It's a Japanese Type I rifle, made in Italy for Japan in the late 1930's. Used primarily by Imperial Japanese Naval forces.

 

I noticed prices run higher for the Japanese compared to the standard Carcano.
A little info... Copied from here http://www.chuckhawks.com/arisaka_sporter.htm

A 6.5x50mm Japanese Arisaka Sporting Rifle By Mike Hudson Ever since reading a series of posts on one of the many Internet rifle discussion boards, I've been fascinated with the possibilities of the 6.5x50mm Japanese Arisaka round, known in this country as the 6.5mm Jap. A general discussion of the highly versatile yet undeservedly obscure cartridge led to a chat about the rifles designed to fire it, leading the Louisville, KY rifle maker Mike Irwin to muse, "I've often toyed with the idea of having a short action rifle built around the round to see what it can really do. I suspect that it would be surprisingly accurate." "A lightweight short action rifle with an 18-inch barrel would be a beautiful mating for (the 6.5 Japanese) round," Irwin added. Indeed, men who know their rifles have long sung the praises of the 6.5x50. Light recoil and minimal muzzle blast combine with the long bullet's superb sectional density and penetration to provide a package most shooters find easy to place accurately at practical ranges. The 6.5x50 has enough killing power to be effective on most North American game. Large numbers of deer, black bear, antelope and caribou have all fallen to the 6.5 Japanese, and friends in Maine have told me that it was once regarded as a good moose cartridge as well. Of course, the .22 WMR is currently legal for deer in the Pine Tree State. Our own Chuck Hawks has written that, with the proper handloads, the semi-rimless 6.5x50 can outperform the 6.5x54 Mannlicher and the 6.5x52 Carcano, and perform very nearly on a par with the 6.5x55 Swedish Mauser so popular here. The comparison between the Japanese and Swedish cartridges is particularly interesting. The longer Swedish round requires a long Mauser action to function properly, while its Japanese counterpart can work in an action shorter by an inch or more. In addition to holding its own with most of the standard velocity 6.5's, it is equal or superior to any number of popular deer rounds, and is currently available from several manufacturers in the 139-140 gr. and classic 160 gr. loads. The factory-loaded ammo leaves the barrel at 2255 fps for the 140-gr. and 2067 fps for the 160-gr., with more than acceptable energy beyond 200 yards. Also, the incredible sectional density of the long bullets, .284 for the 140-gr. and .328 for the 160-gr., has made the various standard velocity 6.5's proven game-getters on everything from woodchucks to polar bears. And all this with about the same recoil and muzzle blast generated by the 6mm Remington cartridge. The problem is that the Arisaka rifles built to handle the cartridge are long action (and long-barreled!) behemoths that are as heavy as any 98 Mauser of the pre-WW II era. The safeties are clumsy and poorly designed, and the chambers on most of them were cut a little oversize, the better to function under harsh jungle conditions where mold and mildew attacked the brass cartridge cases and made a correctly sized chamber a tight and difficult fit. Still, many sporters have been built on the Arisaka action. An excellent adjustable sporting trigger/side safety combination has long been available from Timney, and Arisakas in the later 7.7mm caliber are often seen at gun shows rechambered for the popular .308 cartridge. A few custom 6.5x50 rifles were reportedly built by Rigby early in the last century after Great Britain introduced the round as a substitute standard service round, and Kynoch began producing cartridges. The Brits called it the .256 Mk II. None of this interested me, however. There was too much downside involved in using the Arisaka action, despite its strength. Though the legendary pressure tests conducted by P.O. Ackley involving the Arisaka and other bolt-action rifles of the era found the Japanese offering to be the strongest action of them all, I wanted something shorter, lighter and more suited to the 6.5x50 round. Short of building a rifle from the ground up, it seemed as though such a rig would be relegated to the scrap heap of great though entirely impractical ideas that every shooter has tucked away somewhere. And that's where it stayed for some months, until I came across a reference to a little-known Italian rifle built around the 6.5 Japanese cartridge, a rifle generally known as the Type I. In 1937, Germany, Japan and Italy signed a treaty known as the Anti-Comintern Pact, the first of many mutual aid agreements the three Axis powers would enter into during the run-up to the Second World War. Japan had already invaded China and the Imperial Army was using all the rifles it could get. Rear guard troops, and particularly the Japanese Naval Infantry--the Emperor's equivalent of our Marines--found themselves strapped for small arms. Germany chipped in with shipments of 98 Mausers in 8mm, but the Italians offered something different. They would design and produce a completely new rifle, combining the best features of their own Carcano battle rifle and the Japanese Arisaka. The new weapon wedded a slightly modified split-breech Carcano receiver with the Mauser-style box magazine complete with a hinged floor plate. The two-piece Arisaka stock, straight bolt handle and the unwieldy Type 38 barrel were retained, giving it the outward appearance of a Japanese service rifle. Students of both Italian and Japanese World War II battle rifles have found much to admire in the Type I, which stands for "Italian," by the way, and is not a numeric designation. The chambers were cut to much closer tolerances, making the gun more accurate than the Arisaka, and the action is a full inch shorter and is lighter than the Japanese adaptation of the Mauser design. The Italians were impressed by the ballistically superior 6.5x50 round and with the elimination of the protruding Mannlicher box magazine, with its attendant reliance on stripper clips, employed by the Carcano. Produced primarily by Beretta, the new rifle was designated by the Italians as the "Beretta Fucile Tipo I per L'esportazione," which, roughly translated, means "Beretta Rifle Type I for Export." With the entire production run manufactured under strict Japanese supervision, fit and finish conform to the highest standards of pre-war Beretta workmanship.

 

I have a type I now in 99% condition and your right it is to the highest standards of pre-war Beretta workmanship. Over the years I've had two of them and both had very tight chambers and I have to keep the brass fired in my type I seperate as brass fired in my type 38's will not fit into the type I even after it's resized. I've used three different des set and t makes no differance the type I's just have a minimum tolerance chamber (my type brass lasts a lot longer too) They are very good shooters too....

 

I believe that only 5000 were ever made. They show up periodically and many people mistake them for the old long Carcano Rifle. Worth depends on alot. I have seen them sell for $250- $500. But that was awhile ago.They are to a Japanese rifle collector, a must. BB

 

Between 80,000 and 120,000 were made depending if all the letter blocks were filled out to 9,999. SW

 

You've gotten a lot of good info on your Japanese Type I here. You might also want to post on "The Firearms of the Rising Sun" forum here at Gunboards at:

http://forums.gunboards.com/forumdisplay.php?52-Firearms-Of-The-Rising-Sun

There are many of the most knowledgeable collectors of Japanese rifles there.

 

By the way it's caliber is 6.5 jap not 6.5 carcano.

 

Thanks for all the info guys. While I have seen these before and had an idea of what they were, the responses provided stuff that I did not know.
Oddly enough, while talking about this to another friend, he said he had one but with no bolt. I was wondering if anybody knew if a Carcano bolt would fit in the rifle?

 

No, the ejector is in a different location.