Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Rebarreling the arisaka Type 38

I have the old Arisaka that has been sporterizer and I would love to rebarrel it. My question is is this out of the question. The barrel has some issue I suppose from old WWII Ammo. Has anyone Rebarreled one before??

Not a real popular rifle to rebarrel, mainly because of the awkward safety, but some gunsmiths will do it for you. I suggest checking out www.gunboards.com some pretty good guys over there. Lots of good guys here also! I have a custom Type
38 carbine still in 6.5x50mm that I have been considering having a Timney safety and trigger on but havent gotten around to it.

Ahlman's in Minnesota did one for me over 10 years ago. Don't see why most smiths couldn't do it.

I did it several years ago.I bought a cheap .270 short chambered barrel from Gun Parts.I had access to a shop then. I tapered it, threaded it and then had a smith finish. the chamber.

Not hard, but as noted the safety is not all that nice.I hear one can buy a refit now though.

Oh the memories. Along about 1951 or 1952, I bought a ".25 Jap" Ariska that had a very nice piece of some dark colored African hardwood for a custom stock, that had been re chambered to .257 Roberts. Being young and dumb (14-15) I took the seller at his word and shot Bobs in it. The bullet made a weird noise as it traveled to the target. Never could figure that deal out! Surprisingly, it was pretty darn accurate. One of my uncles once shot a duck (calm day) at about 85-90 yards from shore, while a federal game warden watched. The nice warden was going to issue a citation and keep my rifle to insure appearance, but I objected loudly, so he called out the judge and took Uncle in to get justice. $50 plus court costs as I remember.

I finally snapped that the .257 caliber bullets were somewhat too small for a .264 bore, and less than perfectly stable bullet was creating the strange noise on the way to the intended target. The seller had not bothered to tell me that I needed to hand load the Roberts with 6.5 mm bullets. That may have been my first lesson in gun trading.

The safety is the pits, but I got the hang of it. jack

Maybe you should consider re-boring the existing barrel - Clearwater Re-Boring is one of the better re-borers. They have done three rifles for me.

Terry

Graf&sons carries 6.5 Arisaka ammunition.

re bore it to .358!

My dad had an Arisaka 6.5 that he brought back from the Pacific and sporterized himself. From a very early age I handled that rifle and disassembled and reassembled it as often as my dad would allow. It is an ingenious design with very few parts to the bolt assembly and no tools required for disassembly/assembly. That early experience had a lot to do with my life-long fondness for guns of all types, and especially rifles. We never fired it until I got old enough to start deer hunting. My dad found some Norma ammo with 156gr bullets that was quite expensive and uncommon. Dad had a gunsmith install Williams sights. The barrel was quite worn and did not shoot well so I never did kill a deer with it. Today, that old rifle resides in my safe. Interestingly, the crysanthemum is not defaced on that rifle. I think I'll dig it out and fire a few rounds for old time's sake.

Big Redhead,

Your story brings back fond memories. My uncle served with the Marines in the Pacific and brought back a few Arisakas. His wife had stayed with us during the war. When he came home, he gave one of the 6.5's to me. I was five years old at the time. Like you, I took that thing apart many times and played with it. I think that had a lot to do with my interest in rifles. When I got to college, and deer populations reached the point in Louisiana that hunting them became popular, I wanted a deer rifle. This was in the early '60's when sporterizing military rifles was in full swing. A buddy bought one of the surplus 1917 Enfields, and we worked on these projects together. Of course we were rank amateurs. I had some notion that we ought to be sure the rifle was "safe" before doing any work on it. So we took it out into the woods and literally tied it to a tree, and pulled the trigger with a long string. Not the ideal proof testing, is it? Most of our supplies, including the stock blanks, came from the famous Herter's. Like yours, my barrel wasn't too good, so that accuracy wasn't fantastic. But at typical ranges in the southern woods, that didn't matter much. And I had not yet achieved "Loonieness." I used the Norma ammo with 139 gr. bullets. Over the years, I killed a lot of deer with that rifle. In all of the fooling around I've done with guns, I only have one deep regret. That is having that rifle rebarreled instead of just keeping it as I had it. I feel bad every time I think about it.

Al,

Thanks for that story. We definitely covered some of the same ground growing up. If you have the old barrel maybe you could put her back together in her previous glory and relive the old days again. If not, maybe you could find a different original Arisaka barrel to put on it, maybe one in better condition than the original. I think the ammo back in the days of the old Arisaka was corrosive, hence the condition of the original bores.

It never occurred to me to have it rebarreled. Guess I sort-of discounted the action as a sporter due to the safety being rather difficult to operate, and almost impossible with a scope on-board. Then there is tha matter of the military trigger. I think I remember reading that in tests of strength of different rifle actions performed by PO Ackley that he was never able to actually blow up an Arisaka action. Different people consider it one of the, if not THE strongest rifle action ever made.

Well, the old barrel is long gone unless Ahlman's still has it in their scrap pile. But the idea of looking for another is an interesting thought.

I had replaced the military trigger with one from Timney that had a side safety. At least for a time, I am pretty sure Timney quit making those. But maybe they are available again.

I have one that had been chambered for the "257 Jap"....guess they figured at the time that anyone that shot the rifle would know that it is .264 instead of .257. I did the same thing and shot .257 Roberts in it until I figured that one out. It was actually pretty accurate out to about 75 yds or so (most of the time :D). When I finally fugured it out and started to shoot .264 bullets out of it it got alot more accurate .

I did install a Timney trigger and safety and it is one of my favorite hunting rifles! If I had to mess with the original safety that would not be the case!!

PennDog

The most common modification to the Type 38 was to rechamber it to 257 Roberts brass necked to 6.5, because 6.5 Jap brass and ammo was almost impossible to obtain after WW2. I saw several of those when I was younger.

The easiest way I found to operate the safety knob is with the heel of the thumb - push and twist. Its not a problem without a scope in the way. I don't know how to do it with a scope. I've seen it done with a thumbtip and could do it back in the day, but these days with arthritis that much pressure on my thumb would put me into orbit. I went there yesterday with injections in my heel for plantar fasciitis - OMGosh did that friggin hurt!

The Type 38 is strong with some very good design features. The unslotted locking lugs are one and the very simple and effective firing pin/bolt assembly. It is also finished nicely and made with quality steel and heat treating.
That said, it has a few things which make it rather difficult to improve. The aforementioned firing pin is one since it has an internal mainspring making the FP very heavy. Great for reliable ignition but not good for locktime.
The breeching of the Type 38 is also very complex. It requires a milling operation to accommodate the extractor nose. This cut does not run 360* therefore it cannot be done with a lathe.

Thanks for all the info. I think I will settle on a rebore. I think I will go to the 7mm 7/57 seems like a good round

A couple of years ago I saw a custom Arisaka that had been
rebarreled to 7x57mm and had a cross bolt safety that went
through the stock above the trigger. Very nice looking rifle.

I'm not an expert, but be sure you consider the magazine length of that Arisaka versus the likely loaded length of your 7x57 cartridges. May, at a minimum, need to watch the throat length in the chamber. It all may be OK, but I'm just suggesting you consider this in advance.

Excellent point made by Al.

I'd consider the .300 Savage.