.256 inch Arisaka

In late 1914 and early 1915 Britain purchased 150,000 6.5mm Arisaka rifles and carbines from Japan to help alleviate the great shortage of rifles for the New Arnies being formed.

The rifles were a mixture of Type 30 and Type 38 together with Type 38 carbines and a few Type 44 carbines. In British service the Type 30 rifle became the "Rifle Magazine .256 inch Pattern 1900", the Type 38 the "Rifle Magazine .256 inch Pattern 1907" and the Type 38 carbine the " Carbine Magazine .256 inch Pattern 1907". There seems to be no logic behind the Pattern dates as these do not correspond to the Japanese dates of 1897 and 1905 respectively.

Together with the rifles the Japanese supplied ball ammunition and drill rounds together with 22 million sets of components that were loaded by Kings Norton Metal Company.

This would have probably been sufficient for British needs had not the Russians, who had bought even larger numbers of Arisaka rifles and carbines from Japan, asked Britain to manufacture ammunition for them.

This was agreed and from early 1916 Royal Laboratory and Kynoch supplied a total of 559 million rounds.