Before World War Two, the national police in Japan were used substantially as an enforcement agency for political reasons. After the war this changed, and the police were re-formed with a vision of them being a community oriented agency, non-threatening and helpful. Still, some sort of armament was needed, and so they were given compact .38 caliber revolvers – initially New Nambu Model 60s. By the 1990s new threats existed that required police reaction and a school of reformers wanted to issue a modern 9mm service pistol. A trial was held in 1995 and the chosen gun was the SIG P230JP, a compact semiautomatic in .32 ACP.
Video on the P230JP: https://youtu.be/KFJxSKlycwA
Being a true compromise, the P230 pleased nobody. The reformers found it even more underpowered than the .38 revolvers, and the traditionalists disliked automatic pistols. Despite its formal adoption, the National Police returned to small revolvers, ordering more than 10,000 S&W 37-2s in the early 2000s and later tens of thousands of S&W 360Js. These were both very compact, lightweight 5-shot revolvers chambered for .38 Special and their design sheds much light on the philosophy of Japanese policing that continues to this day.
Many thanks to the anonymous viewer who loaned me these pieces to film for you!
[OFF-TOPIC so ignore if you wish]
Recently Kudu Arms introduced https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRXp_76o4QU which allow to convert Remington Model 700 to straight-pull repeating rifle. They claim it will increase twofold reload time and this allows to cycle said rifle without losing aim if rifle is supported by tripod or similar device. I am not sure if it will work as intended in real conditions, but I am left wondering: who is potential customer for such contraption? why anyone would apply such gadgetry for Remington Model 700 rather than buy already straight-pull repeating rifle or self-loading rifle?
Good question. Offhand, I can think of no decent reason for a bolt action to become a straight pull. If you’re tossing a .308 round at the target and anywhere near a decent shot, one should suffice.
Have both and the straightpull is a fun/accurate shooter. But not enough there to want to change from bolt to pull.
The Two New Nambu automatics (M57A1 9 x 19mm and M57B .32 ACP) were only made in prototype form. The Japanese Self-Defence Forces continued issuing the Colt M1911A1 .45 ACP until the SiG 220 in 9 x 19mm was adopted as the Type 89 in 1990.
In addition to the National Police, the New Nambu Model 60 .38 Special revolver was issued to the Japanese Maritime Safety Agency, the equivalent of the United States Coast Guard.
The National Police also had revolvers made by the Miroku company, known as the Liberty Chief series;
https://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Miroku_Liberty_Chief
Most of the Liberty Chief revolver models were largely indistinguishable from the S&W J-frames, being snub-nosed 5-shot .38 Specials, but one, the Special Police, was a six-shot .38 Special that was essentially a 4″ Colt Police Positive Special.
Incidentally, Miroku also made a copy of the U.S. M1 Carbine for the Self-Defence Forces in the late 1960s to early 1970s. The Miroku version’s rear sight is larger and bulkier than the standard type, providing a visual cue as to which one you’re looking at. While the Type 64 rifle in 7.62 x 51mm was issued to infantry units, the Carbines (U.S. made, Miroku, or etc.) were issued to support units.
clear ether
eon
Okinawa, 1978-80, Local Police carried the five-shot Mirokus. The USAF employed Okinawan Guards and Dog Handlers who were required to qualify once a year. Most of them hated firearms, were afraid of them, and were lousy shots. In Japanese police thrillers, the bad guys somehow manage to get guns.
9:48 A steel cylinder is quite capable of handlig the 357 Magnum cartridge, so the titanium cylinder is not required for 357 Mag in a J-frame. S&W have several variants of stainless steel cylindered J-frames chambered in 357.
In Murakami’s novel: ‘1Q84,’ the protagonist first realizes that she has crossed over into a parallel world when she sees police carrying automatics.
I read that Japanese Police before WW2 only carried swords and not firearms. According to one source the standard service cartridge for these 38s is standard velocity 158 grain round nose.
Something to keep in mind, when looking at these pistols and wondering “Why do the Japanese issue something so backward…?” is that there’s an awful lot of “cultural programming” that goes into an individual’s response to firearms and having them used on you.
Friend of mine was involved in a shooting, and he got curious as to how the hell it was possible for the subject of a Chicago PD shooting to physically withstand what they were hit with, while another individual was barely scratched and totally collapsed.
The guy who he was thinking of with the Chicago PD shooting was a PCP user that got caught up in an “incident” during the height of the PCP “epidemic”. Said individual soaked up an ungodly amount of .38 Special projectiles, 9mm (Illinois State Police), and even some 12 gauge. He did not go down, and it took like 8 cops to put him on the gurney and tie him down, even bleeding the way he was. It wasn’t until they got the counteragent for whatever he was on into him that he quit fighting them, and after that, he bled out in literal seconds. That’s how many holes they put in him…
He had another victim who got shot by a .25 ACP, literally a peripheral flesh wound. Guy died right there, no fight, no struggle: The wound itself could have been made by a pencil poking through the meat of his trapezius, totally insignificant.
