Quote:
Originally Posted by T. A. Gardner
The Type 99 Japanese rifle and its earlier 6.5mm cousin are really garbage guns. The action is very stiff and hard to work.
The safety is impossible to set.
They are clumsy and long; particularly the 7.7mm.
The sights are iffy at best.
There is alot of nonsense on the guns too. The 7.7mm has a monopod wire stand on it. Worthless. It sinks in soft soil and is wobbly in the best of conditions. The little flip down antiaircraft sights are absolutely stupid.
Of the group given I'd rate the Japanese gun as the worst by a large margin.
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The Arisaka action was based on the Mauser. While not as easy to work as the Lee Enfield it is similar to the Mauser and much easier to work than the Mosin Nagant.
The safety is not as easy to work as the Lee Enfield or Mauser but it is much easier than the Mosin Nagant.
The 7.7 mm Type 99 was actually shorter than the 6.5 mm Type 38 and it was similar in length to other rifles of that era:
Overall length
Japanese Type 38: 50.25"
Mosin Nagant 91/30: 48.5"
Japanese Type 99: 45"
Lee Enfield No. 4 Mk. I: 44.43"
German K98k: 43.6"
M1 Rifle: 43.5"
The Type 38 during all of its production and the Type 99 during most of its production had a ladder-type sight similar to that of the American Model 1903 ("Springfield") rifle.
The folding wire monopod was deleted early in production and the anti-aircraft sights were deleted midway through production. They folded away and did not interfere with normal operation of the rifle.
And as mentioned earlier, during testing after WWII the Type 38 was found to be the strongest and the Type 99 the second-strongest of all of the bolt-action rifles tested
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