Firearms "out of place" in film/documentary?

[FrankenMauser]

I'm sitting here, watching a documentary about trappers in the Russian Taiga forests, making a living off the land.

...And all that is going through my mind is, "Why is this isolated Russian carrying around a Japanese Type 38 carbine?"

It makes no sense.
Isolated.
Complaining about the incredible expense of necessities like gasoline (for his 30 year-old snowmobile), let alone the cost of what should surely be obscure ammunition.
The rifle is out of place.
And, yet, it's the only firearm that he owns.

I'm not likely to ever get an answer as to why, and how this came to be. But, I'm curious...


What have you seen that just strikes you as incredibly out of place and incongruent with the 'story' or circumstances in a 'true' film or documentary?



Edited to make the primary question more obvious.

 

[44 AMP]

Sometimes, reality makes no sense. Or, at least not the sense you expected.

Here's a few thoughts that (if true) might explain things...

Isolated trapper types generally are not big recreational shooters. He may not shoot more than a few shots a year. Therefore its not something he worries about the cost of replacing until he gets down to the point where all his ammo fits in the gun at the same time, unlike the gasoline which he is using up and having to buy on a regular basis.

It might be that he has a stash of ammo, enough to cover his forseeable lifetime needs. OR maybe his local trading post does, and he barters for it, costing him little.

A Japanese Type 38 carbine does sound a bit odd for a backwoods Russian, but considering that it is a Japanese carbine, not even the Soviets could have accused him (or the previous owner) that it was stolen from the State.

Maybe the rifle, and a few buddies, and a quantity of ammo were "obtained" from the Japanese (possibly through Manchuria) as a result of the border clashes before WWII, or possibly at any time after, through black market dealing.

Maybe he got it cheap because it is an obsolete foreign gun and there's only 87 rounds of ammo for it in the entire province, and he has 58 of them, which will suit his needs for 20+ years...

Or maybe the director decided that a trapper needs some kind of gun, to look "authentic" and that was what they could scrounge up/

Lots of possibilities...

Lots of possibiliti

 

[NoSecondBest]

You do realize that Russia and Japan fought a war in 1904-1905? Japan won that war, but it's very possible that this rifle was related to that event. This rifle was adopted by the Japanese Imperial Army in 1905. There's the connection in all probability.

 

[johnwilliamson062]

As stated above, he probably possesses several decades worth of ammunition and has since before the camera crew showed up.
You or I might sell it at the local gun show and buy an RAR in 308, but that is probably a bit more complicated of a proposition to him.

 

[carguychris]

I would have to scrounge up the source, but IIRC Imperial Russia bought a large number (40,000?) of Arisaka Type 38s during WWI from some other European country (Belgium?) that had bought them for some obscure reason ca. 1910, and was no longer using them because they had standardized on Mausers after exhausting their 6.5mm ammunition stockpile. This was one of many examples of a European country scraping the bottom of the barrel for rifles to issue to rear-guard troops. I remember the author remarking that the subsequent fate of the rifles was entirely unknown.

I surmise that these rifles may have effectively disappeared into the Russian countryside during the subsequent Russian Civil War, which was notoriously chaotic; both sides were very disorganized at the outset and were fighting largely on an ad hoc basis. The rifle could have been a battlefield pickup, or it may have simply been bartered by troops at some obscure outpost in exchange for something they felt was more useful, such as flour or sugar!

Another possibility is that the rifle wound its way through China during WWII or its aftermath. The Chinese Communists were notorious for using whatever firearms they could scrounge up, a large number of which were captured from the Japanese. It's easy to imagine the rifle being traded on the cross-border black market.

 

[g.willikers]

He's probably not worried about ammo because he has a spear for backup.

 

[olddav]

For me it's simple. When options are limited and resources are scarce, one has to use what ever one can find. Some of the people in remote parts of Alaska use some interesting firearms.

 

[kilimanjaro]

Lots of sources of Arisaka rifles in Siberia
First, the Russo-Japanese War of 1905. Second, Czarist purchases during WW1, as Chris mentioned. Third, Japanese occupation of the Russian Far East, 1918-1919. Fourth, Battle of Nomonhan, 1938. Fifth, Russian invasion and disarming of one million Japanese troops in Manchuria and Sakhalin, 1945. Last, Russian invasion and disarming Japanese troops in Korean Peninsula, 1945.

 

[FrankenMauser]

Thanks.
Today, I learned.


So, what else have you guys seen that seemed out of place?

 

[rickyrick]

Holy cow this was a great thread

 

[mete]

Reminds me of a few things . Russians did like American guns . So it's not strange to see some for example in Kurosawa's fine film " Dersu Uzala " , like a Win 1895 ! Filmed in Siberia a fascinating story of a 'mountain man " and a Russian Army patrol.

When the Finns were fighting the Russians ,Americans donated privately owned guns of various types . Yet they were all called by the name of the ship that carried the guns to Finland !! Weird !

 

[SIGSHR]

Perhaps the Soviets acquired it when they entered the war against Japan in August 1945 and captured the Japanese forces in Manchuria.
Having studied Russian, I know they are a very "make do" society. I'd like to see his reloading set-up.

 

[Kapusta]

Don't leave us hangin'.... what's the ships name?

 

[Mike Irwin]

Actually, it makes a lot of sense.

As noted, Japan and Russia fought a war in 1904.

But, Russia and Japan duked it out in September 1939. The Japanese army in China/Manchuria was battle tested and hardened, and they had their collective butts handed to them at Lake Khasan and later at Khalkin Gol. The commanding general was.... Gregori Zhukov.

That led to the Soviet-Japanese neutrality agreement, which held until August 1945 when Stalin sent over 1 million troops pouring into Japanese-held areas of China.

In the aftermath of all of that, the Soviets captured thousands of Japanese rifles and probably millions of rounds of ammunition, and their use is still fairly common in the area today.