Arasaka 6.5mm project gun

[stripe]

I saw a Japanese Arasaka in 6.5 mm and it is not a Last Ditch rifle. It's in pretty rough shape (but still has the Mum on the receiver), and I am wondering if it would be a good project rifle. Does anyone know what commercial ammunition would fit the bolt face of this rifle as this would be important in making my decision to spent the money for the gun.

[Uncle Grinch]

The Arisaka can make a very decent Sporter or leave as is for a shooter milsurp. The bolt face should be .473 for most standard cartridges. I’m thinking the original chambering has decent ballistics. I had one about 45 years ago and it really was a decent shooter. Didn’t care too much for the safety.

[Reg]

308,250 Savage, 243. Any number of good rounds like this. The safty is a little funky according to our standards but the action is incredibly strong

[TNsailorman]

I had a couplle of the 6.5's a few years ago; one long and one carbine. I really liked them. As far as the safety goes, I liked it better than the mauser or springfield. Put the heel of the hand on the safety knob, push it forward and rotate it. Simple and effective and easily done. The knob was checkered and it was easy to do with slick hands. If your barrel is not toast, that rifle would make a dandy plinker or deer rifle. The 6.5 x 50mm was a better cartidge than people give it credit. I wouldn't mind having another of the little carbines again but am not going to pay the going price for the military rifle today. As Reg mentioned above, any of those cartridge would work very well in that action. my take anyway, james

[schutzen-jager]

boxer primed reloadable brass + loaded ammo is available from many sources + it is a decent cartridge -

[Texas by God]

I got one cheap because it was sporterized. The barrel wouldn’t shoot .264” bullets worth a flip. I had an extra 8x57 Shaw barrel for a 98 Mauser lying around…. So I had a budding gunsmith combine the two. I loved it. The safety especially. Just push in on it and let it cam back. The action needed a little work for the wider cartridge body, and the magazine length was too short for surplus FMJ ammo. But 170 gr RN on down in weight fit and shot great.
Someone once described the Arisaka action as an “Improved 93 Mauser” and I think they nailed it.


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[frkelly74]

I have two, both respectably sporterized. One is actually quite pretty. That one is in the original 6.5X50 Arisaka cartridge, some ammo is notated as 6.5X51. The other has had the chamber reamed to 257 Roberts dimensions. that one is not as pretty but it will shoot.

[Budzilla 19]

I’ve got an Arisaka action in a massive chunk of American black cherry benchrest,thumbhole style stock, Timney target trigger, single shot floor plate, 28”-1.25” bull barrel chambered in 6.5-308(260 Remington nowadays), turned down the bolt handle, it will do the job! Lots of fun, no recoil! Strong action? Read P.O.Ackleys book and see how strong it is! As was previously stated, if it has decent bore, shoot it! Should be fun!

[CLAYPOOL]

Shoot it for a couple boxes. It may surprise you. You can all ways do some cleaning in the bore..You won't know till you try. Lots of them were sportized (SP)after the war...

[stripe]

Thanks for the replies folks. Gonna lay the cash down today. If nothing else, It will be fun to clean it up and learn something about the gun.

[TCLouis]

NO 6.5 will be "Last Ditch" rifle, that is relegated to the Type 99s.
Like many Milsurps, your barrel may vary in internal dimensions.
Like others here have said, the "Palm Safety" is great (unless the follow some of the misinformation found in print).

Many of them were converted to 6.5X257 back in the day because 6.5X50 was not readily available.

The barrel may look a little rough internally, but after a thorough cleaning one might be surprised with the performance.

IF it still has the Mum and is in good or better original military condition, one may want to check on current prices on the Milsurp market before doing anything.
It may be an investment, not a gun purchase.

[stripe]

Well I completely broke down the rifle and still in the process of cleaning it. The baked on powder and oil varnish are tough customers on this one. Ordered a new firing pin spring and trigger spring from Numrich as the first shows some flat spots on a few coils and I broke a whole loop off the trigger spring. Doing the Tru Oil routine on the stock just because I like working with wood and Tru Oil.
Now, I am probably going to have my gun smith (if he ever returns my calls) slug the bore and cast the chamber because I want to make sure I know what they are and not rely on the sales tag information from the seller. I am looking at having it re-barreled in 6.5x55 Sweed. I like the ballistics of the round, can work up a bunch of reloading variations and since I am an accuracy freak (up to a point) this appears to be a fetching option.

