Type 38 Rifle date?

[airborne1942]

I have a type 38 rifle with unmolested Mum Kokura arsenal, it looks like 23 series. Is there any way to get a date of manufacture.

[jtb1967]

Arisakas are hard to determine exact dates for, but a few folks have put out production estimates for various arsenals and series. I couldn’t find anything in my notes for your rifle, but hopefully someone else will chime in.

[GHP]

Well everybody knows I'm not a collector ... just research a bit here and there.

The below chart was found here

Not really helpful ... your Type 38 is a series "23" (ム), Kokura Arsenal (cannonball stack ) and I guess the 小 "ko" is shorthand for 小倉 Kokura; SNs 0~99,999 produced between 1933-1940.


I don't know the production run statistics, but given the range was 99,999 units and the range is eight years, output could equate to an average of 12,500 per year; therefore, yours *might* have been produced during the second-year run in 1934.


--Guy

[beretta1934]

Many nambu pistols generally have dating down to the year and month and its right there on each gun.

However, there is no way place an accurate date on Japanese rifles. Best you can do is approximate estimates base on production runs but that is a as close as you will get . For the Typ 99 rifle these are much closer and easier to narrow down. But the worst is the Type 38 and any guesses are made with considerable assumptions.