Help with 7.7 mm Japanese...

I use to load a ton of 7.7 Jap. Most all it in 30/06 Military cases.
Never was interested in anything but mild target/ plinker loads.
Used Sierra 180gr SP/ .311 dia. with 43gr. IMR-4064 at 2250fps.
I have a bunch of Norma 7.7 Jap brass, but use same load.
I know how strong these actions are suppose to be but never was
fond of them, just like Mosins and Carcanos. If I put money in a
rifle it was on a 98 or 03 action. My dad was the main electrician
in our town. I would like to have a nickel for every Arisaka he
converted into a floor lamp for his buddies at the Legion. He
traded his( made into Lamp) for a rotor antenna for our TV. I
still wonder who got the best part of that deal, although we were
living high on the hog, we got 3 stations.

You aren't kidding.....

DocB said:

One of my three has the anti-aircraft rear sight and the wire bipod. It's the nicest one. The worst one was made in 1945. It's in like new condition, but sure is crude and ugly (as is the bayonet that goes with it). Here's my old Nambu pistol. It's the complete outfit, but I only have a photo of the gun. . .98% easy. When I was a kid they were also $10 and I got one. Ammo was "very" hard to find, and that was back in the 1960's.

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The ones with the wooden buttplates and the 'practice rifles' with the two groove rifling job are the pits, but they still shoot good. The welds looked like I did them in my garage with a putty knife.

That is a cool pistol.

I remember....

Drm50 said:

I use to load a ton of 7.7 Jap. Most all it in 30/06 Military cases.
Never was interested in anything but mild target/ plinker loads.
Used Sierra 180gr SP/ .311 dia. with 43gr. IMR-4064 at 2250fps.
I have a bunch of Norma 7.7 Jap brass, but use same load.
I know how strong these actions are suppose to be but never was
fond of them, just like Mosins and Carcanos. If I put money in a
rifle it was on a 98 or 03 action. My dad was the main electrician
in our town. I would like to have a nickel for every Arisaka he
converted into a floor lamp for his buddies at the Legion. He
traded his( made into Lamp) for a rotor antenna for our TV. I
still wonder who got the best part of that deal, although we were
living high on the hog, we got 3 stations.

Click to expand...

Some time after we got a color TV around 1966 my Dad decided the rabbit ears weren't good enough and we installed the All-American 'outdoor antenna'. I remember helping him put it up. But you are right, it didn't matter if you were high on the hog or not, you only got three stations. We didn't even have any local UHF stations. Well, by that time ETV was coming in so four stations so I could watch 'Mr. Rogers Neighborhood' Naaaaaaah. Just kidding!!!!!.

I love the thing about the floor lamps. It reminds me of the 'leg lamp' in the 'Christmas Story'. I think the coolest memento I ever saw was a guy had a coffee table, with really thick cracked glass in an odd shape. He had taken the front windscreen off an F-101 Voodoo, surrounded it with wood and put legs on it. (He had also got shot down in a B-17 in WWII)

Here's a picture. See that oval windshield thing right in the front of the cockpit?

f 101 voodoo cockpit - Google Search

DWalt said:

Some of the Arisakas had the so-called "anti-aircraft" rear sight, but I think that idea was dropped fairly early on. I remember seeing some website explaining how they were supposed to have been used for leading aircraft. I personally don't remember seeing any Jap rifles having that sight.

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DWalt I ca'nt find my copy of Military Rifles of Japan. But if memory serves me right I think Nagoya dropped the air plane sight about the 5th or 6th series so around mid to late 1943 -1944 as a cost,labor cutting move. Some of the other makers about the same time. I'll see if I can find the book and update.

The anti-aircraft rear sight used two graduated bars or arms which extended out laterally on each side of the rear sight. I think they were hinged. The idea was to use them for leading aircraft. The left bar was used for aircraft moving right to left, the right bar for aircraft moving left to right. That might have worked sometimes for slow and low-flying aircraft, but there weren't many of those used during WWII. So it was probably useless in a practical sense.

The only Jap rifle I still have is an Izawa-type training rifle. These are fairly crude, and not designed to fire bullets. My understanding is that they were used mainly for what we might call high school ROTC students, as during the pre-WWII and WWII period, military training for boys was universal in the Japanese school system. There were several manufacturers of these training rifles, but aside from mine, I have seen only one other similar training rifle. They more or less resembled the Japanese Model 38 rifles, although mine more resembles the Model 99. I have understood that virtually all of these were destroyed after WWII. If anyone knows more lore about these, I'd appreciate some education.

Why not buy 7.7 brass from Graf ?

Eddie

DWalt There are a lot of training rifles out there. A lot were bring backs after the war. Some were rifles taken out of service and marked with zeros over the mum or zeros before the serial # that were able to shoot live ammo. A lot were SMOOTH BORE AND JUST MADE TO SHOOT BLANKS. A lot of vets had no clue and tried to shoot them having them go boom. That is how a lot of people thought Japanese rifles were junk. But as said in a earlier post the Arisaka was one of the strongest bolt actions from WWII .
If you want to learn about your trainer go over to the Forum of the Rizing Sun on Gunboards post some pictures and a guy name Seinen may be able to answer your questions.