[john.k]

If the bore is shootable ,you can use 6.5 Carcano ammo ,as the dimensions are near the same ...as mentioned the bores are much larger than suit 264 bullets,more like 267/269.......most military 6.5s need larger than 264 bullets.

[john.k]

Might add.....relation has a nice 38 carbine and bayonet,and says it will sell for $3000+......he is disposing his collection and getting very high prices for milsurps in good condition.

[schutzen-jager]

If the bore is shootable ,you can use 6.5 Carcano ammo ,as the dimensions are near the same ...as mentioned the bores are much larger than suit 264 bullets,more like 267/269.......most military 6.5s need larger than 264 bullets.

have you safely used 6.5 carcano in the 6.5 arisaka ?

[WRideout]

I also have a 6.5 Japanese project gun. Mine is waiting for a new aftermarket stock to be inletted. I thought the rifling in mine was completely worn out, but I found out that they used that strange Metford rifling that has no sharp edges.

Since brass had been hard to come by, and Norma ammo was really expensive, I bought some 35 Rem brass from a forum member, and have used that exclusively. I had tried the other well-known method of using 220 Swift brass, but found I was ruining too many just to get a couple of usable rounds. I tried the 160 gr "Cruise Missile" mold in the past, and found it gave mediocre accuracy. I recently acquired a Lyman 140 gr GC mold, which I hope will improve things.

Wayne

[Chena]

A friend needed help cleaning up his deceased cousin’s property. The cousin had been a hoarder and at the bottom of a junk pile in the front yard we found a beat up 6.5 arisaka. My friend gave it to me and it became my winter gun project. By Spring it was in shooting shape. I tried it out with some Norman factory loads and discovered the deliberately loose chamber the Japanese preferred on their combat rifles. The fired cases came out a bit warped and with the primers backed out about halfway and off center. I did some research and found that this was said to be normal for arisakas. Anyone else have this experience?

[stripe]

Metford rifling; which until now was unknown to me. This is very interesting and intriguing. I wonder if what I am seeing in the bore is an example of this or is it really shot out and abused rifling. I will find out today.

[Larry Gibson]

A friend needed help cleaning up his deceased cousin’s property. The cousin had been a hoarder and at the bottom of a junk pile in the front yard we found a beat up 6.5 arisaka. My friend gave it to me and it became my winter gun project. By Spring it was in shooting shape. I tried it out with some Norman factory loads and discovered the deliberately loose chamber the Japanese preferred on their combat rifles. The fired cases came out a bit warped and with the primers backed out about halfway and off center. I did some research and found that this was said to be normal for arisakas. Anyone else have this experience?

I had that problem with my bubba'd 6.5 Arisaka. Norma cases cae out horrible bulged and would last on 2- 3 firing before case split or separation even when NS'd only.

I had been using a 6.5x55 FL sizer with the deprime/expander rod removed ala Lee Classic die to NS the cases. I also noticed the 6.5 Jap was just a tad shorter than the 308W. I tried 5 7.62 rounds to see if they would feed, they did. I then lube a Win 308W case and sized it in the 6.5x55 FL die with the base of the case flush with the base of the die. A rod ejected the sized case with no problem. The 6.5x308 shoulder was just slightly ahead of the shoulder on a fire formed 6.5 jap case. I formed 5 cases and seated a 6.5 jacketed bullet to mag length in them. With the taper of the "x55" case they all fed slicker than the standard 7.62 cases.

A friend had a 6.5x55 finish reamer which I borrowed. I hand reamed the chamber, so those 5 formed cases were a slight crush fit. The 6.5x55 Swede FL die was shortened just enough so a shell holder could be used to form/size the 6.5x308 Jap cases. The new 6.5x308 Jap cases were easily formed with one pass through the shortened FL die. I used 7.62 Match cases and they have worked fine. I also shortened a 6.5x55 Swede NS die to just NS the fired cases. The "new" 6.5x308 Jap chamber cleaned up the original jap chamber problems and with the 6.5x308 Jap cartridges case life is excellent.....haven't lost a case yet.

Photo show's (left to right); the 6.5x308 Jap, a Norma 6.5 Jap, 6.5 x55s.

[TNsailorman]

Really interesting post Larry. I had a 6.5x50 carbine years ago and it bulged cases to the point that they weere very hard to resize even with Imperial Wax lube. I sold it for that reason. Mistake as I found out later that there was a way around this. Thanks for the clear explanation of how to do it. james