Concentric Circle Marked Nagoya Arsenal Type 38:

Several weeks ago, Mawkie pointed me in the direction of a couple of nice pieces for my collection that were up for auction. Unfortunately, I got beat out on both, but one of the items, a Berthier M-1916 that was in very nice condition got us talking about the fact that I have a M-16 that needs a stock. As all things do, the conversation continued on to other topics and Mawkie basically laid this sucker right at my feet and said "If you're interested, I'll sit this one out."

I learned two things there.

1) Wow is this sucker pretty rare
2) Mawkie is probably the nicest guy there is, period.

I wound up winning the auction for $25 under my max bid and here we are.

What you'll see below is a concentric-circle marked Type 38 from the Nagoya Arsenal. Serial number 333 with no series code. This is literally the 333rd T-38 produced at Nagoya in 1923.

It pretty much flew under the radar and my guess is that it was because it was listed as "non-functioning/incomplete." Both of us thought it would need a firing pin, firing pin spring, and cocking/safety knob from the pictures in the auction, so I bought a firing pin and spring from fleabay and Mawkie has a spare cocking knob that will work for this. I figured "non-matching FP and knob are still pretty good for something pretty rare." So, when it showed up, I couldn't get the bolt out. I thought maybe more was wrong with it, but it turns out that the firing pin was actually there inside the bolt and turned 90 degrees preventing the bolt from retracting properly. I got it out easily enough and it's in great shape, so the only non-serialized part will be the cocking knob when I pick it up.

So, what's so special? Well, concentric circle rifles aren't marked with the usual imperial mum. They have a double-circle in place of it and while there is no certainty as to the reason for this (some speculate they were made for the Japanese secret police, others think they may have been for factory guards or other non-military units) what is known is that there were only around 4000 of these concentric-circle Type-38s produced between the Nagoya and Kokura arsenals. Meanwhile 3.4 million regular Type-38s were produced by all arsenals combined. That's a pretty small number of needles in a gigantic haystack.

Some notes of interest:
This thing was dirty when I got it. surface rust at all the exposed upper surfaces of the barrel and action. Nothing horrible, but she's not pristine. The butt plate is fairly heavily rusted with some "bubbling" on about 1/8th of the total surface, but it's just surface bubbling, no real damage structurally. The rust has been neutralized correctly for preservation. I think it sat in someone's garage in the mid-west leaning against an exterior wall, this would explain the pattern of rust. I also found some spalled concrete in the screw head of the butt plate screw. That concrete actually helped protect the screw as when I removed the material, the rest of the screw head was in very good condition.

I'm unfamiliar with the markings on regular Type 38s, but this one has the concentric circles repeated on several parts. It's on the action, front sight base, trigger guard/magazine assembly, rear sling swivel base, and tang. I don't *think* you find a mum in all of those places. I could be wrong though. Also, the firing pin is not serialized on this one like it is on others. Very curious.

The bore is in great shape by the way, with strong rifling and no pitting. I was impressed. I think this thing came home with some GI from the pacific and just sat there until I bought it.

Anyway, without further adieu, here are what you really want, pictures!








Here are the various places with the concentric marks on other parts of the rifle:






Thanks again to Mawkie for putting me on this one!

Nice! Is a rare version. If you don't have Honeycutt's book it is a great reference to have.

Great find and thanks for documenting it.

VERY nice, that's something you don't see every day!

Great find!! CC Arisakas are very desirable and are very tough finds.

Some info you may find interesting though....your rifle actually dates to around March 1942. The Nagoya CC’s were actually some of the LAST Type 38 rifles made at that arsenal. It doesn’t have a series code as this was a separate run of rifles with its own serial range (estimated 1-3,000). They seem to be made of leftover/rejected/discontinued parts from earlier production. While it may never be known exactly what their purpose and use was, they are interesting Arisaka variations and a great addition to the collection! Congrats!

Edit to add: Firing pins for Nagoya CCs can be either serialized or unserialized as both have been reported from known examples, so your unnumbered example may very well be correct.

The CC markings on the various parts of your gun were substituted on these in place of the normal inspection stampings, likely to indicate parts that were not perfect but still within acceptable tolerances. You’re correct that ‘mums were not used on standard rifle production on any parts other than the receiver. Looks like a few of those small parts also have the kanji 不 “fu” (translates to disqualified) stamped them, which has been reported on Nagoya CC rifles like yours.

Good write-up! I was looking for a T38 CC FOREVER and then this comes up as I'm fully committed elsewhere (there's the British Winnie 62A I posted and an upcoming Mauser MS420 w period scope that tapped me out). So I decide that if I can't go for it then a friend will get a shot at it. Besides, I was lucky enough to find a nice T99 CC years ago so it's not like I'm without.
So glad you took my lead and ran with it. Even better was the news that the FP was there after all. And I'm of the same mindset. I'll take a non-matching example over waiting for a shot at a fully matching example that may never come. If nothing else this is a place holder (though I think 99% of Japanese collectors wouldn't call it that).
-Looking forward to meeting up tomorrow. I'll have the Berthier stock and the two T38 cocking knobs. Haven't been to a York show for quite a few years now.

