Special Naval Rifle

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tiriaq

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Here are some photos of a Japanese Special Naval Rifle.
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Most parts are cast iron. The steel bolt locks into a steel barrel extension threaded to the barrel, which is pinned to the cast iron receiver. Bore is chrome plated. Inletting is basic, as is stock shaping.
 
I came across this several years ago. They were made at Nagoya Dockyard Arsenal. Another variation has a handguard covering the foreward portion of the barrel. This one has the characters for "nakamura" in pencil in the barrel inlet just in front of the receiver. I assume that this was the assembler. In general layout, it is very much like a late Type 99 Short Rifle, with stamped or machined steel parts replaced with castings. Unlike the blank firing training rifles, these were intended to be fired with ball ammuniton. The screws appear to be more or less handmade, threads die cut, slots off center. I suppose that these are akin to the German Volkssturm rifles, designed to use a minimum of machine tooling, made late in the war.
 
last ditch rifles ...........some TRAINING rifles ( non firing ) were altered to FIRE ........i thing safety was not there concern in 1945 with the americans /brits/ ect ready to invade them.
 
NB.nagantsniper said:
last ditch rifles ...........some TRAINING rifles ( non firing ) were altered to FIRE ........i thing safety was not there concern in 1945 with the americans /brits/ ect ready to invade them.
Click to expand...

I think you're looking at a training rifle here. Never intended to fire ball ammo, just a special blank. Japs were desperate, not Stupid. :D

Grizz
 
This isn't a training rifle. It uses a barrel extension into which the steel bolt locks, and has a chromed bore in a purpose built 7.7mm barrel. The cast iron receiver does not carry the load of firing.
 
Very cool! The tang being of seperate construction shows that it is not a training rifle. What is stamped on the upper part of the receiver? Mum? anchor? ground?
 
The top of the receiver ring is blank, never altered, just a gas vent hole. No anchor. Left sidewall of receiver has mark - think of a circle surrounding a captal F without the top bar. This is followed by what I assume is a serial number 10100. On the breech ring of the barrel is another number ? 1448 ?. ? are marks I do not recognize. Like the training rifles, the upper tang is integral with the receiver. Metal is painted black. The butt is one piece, unlike regular service rifles. In the second photo, you can see the pin which secures the barreo extension in the receiver. Note that it doesn't even go through at right angles. Lots of handwork evident.
 
I remember an article about the Remington 710 that referred to the cast iron receivers used by Japan at the end of WWII.

The Rem 710, hasn't been very successfull commercialy but the few I've shot were more than acceptable for hunting purposes.

Their bolt lock up is very similar. They were made up in some quite high pressure cartridge configurations as well.

Interesting tiriaq thanks for posting.
 
It's interesting to note that the arsenal went to the trouble of chroming the bore on a rifle that is otherwise so crude. I wonder if this is the norm for these rifles, or if this one was built when they happened to have chromed bore barrels on hand.
 
The barrel is not a Type 99 barrel which has been adapted; the Special Naval Rifle barrels were purpose built. I would assume that the bore is chromed simply because it was part of the production flow for barrels.
 
Tiriaq, thanks so much for posting this one.

The Japanese "last-ditch" specials are very little-known, partly because everything the Allies could scrounge up was shredded and the late-war "unsafe" types were at the top of the list, not to mention very few in number to start with.

I have been at this a long time and this is the first of its kind which I have seen.

Can you give dimensions?

Any other information?

WHERE did it turn up?????

Any estimate as to "value"?

More to the point, any estimate as to comparative scarcity?

Thanks much.

You have a Very Fine Toy!
.
 
De Haas, in Bolt Action Rifles, does a bit of an examination of these things. Jap rifles are not very common in this country, this probably even less so. Neat

Grizz
 
I don't know how this rifle wound up in Canada. Turned up in Eastern ON. There are some in US collections. Maybe this one came north. Very few Canadians were in Japan in '45. They are certainly very rare in this country, uncommon in the US. Probably the only ones that survived were taken as souvenirs or study examples. Many Japanese arms were brought to the US by returning servicemen. A lot of standard rifles remained in service in China, Korea, SE Asia. As far as value goes, I don't really know. I've not seen another one sell or advertised. They are worth a lot less than the German equivalents. A VG1 or VK98 will bring thousands. This one is in pretty good shape. Its been handled, and has some nicks and dings, but overall it is in nice conditon. It is basically a copy of a very late "last ditch" Type 99 short rifle, with the different manufacturing methods. I'll take some more photos and post them.
Speaking of Japanese small arms, back in the '60s, I saw a Nambu light machinegun for sale in a shop in London, ON. It had pockmarks from fragments on its receiver, and the barrel cooling fins were grooved on top by an incoming bullet. No idea if it had been captured during WW2 or in Korea.
 
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