WOW!! nice looking rifle. My friend has one of them and he deer hunts with it. He gets a deer every year so it must work. I've shot it a few times and it was a nice rifle.
I basically did the same thing to a Japanese Model 99 Arisaka rifle my father picked up after WWII. He said back then they were just a few dollars for a rifle. It shoots a 7.7x58mm cartridge and is deadly accurate. He had some gunsmith though that butchered the muzzle. The guy must have been blind, hung over or had a dull saw. He cut the barrel down, He mounted some fancy Lyman peep sight and matching front sight on it, and its amazing how well you can shoot it with open sights. Dad shortened the stock and I stripped the stock down and then refinished the rifle. I have hunted deer with it, and like I said, its really accurate, and now sporterized, pretty nice to carry actually. It was the rifle I used to load out to friends that had no deer rifle.