Strange. Could this be in error? Importers do that often, for example the Portuguese Mo.1896 are all marked "Romania".

 

I am looking at purchasing a Japanese Type I in 6.5 Mannlicher. Not sure which forum to post this one but I wanted to know if these rifles were factory converted by Austria-Hungary to 6.5 MS? The serial number of the rifle is L4539. It had has not been sporterized in any way. The barrel markings include the serial number and 6.5 MS stamped below that.

Austro-Hungary broke up and ceased to exist at the end of 1918. Japanese Type I rifles were built during 1938-39, 20 years later. So, there is no chance that Austro-Hungary did anything with these rifles.

 

I own two type I Arisaka/Carcano's ( serial number groups A and F) and neither have anything other than the serial number. These were originally produced in 6.5 x 50 caliber.

 

It might be an importer error, but the stamp looks very well done. It may be a post war gunsmith conversion, done for any number of reasons. You would have to try a 6.5mm MS cartridge or empty in it to know, or do a chamber cast. The ballistic difference between the two is very small. That conversion might work well with hand-loads made with slightly shorter than maximum cartridge length. Looking at the drawing of both cartridges in Lymans Cast Bullet handbook shows that they are very similar. Only a slight amount of reaming would be necessary to make that work.

 

My guesses are that someone marked it incorrectly as 6.5 MS or it was rechambered to 6.5 MS.

 

I understand that for a while after WW2, Japanese ammo was not available commercially. So, people who wanted to shoot Japanese rifles converted T99's to 30-06 and T38's to some sporting caliber I can't remember off hand. There is someone in my area who owns one of those converted T38's. This Type I could be another conversion to make it shoot ammo that was available.

 

.257 Roberts is what 6.5 rifles were often converted to.

 

The 6.5x257 Roberts wildcat would make the most sense for a reloader. The cases could be formed out of any 30-06 class and/or 7x57 and 7.92x57 brass.

The 6.5 MS makes more sense for someone who did not want to reload at all.

This is of course before commercial 6.5mm Jap ammo became available

 

Why all this speculation? Take a 6.5x54mm Mannlicher-Schoenauer cartridge and try to chamber it. It won't go in an unmodified 6.5x50mm Japanese chamber.

M

 

Why all this speculation?

Because, unfortunately, I don't have this one in my collection.

;-)