Rechamber a type 99 arisaka
Given the British army's involvement just about everywhere, I can only guess that these rifles were retained in the UK for airfield or coastal guard duties. Some of my wartime built Enfields are in remarkable shape with matching wood. If it was ever issued you could have fooled me. One of my prized milsurps is a Carcano M1941 made at Cremona, most likely under German supervision judging by its late serial. There are a lot of unexplained crazy things regarding small arms in WWII. The "last ditch" rifles were in 7.7 as opposed to 6.5 for the Type I. The dead sniper I mentioned earlier was a Marine, that's why he had a Type I. Why build all those last ditch rifles when there were new rifles in storage? At least they could have issued them to civilians if the Army wouldn't accept them. It seems crazy that Type I's were found in warehouses when the Japanese were so desperate to make rifles towards the end. That is true that only the Imperial Japanese Army Soldiers were issued rifles with the chrysanthemum. The Chinese versions of the Type 38 were knock offs made in China and are not technically Arisaka rifles, but rather clones. Some of those Type 38s were cut down after WWII and converted to Type 91 police carbines. Thailand also received standard Type 38s from Japan as military aid in 1940. A small number of these were cut down to short rifle dimensions and chambered in. Thailand bought 50,000 Arisaka rifles chambered in 8x52r as the Type 66 in 1924, although there are a lot of detail differences between the Type 66 and Type 38. 303 British and about 25,000 of them were converted in the early 1930s. Since Estonia was getting the bulk of it's military aid between the wars from Britain, it made sense to convert them to. Estonia may have also received the balance of the British Arisakas (about 22,000) directly from Britain. Finland shipped many of theirs to Estonia as war aid in 1919-20. When captured 6.5x50mm ammunition ran low, some of the captured Russian issue Type 30 and Type 38 Arisakas were chamber reamed to accept the 6.5mm Mannlicher-Schoenauer cartridge.Ī number of the Russian Arisakas issued in the northwest regions of Russia found there way into Finland and Estonia after WWI. So much ammunition was captured that there was no need to convert the rifles to a more standard cartridge until late in WW1. These were issued to 2nd line units with captured ammunition. However, Austria Hungary captured a large number of Arisaka rifles from Russia, mostly Type 30 rifles in 1915. In 1916 128,000 of these T30 and T38 rifles were sold to Russia, bringing Russia's total received to around 763,000 Type 30 or 38 Arisakas. 256in Pattern 1900' (T30) and 'Rifle, Magazine. These were issued to the British Army as the: 'Rifle, Magazine. In 1914, Great Britain purchased 150,000 6.5x50 Arisaka Type 30 and 38 rifles and carbines from Japan.
Imperial Russia also bought 600,000 of their own Type 30 Arisaka rifles and carbines from Japan during WW1 and armed second line units in Northwest Russia with them. Apparently Japan didn't get paid for the rest of the order (35,000 rifles), so imperial Russia bought the rest of the order. The Mexicans bought their Arisakas in 1911 chambered for 7x57 Mauser, but only took possession of part of the order due to a change in the Mexican government after the revolution. The distribution of Arisaka rifles before, during and after WW1 was about as complex as the politics after WW1.