I first got interested in Japanese firearms because the were a lot cheaper than German of American firearms.
My first one was the first type 38 in the above picture I paid $125.00 for it. My most expensive was my type 99 4th series at $465.00. My best deal was for my type 99 4th series that is 2nd to last in the picture at $50.00. I was at a local gun shop when I saw one of the guy's bringing it in the back room. I left the shop but just had to go back to check it out. I asked to see it it was missing the safety and firing pin. So I asked what they wanted thinking if cheap enough the parts would be worth it. I almost pooped when he told me $50.00 so it came home with me. Now it gets better when I got home I found my 2nd series mismatch had the correct bolt so now I've got a matched rifle for $50.00 that shoots great.

sureshotbob said:

DWalt There are a lot of training rifles out there. A lot were bring backs after the war. Some were rifles taken out of service and marked with zeros over the mum or zeros before the serial # that were able to shoot live ammo. A lot were SMOOTH BORE AND JUST MADE TO SHOOT BLANKS. A lot of vets had no clue and tried to shoot them having them go boom. That is how a lot of people thought Japanese rifles were junk. But as said in a earlier post the Arisaka was one of the strongest bolt actions from WWII .
If you want to learn about your trainer go over to the Forum of the Rizing Sun on Gunboards post some pictures and a guy name Seinen may be able to answer your questions.

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At one time, I made some inquiries on the IAA forum about blank cartridges made for use in the Japanese training rifles. No one knew of their existence, or had ever seen or heard of one. Mine has a smooth, but somewhat rusty, bore. I have never attempted to chamber anything in mine, so I don't know what would or wouldn't fit. One wouldn't have to be too smart to figure out that firing any ball cartridge in a training rifle like mine was not a wise thing.

DWalt said:

The anti-aircraft rear sight used two graduated bars or arms which extended out laterally on each side of the rear sight. I think they were hinged. The idea was to use them for leading aircraft. The left bar was used for aircraft moving right to left, the right bar for aircraft moving left to right. That might have worked sometimes for slow and low-flying aircraft, but there weren't many of those used during WWII. So it was probably useless in a practical sense.

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DWalt the reason you don't see the anti-aircraft sights on many
type 99s is that the hinged fold out bars have simply been
removed. I have three standard 99s plus one "last ditch" 99.
All three of my standard 99s have the anti-aircraft rear sight
but only one still has the bars with it. I have looked at many
99s on the net auction sites and most have the anti-aircraft
rear sight minus the bars. As you say they might have been
effective on low and slow spotter planes but I doubt that many
350 mph Hellcats were brought down by them.

alwslate said:

DWalt the reason you don't see the anti-aircraft sights on many
type 99s is that the hinged fold out bars have simply been
removed. I have three standard 99s plus one "last ditch" 99.
All three of my standard 99s have the anti-aircraft rear sight
but only one still has the bars with it. I have looked at many
99s on the net auction sites and most have the anti-aircraft
rear sight minus the bars. As you say they might have been
effective on low and slow spotter planes but I doubt that many
350 mph Hellcats were brought down by them.

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To say nothing about the minimal damage which would have been inflicted by a 7.7mm bullet from a rifle on most WWII aircraft even if it was hit. It would take a very lucky shot, such as hitting the pilot. My Type 99 (when I had one) as I remember had no indication of the hinged bars ever being on the rear sight.

DWalt said:

[...] The left bar was used for aircraft moving right to left, the right bar for aircraft moving left to right. That might have worked sometimes for slow and low-flying aircraft, but there weren't many of those used during WWII. So it was probably useless in a practical sense. [...]

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You are correct that the sight was designed for the slow moving aircraft the Chinese had during the early 1930s. In a previous thread there was a link to a modern animated instruction video. As I recall the marks on the bars were for the aircraft's speed. First the commander ordered soldiers to elevate their slide for range. For an aircraft flying from right to left the company fired a volley as the plane passed the airspeed mark on the right bar.

The key word is volley. These were similar to the long range volley sights in that it was never intended for an individual soldier to able to hit one opponent at extreme range. Volley sights were for a formation to fire volleys into a tightly assembled opposing formation. They were designed for 19 Century military tactics. Old military sights marked for ranges well beyond 1,000 yards look like a joke to deer hunters because their intended use is forgotten.

40 years ago I read a book authored by a Frenchman who was drafted out of high school into the German army. He wrote while he was marching in a column of soldiers down a straight road a Russian aircraft turned to strafe the length of the road. Their sergeant ordered them to drop to their knees and fire their Mausers at the plane. All of them threw themselves into the ditches on the sides of the road. The plane pulled away leaving only one dead German -- the sergeant with his Luger in hand.