KH195 said:

Great find!! CC Arisakas are very desirable and are very tough finds.

Some info you may find interesting though....your rifle actually dates to around March 1942. The Nagoya CC’s were actually some of the LAST Type 38 rifles made at that arsenal. It doesn’t have a series code as this was a separate run of rifles with its own serial range (estimated 1-3,000). They seem to be made of leftover/rejected/discontinued parts from earlier production. While it may never be known exactly what their purpose and use was, they are interesting Arisaka variations and a great addition to the collection! Congrats!

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Very interesting! I couldn't find anything online that would nail down dates too well. A lot of folks speculating that the lack of a series code meant that they were the initial ones out of the factory. That said, the '42 date actually makes a lot of sense when coupled with the rejection marks on some of the parts. '42 was when the Japanese began to experience stiff resistance and substantial losses in both the Papua New Guinea and Guadalcanal campaigns which dragged on for months. I'd assume, much like the Germans were unwilling or unable to arm non-front-line-troops with factory-new K98s and used captured weapons or weapons produced at foreign factories (Poland, Czech, Norwegian, French) to supply those forces and gendarmes instead. Perhaps that's how these examples came to be. The Imperial forces couldn't spare new production rifles for guards and police forces in the rear or on the home-front, so the factories that had leftover rejected parts that were within tolerance put them together in this form for those forces.

mawkie said:

Good write-up! I was looking for a T38 CC FOREVER and then this comes up as I'm fully committed elsewhere (there's the British Winnie 62A I posted and an upcoming Mauser MS420 w period scope that tapped me out). So I decide that if I can't go for it then a friend will get a shot at it. Besides, I was lucky enough to find a nice T99 CC years ago so it's not like I'm without.
So glad you took my lead and ran with it. Even better was the news that the FP was there after all. And I'm of the same mindset. I'll take a non-matching example over waiting for a shot at a fully matching example that may never come. If nothing else this is a place holder (though I think 99% of Japanese collectors wouldn't call it that).
-Looking forward to meeting up tomorrow. I'll have the Berthier stock and the two T38 cocking knobs. Haven't been to a York show for quite a few years now.

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Looking forward to meeting up with you, and thanks again for the lead on this! If I ever decide to let it go, you'll be the first to have dibs on it for sure! My buddy Shorty who will be along with me to the show is another big C&R head. He went through a phase where he was well funded when both he and his wife were working and C&R guns were plentiful and cheap. There wasn't a week or two that would go by when I'd get another email saying "well, I didn't have one of these, so I grabbed one, but now there's no room in the safe(s) so I had to buy another safe....."

Give my cell a ring when you get there. We should arrive right around the same time.

Honeycutt’s book is great (Military Rifles of Japan), but if you want extreme detail on anything and everything Type 38 try to track down a copy of Francis Allan and Harold Macy’s book The Type 38 Arisaka. Tremendous amount of information on every T38 and T44 variation, including the CC. It also has detailed info (part variations, inspection stamps, etc etc) on the Nagoya CCs that had been reported at the time of publication. At that time, 32 Nagoya T38 CCs had been reported with the closest serial #s to yours being 282 and 353.

KH195 said:

Honeycutt’s book is great (Military Rifles of Japan), but if you want extreme detail on anything and everything Type 38 try to track down a copy of Francis Allan and Harold Macy’s book The Type 38 Arisaka. Tremendous amount of information on every T38 and T44 variation, including the CC. It also has detailed info (part variations, inspection stamps, etc etc) on the Nagoya CCs that had been reported at the time of publication. At that time, 32 Nagoya T38 CCs had been reported with the closest serial #s to yours being 282 and 353.

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Great minds think alike! I met up with Tallen702 and his buddy today and mentioned this same reference work. Damned hard to find as I've been looking for it too with no luck. But like the Banzi work on the T99 it's probably the best around and worth the search.

Nice pick up.
Question, why does the 38 have 2 vent holes and the 99 has one?

Melnic said:

Nice pick up.
Question, why does the 38 have 2 vent holes and the 99 has one?

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Just an educated guess here, but I'd expect it to be the fact that further testing and advances in engineering led the designers to know that one hole would be enough to vent the gasses from a ruptured casing away from the operator. The Type 38 was first produced in 1905 while the Type 99 was designed and first produced in 1939. I believe the hole on the Type 99 is also of a larger diameter. Someone, please correct me if I'm wrong on that.

I've also heard speculation (though it seems unfounded) that it was used as a way to easily demarcate that the newer 7.7mm ball ammo was to be used in the Type 99 rifle vs the older 6.5mm in the Type 38, but that seems based on conjecture at best. While both rifle types saw service in WWII, I doubt they would have needed that kind of demarcation so early in the war.

BTW, when I was first reloading 7.5JAP, I had some that were light and not sealing and I felt the blow of air on the brim of my had with one of the shots.