Type I

About the Type I

The Type I is a bolt-action service rifle produced in Italy from 1938 to 1939 for the Imperial Japanese Navy. Combining an Italian Carcano action with a Type 38-pattern five-round internal box magazine fed by stripper clips, it was chambered for the Japanese 6.5x50mm Arisaka cartridge rather than the Italian 6.5x52mm Carcano round. It was contracted under the Anti-Comintern Pact after the 1937 invasion of China consumed all domestic Arisaka production.

The Type I exists because the Imperial Japanese Navy needed rifles that the Army's busy arsenals could no longer spare after the 1937 push into China. Turning to its Anti-Comintern partner, the Navy commissioned Italian gunmakers to build a rifle that paired a familiar Carcano action with an Arisaka magazine and the Navy's standard 6.5mm cartridge.

Type I specifications

An Italo-Japanese hybrid: Carcano bolt action mated to an Arisaka/Mauser-style box magazine. Barrels were produced at Terni and shipped to one of three completing plants. Stocks were delivered untreated for finishing in Japanese arsenals, and no accessories were supplied with the rifles.