[whiterider]

Gents

Im a stranger to this board..(Lee Enfielder) but have a question you knowledgeable gents may be able to answer.

Apparently Japan bought STEYR rifles...an example I have seen was said to have been captured in the Pacific Islands during WW2. It is (apparently) in a 6.5mm cal..so maybe 6.5mm Jap...has that Mannlicher look with a protruding magazine with a slot in the bottom for the clip to fall through. Marked 'STEYR 1886' on left side of the action. No japanese marks are apparent but the outside finish is not that good and I havent had a chance to carefully clean it and look for other markings.

So yeah...rifle has a 'paper trail' from the soldier who captured it...appears very genuine.
My question was did Japan have/use many of these rifles??? in the clip loading version??? I had found reference on the net to the Japs having STeyrs in the tube magazine config....and can those clips still be obtained somewhere??? I'd like to shoot it when I finally get my hands on it.

 

[Nick]

The only Steyr-made rifle with a "Steyr 1886" on the rail is the Portuguese Kropatschek, but it has a tubular magazine. Are you sure of the number? The one that would fit the description would be the Dutch Mannlicher M.1895 - but these are not marked "1886". It was most likely marked "Steyr 1896", the year of manufacture.

 

[Prez1981]

The Japanese did capture great quantities of Dutch M95 rifles in 6.5mm. Some of these were altered either during or after WWII to take the Japanese Type 30 bayonet. I agree with Nick...sounds like an 1896 dated M95 long rifle?

 

[DocAV]

(Dutch) Steyr 1896 In Japanese use.

The Japanese utilised much of the captured weaponry from the former Dutch East Indies Army (KNIL) both within Indonesia (for guards, re-arming the INA (Indonesian National Army) a Puppet organisation to give a semblance of "liberation" from Dutch Colonialism, and the rifles, carbines, and especially Madsen LMGs went far afield with Japanese troops (usually non-combat units) as Aussies captured "Mannlicher carbines" in the Solomons and Bougainville in 1944, and I have a Full can of 6,5mm Ammo, marked in both Dutch and Japanese (500 rounds in clips, boxed ten clips) which came out of Indonesia in the 1980s, courtesy of direct importation by a Sydney importer.

Regards, Doc AV
AV Ballistics.

 

[whiterider]

thanks Nick

and others...yes...may have been 1896 rather than 1886.... v. dark metal and not too good lighting where I last looked at it. And it is a turn bolt rifle, not a straight pull.

So what is the 6.5 caliber then...(I guess not Jap 6.5????) and does anyone know where I can obtain the en-bloc clips????

In regard to cases for the 6.5/53R Dutch (I guess thats what it must be) can they be obtained or made from anything else....???? So many questions.

 

[seinen]

In addition to the comments by others above, it's also very unlikely the Japanese government would have been purchasing quantities of foreign-made arms as late as 1886. By that time, full-scale production of the T-18 Murata rifle, the successor rifle to the indigenous T-13 Murata design, would have been about to commence.

C/