How a Type 99 Arisaka works

The Type 99 rifle Arisaka or Type 99 short rifle (九九式短小銃 Kyū-kyū-shiki tan-shōjū) was a bolt-action rifle of the Arisaka design used by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. During the Second Sino-Japanese War in the 1930s, the Japanese soon found that the cartridge being fired by their Type 92 heavy machine gun in China was superior to the 6.5×50mm cartridge of the Type 38 rifle, necessitating the development of a new weapon to replace the outclassed Type 38. The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) developed the Type 99 based on the Type 38 rifle but with a caliber of . The Type 99 was produced at nine different arsenals. Seven arsenals were located in Japan, with the other two located at Mukden in China and Jinsen in Korea. The IJA had intended to completely replace the Type 38 with the Type 99 by the end of the war. However, the outbreak of the Pacific war never allowed the army to completely replace the Type 38 and so the IJA used both rifles during the war. As the war progressed, more and