Restoring an Arisaka Type 38 Battle Rifle

I recently got a “wild hair” and decided to do some work with Japanese battle rifles as I had just finished reading a book on the history of the Imperial Army. I wanted to see for myself how accurate they were and study the ergonomics of the piece to get an understanding of how an under funded, politically disparate army could conduct the war that it did using these weapons.

I purchased a Type 38 on GunBroker that was advertised as “really needing help.” The barrel was “dark and pitted,” it was missing parts, and the stock had been sawn in half for a “duffle bag cut.” I did however get it for a good price, but I was figuring on having to replace the stock, and barrel, as well as the other parts.

Imagine my surprise and delight after giving the bore a good cleaning and discovering that I didn’t have a “sewer pipe” but a decent bore. I was doing an end-zone dance. The action cleaned up nicely. While there was some rust and faded bluing, the action was much nicer than it had been advertised. However I did still have to replace the missing items: the dust cover, bayonet lug band, and the cleaning rod. I found a dust cover and a bayonet lug band on Ebay and had lost the bidding war on three or four stocks as the prices had escalated to (in my opinion) ridiculous levels. I finally was able to purchase a stock that was at a price I felt reasonable, and within driving distance as well. I was so happy to have found a stock that upon examination I gave it a quick look and forked over my money. Much to my chagrin though when re-examining it the next day I found that the stock had been Varathaned. I wanted an original rifle so I proceeded to strip the Varathane using a strong paint stripper. It was during this process where I realized that the stock had had a relief cut into it for a bent bolt.

This was bad. The stock had been advertised as “having no modification and non-sporterized,” (with a no return policy) but it was my own fault for not looking at the posted photo’s more closely or when I picked it up. Just goes to show that we tend to get blind sometimes concerning something we really want. So, I proceeded to repair/restore the stock. I first routed out the area of the bolt handle relief on my milling machine using a 3/8ths two-flute carbide end mill. I covered the area to be routed with masking tape (pressed down real hard) to prevent splintering of the surface wood and insured the stock was square in the vise, then using the highest RPM my RF-30 could muster, I proceeded to cut a square in the stock. I made the patch a little larger than the relief as I thought at the time that it would look even stranger for a skinny little patch than a larger one. Now I’m not so sure, but what’s done is done.

I cut a patch out of the lower piece of the butt from the stock that had come with the rifle as it was a total ruin. I tried to find a piece that was close in the grain structure, but ended up just cutting a piece. The grain structures were too dissimilar in my opinion for a matching patch. There was also a big difference in wood color. I Accra-glassed the patch after shaping it on my disc sander and clamped it in place. After drying I reshaped the piece to match the original stock contours. As this area of the stock is relatively “non-critical” I chose to not insert pins into the stock and patch. And, while I could have “dove tailed” the patch, I also chose to not do that as it would have been very time consuming.

As you can see from the picture the patch was quite noticeable. So, some work with stain was in order. I used the darkest walnut stain I had on hand to just stain the patch itself. I re-applied stain as needed until the match was pretty close. I then used a permanent black felt tip pen to draw “grain” onto the patch. You must use a very fine tip pen and it needs to be smeared to give it the appearance of real grain. When I was pretty close to what I wanted I applied three coats of a dark cherry stain as the original stock had a much darker red hue to it. This also required some touching up on the patch to try and keep the color matching. After that was all done the stock was spray lacquered (three coats) with a matt finish lacquer, rubbing the stock with oiled “0000” steel wool in-between coats. While the patch is still noticeable, the end result is much better that what I had to start with. In looking at the pictures there are hardly any dings and dents. This was one of the things that sold me on this stock when I first saw it. It had the least number of imperfections of any stock I had seen outside of a museum. I left the dings and dents in it as I had already done enough to this old warrior.

If I were to do this again I would try harder to find a piece of wood that more closely matches grain of the wood to be patched and make the patch a tight fit in the recess. Having a tight patch would minimize the effect of stain on the Accraglass as it takes stain better than the wood itself.

Upon fitting the action to the stock initially (before staining) I discovered that some minor inletting was required. These rifles were made at several different armories for many years and differences will be noted in the fitting of hardware. After making the necessary adjustments to the bedding I checked the fitting of the butt plate. The lower screw hole was in bad shape so I drilled it out and Accra-glassed in a 3/8ths dowel. When re-drilling the screw hole measure the minor diameter of the screw and drill a hole just a few thousandths smaller than that. You also need to drill a short hole the same diameter and length as the screw shank or you will most likely split your new piece of dowel. Don’t forget to either wax or soap the screws when reinserting them. The butt plate also overhung the stock by almost 1/32 of an inch on the sides so I used the disc sander and a file to bring the metal down to the stock, leaving the metal just a little high to help reduce chipping of the butts edges. Some Oxpho-Blue was applied to the bare metal and steel wooled to match the original surface. All the mounting screws had been badly damaged having been removed with a standard screwdriver so I repaired them using a technique I developed years ago.

While returning the slot to almost its original condition, this does little to change the originality of the screw in my opinion. I insert the screw into a block of steel with a hole drilled to match the screw shank, I will also either counter sink or counter bore the hole to match the type of screw head leaving the top portion of the screw head exposed. I then peen the screw head slots edges with a very small ball peen hammer until the upset metal has been reformed to its original position. I then “swag” the slot with a hollow ground screwdriver tip that is the correct size. Sometimes turning the screw in the lathe slowly and hitting the edges of the screw with a fine file is in order as well as hitting the face of the screw with emery paper. Finish off with a touch of cold blue. The finished screw does not look new in most cases, but it ends up being far, far better looking than what I started with.

Once assembled the rifle looked pretty good. The metal doesn’t look to bad for an old veteran, and the stock looks acceptable and is finished to as close to original condition as possible. There are still the previously mentioned “dings and dents” that I left, but they add character and history to the old girl. I installed a reproduction sling as an original is too valuable to be running the woods or the range with. And there is still the matter of a cleaning rod.

The photos show one, but that was pirated from another rifle for the picture. I have two options; buy a reproduction or buy an original. I’m still thinking about this one. While I would prefer to use as many original parts as I can, I refuse to pay as much as three times (or more!) the cost of a reproduction, which is apparently what some dealers and folks on Ebay think a cleaning rod is worth. While some may think that is a bargain, I’m not so sure. Anyway, now it’s time to load some “boolets” and spend some range time! That however is another story.

Regards,

Eric