I bought this Arisaka Sporter for $35
 

Last year while walking through the gun show I overheard a vendor trying to sell an old sporterized Arisaka to another attendee, he started at $100, then $50, then $35 then offered to throw in a box of new Hornady 7.7 Jap ammo.
When the attendee walked away I swooped in and offered to accept the deal. Here it is:










see more here: http://tincanbandit.blogspot.com/201...show-find.html

Here is what I learned about this gun
Early to mid 1940's mfg from the Nagoya Arsenal, Type 99, 7.7 mm Jap, the mum has been ground off.

Someone sporterized sometime in the 1950s or 1960s, they shortened and recrowned the barrel to 23", shortened the tangs, bent the bolt handle and modified the bolt using M1903 Springfield parts. They then added custom sights (Lyman Peep rear sight, ramp front) with a walnut Monte Carlo stock

I decided to update the gun and improve some things

I wanted to:
clean up the metal on the trigger guard/floor plate and give it a gentle taper
Re contour the cheek weld
Thin the comb and add some flutes to the wrist
install a better recoil pad (and increase the short LOP in the process)
round the mag follower to allow closing the bolt on an empty magazine
refinish the wood and steel


Here are the before and after pictures

These links will take you to my blog that shows the whole process

http://tincanbandit.blogspot.com/201...art-1-dis.html

http://tincanbandit.blogspot.com/201...ux-part-2.html

http://tincanbandit.blogspot.com/201...t-3-stock.html

http://tincanbandit.blogspot.com/201...-4-bluing.html

http://tincanbandit.blogspot.com/201...ux-part-5.html

You bought that for a great price and did an excellent job refinishing. Congratulations.

Congrats on the rifle. Someone did a good job of customizing that rifle. You did a great job of restoring the rifle.

Good looking rifle, how's she shoot?
-Jake

good looking rifle! Enjoy!

Own a couple of type 38 sporterized Arisaka rifles, that have been rechambered to 257R, so they're a 6.5x257R. Accurate enough for hunting.

Gent came to our range one day to try out his sporterized type 77 Arisaka, like yours, but it'd been rechambered to 30-06. He'd found it a few days before in a pawn shop for $100.

I'd noticed him setting up to shoot the rifle for the first time and had spotted the box of Remington 30-06 ammo and easily noticed he had an Arisaka rifle. I would chat with him before he began shooting the rifle. I told him not to expect any good accuracy with the rifle, "you have a .308 bullet going down a .311 or .312 bore. After he'd finished shooting the box of Remington 30-06 ammo and retrieved his target from 100 yds downrange, he showed me his target. Darn if there was nothing but 3 shot clover leafs on his target.

Anyway, you do have a very nice Arisaka, really great price.......Congrats.

I have had 7.7 Arisaka shoot quite well with pulled 173 gr. Match bullets 5 shots under a inch. He got his on a tip board and has 5.00 in it, I told him I would give him 10.00 haha.