This is from "The Poor Man's Sniper Rifle" by "Dan Boone", published in 1995 by Desert Publications:


"The action [of the Type 38] is also incredibly strong. The author had a friend, a Colorado gunsmith by the name of Do Grims, who told of a customer that had complained of excessive recoil in a Japanese rifle had had purchased.

When Don checked the rifle out, he discovered that the man had purchased a type 38 in 6.5mm caliber, but was firing 7.7mm ammunition designed for the type 99 Japanese rifle. The 7.7mm ammo shouldn't have even chambered in the model 38, but it did, and by all accounts it should ahve blown up with the first round fired, but instead was drawing out the 7.7mm bullet to 6.5mm diameter before exiting the muzzle.

This might seem a wild story to some, if it were not for the fact that a similar story surfaced in the May, 1959 edition of American Rifleman magazine. In this story, a man had purchased a type 38 Arisakaicon and chambered it for a 30.06 without reboring the barrel. He took it to a gunsmith because he couldn't figure out why the recoil was so bad. The gunsmith couldn't believe what he was seeing; he fired several rounds of 30.06 amo through it (no doubt from a distance with a long string attached to the trigger) with no effect. As before, upon firing, the .30 caliber bullet was drawn out to 6.5mm. He sent the rifle to the NRA for examination where more rounds were fired through it, astounding many more with the strength of the action. Stories of torture tests on Arisaka actions abound, and there is no doubt that it is exceptionally strong as well as unusually accurate."
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