What his theory became, and I somewhat subscribe to it, is that response to a shooting/wounding has a lot to do with the expectation of the wounded. You think you’re unwounded or that it’s “nothing”, you keep right on going. You think you’ve been mortally wounded, even if you haven’t been? You’re going to react as though you were, even effectively “talking yourself” into dying there on the spot.
It’s all what you were expecting, what you do with the fact of having been shot. Yes, there are physical effects you’re going to have, but if you’re expecting that you’re gonna die after having been shot, then you probably are. Likewise, if you fail to notice you’ve been shot, then odds are pretty good it’s going to take something serious like actual blood loss to take you down.
I think you can make out a similar effect with being punched in a fight: Your reaction is going to be dependent on what your mindset was, being struck. I watched a guy take a baseball bat to the head one time, a strike that was later documented as causing a skull fracture. He was so hopped up and angry on adrenaline that he basically shrugged that hit off, and went on to beat the ever-loving snot out of the guy with the bat. Mindset over everything…
This explains a lot about how the Japanese police can maintain order with something as prosaic and “gutless” as a .38 Special revolver: The population they’re policing is culturally conditioned, to a respect, such that “Oi… I’ve been shot. Better lay down, now…” is a typical response.
YMMV, should you be forced to try shooting a Moro juramentado… Someone who thinks that bullet wounds are no big deal is someone who really has to have pieces of their body blown off or major skeletal/CNS/vascular damage done, before they stop.
I had another friend of mine who was a huge kendo fanatic. He also had a huge library of historical references from Japan, going back to the 13th Century. One book that I borrowed from him described the submissive way that a lot of the Japanese peasantry complied with their overlord’s demands, and how the martial classes got away with what they did, and one thing that struck me was the descriptions of how the Japanese peasants reacted vice the way the Okinawan peasants: There were complaints in the literature about how the Okinawans just wouldn’t lay down and expire politely, the way peasants did at home… They’d fight back, and resist. Which wasn’t the expectation, at all.
I think a lot of this crap, when it comes to “wounding effect” is down to the expectations of the victim, and how amped up they might be. If someone thinks being shot is no big deal, then it’s going to take a lot more to get them to stay down, than it is for someone who is convinced that any bullet wound is going to be the death of them.
This is a factor that I think gets missed an awful lot, when people start discussing ballistic effect in targets.
That pretty much squares with my observations of living and no-longer-living participants in everything from bar fights to suicides.
Some people (male or female) with two or three whiskies or four 6% beers in them aren’t going down just because they’ve been shot once, or hit with a tire-thumper, or whatever. They’re going to be mad enough, and mean enough, that they’re going to keep whaling on the other guy until he’s down. Then as the mix of alcohol and adrenaline wears off, down they go.
As far as GSWs, I’ve seen one shot stops with .25 ACPs that hit the heart square on, or cut the aorta just below the heart. The same with .38 Special RNL, or even the old .38 S&W, the short, fat round. Comparing PM reports to “historical accounts”, I’ve concluded that most of the one-shot stops attributed to Old West “pistoleers” like Doc Holiday or Bat Masterson was because those old boys were damned good shots, practiced quite a bit, and when to came down to it shot for the heart or the head or both.
I don’t really believe in handgun “stopping power”. Unless you’re using a full-power .44 Magnum with some sort of super-expanding bullet that dumps its entire energy load into the recipient, they’re probably not going to go down from a single hit unless (again) you put it through the heart or into the brain.
Suicides tend to be a case of how badly does the participant really want to die. And anyway, around here, the overwhelming majority “choice” of method is deliberate drug OD, either prescription or “recreational”. Someone driving a stolen car with a skinful of meth or etc. may be trying for a self-immolation; then again they might just be selfieing themselves doing a “WAAAH!!” joyride and posting it on TikTok.
My general rule of thumb, based on experience, has always been that in any fight, at least one participant is generally batshit fucking crazy. And that’s another variable in this mix.
As one old sheriff told me, probably the least-worst solution is to get everybody else out of the bar and wait for them to settle things between themselves.
If you absolutely, positively have to “stop” some idiot RTFN, that’s what the shotgun in the unit is for. Loaded with rifled slugs.
clear ether
eon
I would think that with all of the run-ins over they years that they have had with Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, Gamera, Ghidorah, and so on – they would have opted for a larger caliber. Watching those documentaries would encourage anyone to at least choose a caliber for their police force that starts with a 4.
The “Kaiju Eiga” (giant monster) movies were all fundamentally based on two American films; King Kong (1933) and The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953).
This scene from the latter shows why you don’t pester Kaiju Eiga with small-arms fire;
https://www.facebook.com/MisterSamShearon/videos/the-beast-from-20000-fathomsmy-kinda-bedtime-classic-moviemonster-blackandwhite-/10155595085636535/
cheers
eon
4-bore? The guy on Kentucky Ballistics swears by it
As a collector of Japanese small arms, I am very interested to know where your donor found the grips and lanyards for these revolvers. In the US I’ve never found them for my 360J and 37-2.