Coming up on a year since purchase (old thread here), I found this nice Arisaka 99 at a local gunshow. The only flaw is that the bolt and dust cover dont match the rifle (last 3 digits are 053). So last week, I take the Arisaka out of the safe to clean it and wonder what oh, how nice it would be to have the matching bolt. So, being bored, I type "Arisaka bolt 053" into google. Up comes an auction on ebay for the bolt sleeve numbered....you guessed it.053!!! I do a further search on ebay and find that the seller also has the other three numbered components of the bolt for sale, all 053!!. And there are 3 days left on this auction. Needless to say, I swooped in and bought them. After I told my wife, she thought I should have bought a lottery ticket instead You just can't please some people.

very cool. that is a nice looking rifle too

That's very cool! I would never think its possible to find the matching dust cover and monopod for my type 99 Arisaka.

Let me rub your head for luck...... I need to find the slide that matches my May 1941 produced 1911A1.

The one on it is only 7, that's right, seven numbers off!

Looks like the present silde has been on it ever since it was first disassembled, parked & reassembled with the rest of it's shipment at the Springfield Armory (where it was delivered to from Colt in June, 1941).

Anyway, outstanding find for your rifle!

My dust cover doesn't match either but it has the same patina as the rest of the rifle it's obviously been on there most of the rifles life. Pretty cool find.

Plus you can sell the non matching cover and get some cash back to boot.
Mine is only missing the monopod. And sadly, the mum.

Minor math error here, total production of the Type 99 was 3,400,000. Out of that 3,400,000 / 1000 would have the same last three digits, so it's one in 3,400.
Even so, that is totally awesome, it's rare to find a WWII weapon that isn't a mixmaster. Well done.

Interesting calculation! Now add the odds of someone posting it for sale on ePay, and me deciding to search, at the same time

More like1 in every 1000. The type 99 was serial numbers in blocks of 99,000, with different series. The same last three would repeat every one thousand numbers. 3.4 million rifles would have 3400 bolts with the same last three.

It is still a very rare happening to find a matching bolt.