It was the Italians who made rifles for Japan. They used the Carcno action and the magazine and floor plate form the Arisaka but did not use wrist tangs. Some say 60K were made and shipped to Japan and some accounts say l120K. They are called Type I rifles. They do not have the oversize chamber of the T38's.
As for the story about the guy rechambering a 6.5 to 30-06, couple years back I did a similar experiment for the Blevins shoot out. I used a 7.7 chambering reamer and chambered a T38 - 6.5 barrel for the 7.7x58 cartridge. But I loaded the cartridge with a 308 bullet behind a normal hunting load of powder. I have a steel pipe test chamber that I put the barreled action in to fire it. Action was fine after the shot. One should never try anything like this without adequate protection. riceone.
