). Recoil was very light (like my AR15) and the rifle shot to POA with the base sight setting. I'm looking forward to seeing what she does with a real boolit in a few weeks.

Bruce

[Phil]

Glad to see Norma finally coming up with a more usable case. I have some measurements from old Japanese and English T38 ammunition that may come in handy for whatever:

Kynoch 1916: head dia. .4495" rim dia. .480"

Early Japanese 139 grain load: head dia. .449" rim dia. .479"

Late Japanese 139 grain load: head dia. .448" rim dia. .470"

Older Norma head dia. .447" rim dia. .467"

RP 220 Swift head dia. .440" rim dia. .467"

I would not use 303 British brass to make T99 7.7 Japanese cases as most 303 British brass has a head diameter of .454"-.457" whereas the Japanese T99 7.7 case head measures .472". Fired cases measure .476" which is really a stretch for 30-06 brass but I've never had a failure with it. I don't full length size it either. Another thing to think about is there were three distinct Japanese 7.7mm cartridges. The rimless T99, a rimmed 7.7mm which was nothing more or less than the 303 British, and a machine gun cartridge (T92 as I recall) that was semi-rimmed.

The original Type 38 ammunition was loaded with a round nose bullet that weighed, as near as I can remember, somewhere between 156 and 160 grains. I have one Kynoch Type 38 cartridge in my collection that is loaded with this round nose bullet. I really don't want to pull the bullet to weigh it. When I was a kid I bought several hundred rounds of 6.5mm Japanese military ammunition from Ye Olde Hunter. This was the old original Hunter owned by Sam Cummings. Quite a lot of this ammunition was loaded with the round nose bullet but most of it was the later spitzer 139 grain stuff. I still have one box (minus the lid which was lost long ago) of the spitzer stuff, still loaded on strippers. Never bothered to save any of the boxes from the round nose stuff. It must have been really ratty. The Japanese brass was really bad. Most of it split at the neck when fired. Remember this was in the late 1950's.

In the Smith "Small Arms of the World" book,7th edition, on page 714, top left illustration, far right cartridge, is identified as Japanese T38 round. It is indeed that, but it is the early round nose version. In all the text in the book the round is only identified as a pointed bullet.

About all I can remember about loading for the T38's is that 3031 powder and the Norma 156 grain bullet worked like gangbusters. In one T38 long rifle with a Lyman 48 rear sight and post front, it would group around one MOA all day long. With that long barrel it was pretty much flashless also. That was one point made by American press during the war "the Japanese ammunition has no muzzle flash" blah, blah, blah. I suspect it had less to do with the powder used and more to do with the quantity of that powder and the length of the barrel.

Be safe out there,

Phil

[rayg]

I believe the Japanese used a more smokeless quality powder which unlike the powders we used, did not exibit much, if any, tell tale smoke when fired. Coupled with that and the long barrel that reduced the muzzle flash, it was hard to fix the location of the rifle that was being fired at you, Ray

[BerdanIII]

Either Hatcher or Ackley performed an experiment in which they substituted the powder from G.I. 30-'06 for the powder in the 6.5 Arisaka and vice versa (in safe loads, I assume). The end result was that when fired in the longer barrel of the Arisaka, the .30-'06 powder (probably a non-canister grade of 4895) became "flashless" and the Arisaka powder, when fired in the .30-'06, created a muzzle flash.

[bruce drake]

big difference in barrel lengths between the two rifles also. 30 Inches versus 24

Bruce

[rayg]

I can buy that. The longer barrel consumed all the powder whereas some of the powder went unburned in the shorter barrel thus producing the smoke. Ray

[madsenshooter]

I had sometimes wondered if the Type 65 US cartridge (7.62 NATO) didn't come about because of experiments like the one above with the 6.5 Jap cartridge. "Wow, look guys, here's this itty bitty case and it's pushing a bullet with the same sectional density as a 190gr .30 caliber, bet we could shorten the 06 and do the same." Could it be that's where the Type 65 came from, someone just left out the point when they designated the type?

[madsenshooter]

Glad to see Norma finally coming up with a more usable case. I have some measurements from old Japanese and English T38 ammunition that may come in handy for whatever:

Kynoch 1916: head dia. .4495" rim dia. .480"

Early Japanese 139 grain load: head dia. .449" rim dia. .479"

Late Japanese 139 grain load: head dia. .448" rim dia. .470"

Older Norma head dia. .447" rim dia. .467"

RP 220 Swift head dia. .440" rim dia. .467"

I would not use 303 British brass to make T99 7.7 Japanese cases as most 303 British brass has a head diameter of .454"-.457" whereas the Japanese T99 7.7 case head measures .472". Fired cases measure .476" which is really a stretch for 30-06 brass but I've never had a failure with it. I don't full length size it either. Another thing to think about is there were three distinct Japanese 7.7mm cartridges. The rimless T99, a rimmed 7.7mm which was nothing more or less than the 303 British, and a machine gun cartridge (T92 as I recall) that was semi-rimmed.

The original Type 38 ammunition was loaded with a round nose bullet that weighed, as near as I can remember, somewhere between 156 and 160 grains. I have one Kynoch Type 38 cartridge in my collection that is loaded with this round nose bullet. I really don't want to pull the bullet to weigh it. When I was a kid I bought several hundred rounds of 6.5mm Japanese military ammunition from Ye Olde Hunter. This was the old original Hunter owned by Sam Cummings. Quite a lot of this ammunition was loaded with the round nose bullet but most of it was the later spitzer 139 grain stuff. I still have one box (minus the lid which was lost long ago) of the spitzer stuff, still loaded on strippers. Never bothered to save any of the boxes from the round nose stuff. It must have been really ratty. The Japanese brass was really bad. Most of it split at the neck when fired. Remember this was in the late 1950's.

In the Smith "Small Arms of the World" book,7th edition, on page 714, top left illustration, far right cartridge, is identified as Japanese T38 round. It is indeed that, but it is the early round nose version. In all the text in the book the round is only identified as a pointed bullet.

About all I can remember about loading for the T38's is that 3031 powder and the Norma 156 grain bullet worked like gangbusters. In one T38 long rifle with a Lyman 48 rear sight and post front, it would group around one MOA all day long. With that long barrel it was pretty much flashless also. That was one point made by American press during the war "the Japanese ammunition has no muzzle flash" blah, blah, blah. I suspect it had less to do with the powder used and more to do with the quantity of that powder and the length of the barrel.

Be safe out there,

Phil

Thanks for the measurements Phil, what about the rim thickness on the Kynoch and Jap rounds. I just got an email from a fellow that's having trouble locating the new Norma brass I pictured. Norma claims to have shipped to Midway and Grafs, they say all they have is the old dimensioned Norma brass. That .010" excess headspace has got to go!

[Phil]

Hi Madsen Shooter,

I'm just south of you a bit, in Huntington! On the Japanese rim thickness, I just went out and measured them:

Kynoch 1916 rim thickness is .056" and FWIW the primer dia is roughly .213" and there is no primer crimp.

Older Japanese round with spitzer bullet, no primer crimp, rim thickness .056" Primer dia .195"

Later Japanese spitzer bullet round, three stab primer crimp, five round sample measures:
.056", .057", .0565", and .0515". These rounds were in a five round stripper in the original box. Primer diameter appears to be roughly .198" The primer measurements are not exact as you have to guess where the primer edge starts and the pocket chamfer ends. Like I say, these primer measurements are very rough.

Cheers,

Phil