My Arisaka Type 38 Rifle

Rikusentaiin said:
I've always been a war buff on the early Sino-Japanese conflicts.
The Imperial Japanese Navy Shanghai SNLF had been and is still always an interesting read for me.
Thus I've been wanting an early war Type 38 for a long time now.
Even before I got my PAL/RPAL I asked my friend to look for me here domestically, sadly without success.
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I live in japan for half the the year. Have found and collected lots of Japanese militaria from 1700s to ww2.
2 months ago, I found a photo album among other things. documenting the marines(Japanese) involvement in the 1932 battle of shanghai.
you would probably drool all over it. I was tearing down an abandoned house that belonged to a samurai who was a officer in the naval marines.
He died with no close relatives so a distant cousin wanted it torn down with no regard for its contents.

That rifle is in awesome condition! I'm very jealous. Hope it was worth all that trouble.
I have 2 T38s myself. The carbine I bought as is, non matching, no kiku. the full size rifle I bought as a terrible sporter for $50, matching bolt, with the kiku. been slowly finding parts and piecing it together. just need a magazine and an end cap for the stock.

They are great rifles, with lots of history behind them. one of the best if not the best boltgun of the war. very strong and very simple action.

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Rikusentaiin said:
I was confused when I first saw this. How come the bolt and the interior all have the number 874 but not the serial number on the rifle itself?
My friend asked for me and was told that the early Koishikawa (Tokyo) T38s were matched by assembly numbers, not the serial number.
Bolt, floor plate and upper band should have the same assembly numbers. That answered my question :d

Unnumbered dust cover
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IIRC assembly number was also located underneath receiver, have you checked it's the same as on bolt?
Also IIRC dust cover should have the same assembly number, shouldn't it?
 
Thanks CanadianAR, I love this rifle, I think this is my favorite!

rickymo thank you for sharing! I go to Japan once a year, always bring back some WWI and WWII militaria and related books. Your rifles are cool too. That flag, haha can you tell me the story behind it?

Horilka, I checked the receiver, it has the same number as the bolt. And yes the dust cover should have the same number, but not sure why it's unnumbered. Weird.
 
Eaglelord17 said:
Very nice Arisaka, the Type 38s don't seem to get the same amount of love as the Type 99s, but they are still excellent rifles. Thanks for sharing
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Thank you Eaglelord17. I actually like the T38 more than the T99 because of the history behind it.
I'm more interested in the Second Sino-Japanese War and WWII Chinese Theatre more than the Pacific, where the T38s were mainly used as opposed to the T99 which came much later.
 
Definitely a interesting time period to follow, a lot happening in the area at that time, between Mao and the Warlords, the Japanese invasion, you could collect for years and still find other items to collect from the area.
 
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