I can get one for next to nothing. I read somewhere that they were very strong.
Whats it good for ?
thanks
boet

A lot of them became 6.5 x 257 Roberts as brass is easier to find. They're a very strong action but the triggers are rough even for military. After-market replacement triggers are available from at least two companies.

I own one that came to me in very rough condition. I'm not a 'smith. I disassembled and cleaned it up with a wire wheel. Degreased it and blued it with cold blue. Sanded the stock down to bare wood as much as possible, filled the cracks with epoxy, painted the entire stock with thinned epoxy, sanded it another time and applied grit in a can from Brownell and a camo finish. Grafs handles brass from PRVI. I use mine as it was originally chambered and get 3 moa with Rem 140 gr PSPCL bullets. The lands were cut rounded at the factory and will not shoot cast bullets worth a hoot. I find it a very dandy truck gun. With the way I finished it any dings are a spray away from instant repair. It is a very enjoyable gun to shoot in my opinion.
gudlif

Back in the mid 60's I put a Douglas barrel on one, 24" sporter weight, nice mertlewood stock.
Chambered for .284 Win. which was fairly new at that time. Used a Timmney trigger with a side safety (no longer available). Shot really nice. I know I rebarrel several others but I don't remember what caliber. Bill

6.5 x .284 in 1966. Used the arasaka action and barrel. roger

An old gunsmith retired, and another gunsmith made a benchrest Arisaka as a gag gift.
It shot as well as benchrest rifles do.

22-250 used rem 222 takeoff bbl shoots moa.

quote:

Originally posted by boet:
I can get one for next to nothing.Just about what it is worth. I read somewhere that they were very strong.Very true, but also very FUGLY.
Whats it good for ?Trotline weight?
thanks
boet

Just my .02.

Unless you are going to do all of the needed work yourself and have a donor barrel laying around. Kind of sounds like a money pit. If it still has a usable barrel on the action then shoot it as is or rechamber to a more common brass.

There is a reason you do not see more of them as custom rifles even though they are probably stronger than almost any action. You cannot make a silk purse out of an Arisaka.

Keith

Building a custom rifle from it---NO!

But if you want to have hours of fun sporterizing it Yes go for it. When you are done or before , you will have a rifle that will kill deer just as well as anything else. The 6.5 and the 7.7 are reasonably good cartridges.

Your time in the doing is not measured in dollars and cents as would be that of a GS. Your time is fun his is work. roger

Back in the day I saw a beautiful custom stocked one in the ubiquitous 6.5 Roberts, to this day I still regret not getting it but hey $200 was a lot of money for a gun back then.

As mentioned, they need work but can clean up OK if you're not paying someone by the hour to do it. Having said that, I'd only spend the time on an early manufacture 6.5 caliber one (called a type 38) as they seem to have a bit more care put into manufacture over the 7.7 caliber ones, but maybe it is because I have not seen many examples of quality workmanship in that caliber as most have been later manufacture in the war.

Jus for the heck of it, look up some of PO Ackley's books...he tried (in vain) to destroy Jap actions..long after all the others gave up

Y'all go ahead and sporterize all you want to. It just makes my Type 44 in nearly "as issued" condition worth that much more. LOL. Oversize chamber and all.

Not long after WWII there was a gun shop on the lower East Side of Manhattan (Bloomberg not born yet!) run by a loudmouth named Shelley Braverman who later moved up north near Albany and published various gun pamphlets. He employed a German gunsmith whose face but not name I remember. Said gunsmith had done the complete Teutonic rework business, restock, s best I recall had DST, ribbed barrel, flat bolt handle, etc. on an Arisaka and to this then teenager it was the most remarkable rifle I had ever seen - practically the first complete custom job I had seen for that matter. The overall effect was mesmerizing. I am sure it is treasured somewhere by somebody today.

do you mean Bannerman? he was on broadway, low, gone before I moved to NYC. legendary. they cobbled together rifles from surplus parts of different makes, also.

http://www.ugca.org/ugca02jan/02janmain.htm

Braverman not the same as Bannerman's which was a surpolus outfit.

A friend of mine (who has recently passed away) had a 6.5 model built before the war that was really nice. The finish was really pretty well done as there were no machining marks to speak of, it was in a Boyde's walnut stock and had been rebored and chambered for .308 WIN.

I cannot remember who did the work, but he was of Japanese ancestry and did super work. The rifle shot less than an inch at 100 yards and would shoot both cast and copper jacketed bullets well. It was attractive too.

I always wanted it, but his brother deceided to keep it.

It's not how much time you have, it's how much you want to spend.

Regards,

Eric

quote:

Originally posted by Eric:
A friend of mine (who has recently passed away) had a 6.5 model built before the war that was really nice. The finish was really pretty well done as there were no machining marks to speak of, it was in a Boyde's walnut stock and had been rebored and chambered for .308 WIN.Eric

If you are talking Before WWII, There was no .308.??? roger

LOL.. roger, before wwII, there was no boyds stocks, either....

If it were mine, I'd play with it. The major drawback to the Arisaka is that, regardless of caliber, it is ugly. But, as with the M1917, that can be smoothed out a bit. If the "daisy" on the receiver is intact, it might have collector worth, but otherwise it's just another very strong action waiting to be creatively transformed.

Bud W

"If you are talking Before WWII, There was no .308.???"

"LOL.. roger, before wwII, there was no boyds stocks, either...."

My apologies for not making myself more clear. The original rifle (bored and chambered for 6.5 Arisaka) was build before the war. Hence the rather nice finish of the metal with no tooling marks.

It was rebuilt during the early 1960's (to the best of my memory) by a gentleman who had been a member of the 442 CBT RGT during the war and had made a profession of being a gunsmith after the war. That included the reboring of the original barrel to .308 and the re-chambering.

I may be incorrect about the make of the stock, but not the rest of it. And I do see here that I mentioned that it had been "rebored." In my experience that means that the original caliber (6.5 Arisaka) was modified to something else.

Sorry if I was unclear.

Regards,

Eric

I found a customized (sporterized?) Arisaka in a pawn shop a few years ago. It had what appeared to be a Fajen stock, and the barrel had come from Flaig's. It was chambered in 243... The rifle shot fine, but the firing pin hole was oversized, and it cratered primers. I didn't like it doing that, and wasn't crazy enough about the .243 to have a bushing put in the bolt face so I swapped it. But it was far from an ugly rifle.

They are great fun to play with if cheap enough. I have one that just couldnt be any uglier, but had been D&T for weaver bases, bolt handle bent and stock butchered... ahh, sportered. The darn thing will shoot an inch with sierra 140's.
After getting ribbed by my buddy about it, I took another, welded a mann type flat bolt handle on. Then put a peep sight on it, ramp front, reworked the stock into a full length ( 20") mann style stock and painted it with a brown crinkle finish from Brownells. I ground the outside of that huge safety down smaller and made the trigger singlestage. It's a great little walk about rifle. I have another given to me with a Fajen stock in 6.5/250 sav. Also a fun little rifle. Use your imagination and some self taught gunsmithing skills and have fun.