Arisaka 7.7 out of the stock for cleaning.
Somebody offered me a sporterized Arisaka for free. It was the 7.7 caliber, a strong but absolutely miserable round. I waffled but then he brought it to the Highpower Championship. Put it in the truck in the dark and by sunup he was pestering me about what I was going to trade for it.
Can't imagine...or maybe I can, someone pouring through the Herter's catalog looking for bedding compound and a stock to sporterize this gun. They left the sights on but the rest of the pieces are long gone. Be interesting to time machine back to the soldier who carried it and the service guy who brought it back, the sporterizer and subsequent owners. Straight bolt. I guess it could be restored but who would want to? In military config it would be interesting, maybe shoot down airliners at 30K feet with those airplane sights. (missing on this rifle along with the Chrysanthemum.)
I've got a little T44 6.5 Arisaka that doesn't feed and is missing the flip-up bayonet. It shoots. Barrel floated.
Oil-soaped the stock. Wiped the barrel and action down. OK rifling. I'm sure it shoots that very rare-and-expensive-and-not-better-than-30-06 ammo with a recoil like a mule carrying two barrels of white lightning. Or Saki, in this case.
1902A3s got for 700.00 bucks. Arisakas in 7.7 go for about 150.00. Both the same age. Sporterized Arisaka 7.7s go for about 50.00....and you have to give them the 50 in cash along with the rifle.
Probably cleaning this gun for free. I'm not trading more than a half sandwich for it.
Update: So here's the deal you 2-cent-er: (The Japanese common soldiers got a draft card in the mail which cost two cents to deliver. The officer cadre referred to them as 2-cent-ers) In 2011 some internet junkie Texan will be using up a months supply of Q-tips cleaning the Emperor's sporterized Arisaka you let walk off, (and complaining about it), you'll be a pile of 66 year dead mummified sulphured-up bones in a collapsed cave on Iwo, a thimbleful of gold tooth filings on Guadalcanal or a coral-encrusted lump at the bottom of the some lagoon. Your parents will be dead 30 years and nobody will have thought of you in 29. How's that for glorious service to the Rising Sun?
Update II: Back together. Ugly.
And don't forget Robert, Japan now glows in the dark, thanks to some genius that decided to put a nuke reactor near a fault line and the coolant generators blow the water line.
ReplyDeleteYea yea I know the island sank 3 ft. during the earthquake and that is why the generators were in range of a tsunami wave, still it take real idiots to do that.
Don’t believe me? Go ask California, cause they have two of those GE reactors on the coast… yep near a fault line!
Anyway the ‘Emperor’ is still there in Japan to. Funny how that worked out.
I think maybe it was the 48 foot wall of ocean that took out the electrics (cooling pumps) on the reactor. Some good video out there of it happening, released just this week.
ReplyDeleteQuake was off to sea somewhere Northeast of the reactor, if you believe what the japanese government tells you.