Sunday, November 11, 2007




Another example of the post-WWII "sporterizing" era. The rifle is a late-war Arisaka, from looking at the buttstock. While the standard Arisaka did have the two-piece buttstock, the late war "last ditch" models also had wooden buttplates to conserve metal, along with other cost cutting measures. Several of which dangerously reduced the safety margin of what was originally an exceptionally strong action. What we have here is the Japanese equivalent of a low-number Springfield '03 that's been turned into someone's deer rifle. Hopefully this is one old rifle that stays in a closet and never gets shot again.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Poor Arisaka! What the heck did they do to the safety!?!