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Contributing Member
Wow, did some looking around on the various sites and this rifle isn't in very good shape at all. I'm disappointed. The bayonet is looking pretty interesting though. Appears to be a last ditch type and the frog it has I've found no where.
The bore is so nice because it's chrome. I didn't know that going in. Should be a nice shooter but the finish is mostly gone when compared with others. Maybe it will go low.
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06-11-2010 09:29 PM
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Most "real" capture rifles aren't in the best of shape. Probably because it was actually being used in the field, and then "dropped" for a few weeks or months, w/o shelter, before the soldiers began to rotate off from whatever island they were upon.
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Contributing Member
It did not go low enough for my interest, $425. Two others sold before it, both in better condition but with the mums ground off. The first, $175, the second $145. This sort of thing never seems to fail with me at this auction. What I'm interested in goes high, what I'm not goes low.
Granted this had a bayonet and probably a very rare frog/scabbard combo to go with it. The sling after looking at it again this morning was most likely off a US Garand
. The rifle itself had been freshly scrubbed with steel wool as fibers were all over it. The rust on the barrel was heavier than I first thought and parts of the receiver were heavily rusted as well. The butt plate had the wrong screw in it, that's why it was loose. The stock itself had been refinished. There is no way it would have remained in that condition with the metal being as rough as it was.
I'm disappointed, had it been in the condition it was described, I was prepared to go up to $500 after talking it over with some Japanese re-enactors last weekend at the WWII weekend. In the condition it was in, I was prepared to go $325, $225 for the rifle and $100 for the bayonet.
The nice finish they described was rust brown, meaning rust and even it was only about 30%.
Oh well, there will be other rifles.
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Ummm,..... yuck! I think you did the right thing.
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I think you were wise to not have bought the rifle. As with all WWII Japanese rifles, condition and originality are everything. So with the poor condition you described and a refinished stock, those are two major strikes.
The bayonet rig sounds interesting but without having knowledge about that, it was wise to back off at the price it went for.
Kim
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