B2431 wrote:
From: George Shirley
Date: 7/21/2004 7:41 PM Central Daylight Time
Message-id:

B2431 wrote:


From: "ian maclure"


Late war production weapons were like that.
Prewar or early war production are OK or so I understand
I gather the Arisaka/Type 99 was a popular conversion for hunting
rifles here after the war. Why, I cannot imagine.


Simple, there were a lot of them, the good ones are hard to destroy, the

6.5 mm

Jap was a tidy small hunting round and they were cheap.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

I was a part-time gunsmith from 1962 until 1976. In the early sixties
the local GI surplus store sold me entire cases of Arisaka rifles, 12 to
the case, mostly the 6.5, at 9 bucks each. I converted them to sporting
rifles, of a sort, and sold them for 50 bucks. Paid the same price for
long SMLE's, Carcano's, and the odd P-14 Enfield that came by.
Springfield 03-A3's cost me 15 bucks each as did 1917 Enfields. Local
navy base was mothballing WWII ships and would sell me large boxes, I
mean about 4 feet by 4 feet by 4 feet of carbine and 1911-A1 magazines
for 6 cents per lb. I could resell them for a buck apiece and make money
on them. Damned if I don't wish I had kept a bunch of everything until
today. Most people thought the Carcano rifle was junk but they made
excellent small caliber hunting rifles.

George


George, I used to do gunsmithing too. Most of the 6.5 calibers made excellent
hunting rifles. I agree with you on the carcanos. I liked the Springfield
action over that of the Enfield. Either one was a smooth action that was hard
to mess up in the field.

The one modification I did that I wish I had made another of was converting a
garand to take BAR mags. I made several that would take M-14 mags after I
rebarrelled them to .308.

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired

Never did that one, Garands were still pretty costly in the early
sixties and M-14's were the standard so there wasn't much surplus on
them. After the M-16 became the standard I could bid on scrap iron at
the Navy base that consisted of Garand and M-14 operating rods, cleaning
sets, Garand clips, M-14 magazines, etc. Lots and lots of big boxes of
..30 carbine magazines with bonus mags included pretty regularly. things
like Colt Ace magazines, selling at the time for about $20 each. I do
love DOD surplus sales, sometimes you find unexpected things in the
mixed bag.

I still smith on my guns and those of my family but gave up doing it for
a living when my management job in the oil bidness got to taking up most
of my time. Met a lot of nice folks working on their guns.

George

George