The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

Here's a piece I picked up from a ww2 navy vet's estate two years ago just because it needed some love and care. It's a type 38 carbine that has matching numbers to the assembly number aside from the dust cover which is only a few numbers off. The main detractor of this carbine is that the stock has...

Your dad left Vietnam before the Gun Control Act of 1968 was voted in as law. GCA68 changed the rules on what could be imported and how. Sporterizing is always a possibility, it's rare to see French arms sporterized over here, I have seen it done, but mostly to the Remington made Berthiers that nev...

That is true. Thanks for the clarification junk yard dog. This one is a beautiful display rifle and it helps me to show the progression of arisaka development when I do my larger displays at our small biannual military show.

The Japanese imperial army served the Emperor of Japan, the chrysanthemum is the symbol of the Emperor, any rifle sold out of the emperors service would have it's mum in some way defaced. There was no exception to this, rifles sold to schools had concentric circles overstamped on the mum, when a Ja...

Sounds like your friend collected back during the happy time like I did. Well from what he had told me over the years he started back in the 50s when he was a kid. In fact he said it was this very arisaka his father brought home that started him collecting but him being sent to Vietnam put a small ...

Why in hell would a soldier have duffel cut this? It fits in any standard duffle bag with room to spare just the way it is. These are the smallest and lightest type of carbine that still use a full house military cartridge. Vietnam was not a war were duffle cuts needed to be done. You requested bri...

Alrighty gang here's an unusual one at least for me. This type 30 arisaka was also given to me as a gift but it is a very strange beast indeed. It has a full mum which already is uncommon let alone for one this old, no double zeroes in front of the serial number showing it being sold out of service,...

Nice find, should see if you can get the provenance on it. (bringback papers.) It would have been funny if your thread title had said M16 (as these are sometimes called) from Vietnam.... :lol: I'll give it a shot but I doubt I'll get any more info out of the vet as the only reason he got rid of it ...

Since I said I have a side focus in collecting Japanese firearms here's one of my most special pieces. It was given to me as a gift from the same collector who helped me with the duffle cut repair of my mle 16 berthier. He has been collecting militaria since the early 60s and amassed probably the la...

Here's another of my fantastic finds. This one walked into a small military show a couple of years ago and it was in sorry shape (duffle cut under the front barrel band, wrist had been cut and repaired) and to top it off it was missing its bolt head. When I saw it I just had to get it so I could try...

Makes sense to me anyway. The Foreign Legion mixed in with local militias/small armies could make for one heck of a defense. Makes me wonder how many battles my rifle saw in its lifetime. I can only speculate because of its age and time of capture but at least I know it was in Indochina during WW2 p...

Welcome to the board, Nice Berthier, these were widely used in all of the French colonial possession's. French Indochina would definitely have been one of the places these were used after the great war. The French foreign legion was issued these and later on the native colonial forces would have go...

Hello everyone. I belong to a couple of forums but I always enjoy getting to show my milsurps to fellow aficionados. This was my very first berthier and it introduced me to the world of French firearms. I purchased this berthier back in 2013 from a Vietnam vet who took it off of a Vietcong sniper ba...