Type 99 Basics
The first step to identifying your Arisaka will be to determine if it is a Type 99 Long or Short. In addition to the more common short Type 99's, early on it was planned to make a long version which was the same length as the Type 38. This was briefly produced by Nagoya under the "Zero" (No) series marking and Toyo Kogyo under the 35th series (which was also used later on for short rifle production). These rifles will have a short pattern handguard and be around around 50 inches long. A standard, short Type 99 will be around 44 inches long. Most collectors do not specifically refer to the short rifles as such, as they were the standard production Type 99's made in the millions, compared to the small 38,000 or so total Type 99 Longs made.
The next step to identifying your Type 99 will involve looking on the left side of the receiver. In this area will be several important pieces of information:
-Series marking
-Serial number
-Arsenal marking
Here is a photo to demonstrate where each marking is located.
The next step to identifying your Type 99 will involve looking on the left side of the receiver. In this area will be several important pieces of information:
-Series marking
-Serial number
-Arsenal marking
Here is a photo to demonstrate where each marking is located.
The series marking will vary between the different arsenals. For example, Nagoya made series Zero of the brief Long rifle production and series Zero through 12 of standard short rifle production. An entire series consisted of 100,000 rifles, starting at serial number "0" and ending on "99,999". Each arsenal was assigned a particular grouping of series numbers, and they were not sequential in terms of production or features. For example, series 1 by Nagoya and series 20 by Kokura are actually both early war pattern rifles, while series 8 by Nagoya and series 35 by Toyo Kogyo will be last ditch, fixed rear sight rifles.
The website linked below will be useful to identify your exact series:
Markings on Japanese Arisaka Rifles and Bayonets of World War II
From there, you should be able to identify your rifle and find the corresponding page on this website to see what features are correct to your rifle.
The website linked below will be useful to identify your exact series:
Markings on Japanese Arisaka Rifles and Bayonets of World War II
From there, you should be able to identify your rifle and find the corresponding page on this website to see what features are correct to your rifle.