Yesterday's Weapons Forums

For several years, I have been compiling a rather eclectic collection of WWI and WWII military rifles. I do not have a Japanese rifle in my safe yet and I've recently been bitten by the Arisaka bug. I have been tracking the final selling prices of Type-99s on Gunbroker and Auction Arms and I am surprised that complete rifles are selling for $130.00 yet complete bolts go for almost $100.00. The relative value of the individual parts when compared to the value of the whole rifle seems to be out of whack. It's not a complaint; just my observation.

So what do you guys do? Do you just buy another rifle if you need parts?

Steven Poulos

interesting topic , id not really thought about that much because most of the 'parts' ive needed were relatively small $ items , i generaly found complete and as correct as possible specimins ,

the few that i did major things to were more complicated than what you are speaking of - example the 22cal conversion to my remington M1903A3-4gery , i paid the price for the parts i needed , same with the retro work on my M16 ,

i guess if i needed a bolt for a T99 and the rifle was $130 and the loose bolt was $100 , id consider a bitser and peice it out to get my money back , but in general i balk at destroying one rifle to salvage another ,

FWIW , i did have a loose bolt and sold it cheap on a trader board for japanese parts to keep it in the collector use , lot of folks looking for parts , hope you find your rifle and the parts you need --good luck

BTW , check my topic-"when i owned a T99 & T30" its a parts place i found helpfull

A friend of mine has a very nice T-30 Arisaka that happens to be missing the bolt head and a couple of other small parts (cleaning rod). He was offered a complete sporterized rifle that had the suitable parts for $200. It was a very fair offer but just out of his budget.
I'm surprised that Japanese rifles are still available for under $200. That's a common gunshow price around here.

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as ive stated before , i would if i had the space , i do have some for my enfeilds , but they are very few and only because i havent run out of space for them yet ,

Most who fool with Japanese rifles do hold on to extra parts. I think I told this on another post - that I had saved a front sight for a T44 for over 40 years and used it this year. A middle band for a 44 is impossible to find. I have two. Front bayonets and housing are very difficult to find, I had two, used one on the folder I made and still have another. I see people selling screws and everything else that is loose only to need something they sold later. I've got an extra rear sight for a Type 35 Japanese rifle. May be the only one in the world. Hoard, hoard, hoard. riceone.

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http://shock.military.com/Shock/videos. ... ent=208572

jon , this is the second thread in a row ive had this thought , it is indeed a very valuable thing to be able to tap into the knowledge base here with such confidence , i feel as blessed as you , ive learned so much about areas ive never even thought of - how cool is that ?

This is an interesting topic - the unfortunate thing that I've seen - especially when ebay had a wider firearm part selection - is that parts would go for more than the equivalent rifle. So a lot of rifles are being broken up for parts.

One ebay seller bought rifles from people who brought them in - then broke them up for pieces. All of them were ground - so to him "ground" = "worthless" - or "worth more as parts". I managed to pick up a couple of gems before they were sub-divided, but he sent me some of his "leftovers" including an Izawa and what was left of a Jinsen Special Last Ditch... Unfortunately I've lost touch with him and he's continuing to part out rifles left and right - even with no knowledge of their collector value.

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Mike

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