Wrong again, as the war progressed the quality of the steel degraded and they were never as good as the British Enfield of which I had one and fired many times. The proof is that my Arisaka had too much headspace, as determined by a gunsmith. The Nambu was also a piece of crap.......
......"Type 99[edit]Main article: Type 99 rifle
Successor to the Type 38 rifle. Chambered in 7.7×58mm Type 99, later rimless variants of the Type 92 and 97 cartridges also usable.
....."Designed in 1939, then produced and fielded from 1941 to 1945, the Type 99 was the most common Imperial Japanese service rifle of World War II and second most produced Imperial rifle with 2,500,000 built. Significant changes are the improvement of the rear sight form transitioning from a V-notch type like those on a Type 38, to an aperture, the front sight blade was renewed to a triangular shape, chrome-lined barrels were used, 
and on earlier productions, the rear sight was equipped with anti-aircraft calipers.
Sub-variations included a long rifle (approximately only 38,000 made), and short rifle; former being 1258 mm in total and latter being 1118 mm. The short rifle also varied in quality from initial, intermediate, to last-ditch".....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arisaka
The Type 99 is one of the strongest military bolt rifles ever made,[4] but many late-war ("last ditch") rifles used lower quality parts, and a complete lack of finish, as well as shortcuts taken to ease production. The "last ditch" rifles are usually distinguished by their crudeness; poorly finished stock, wood buttplate, very obvious tooling marks in the metal, rudimentary sights and an unfinished bolt knob and handle. Such late war rifles may be unsafe to fire.
In some cases, these rifles may actually be training rifles intended for firing blank cartridges only. The training rifles were made of mild steel and were never intended for ball ammunition. It is possible that reports of Type 99 rifles blowing up were simply the results of soldiers testing captured weapons. Unaware that they were using drill rifles, they fired ball ammunition in them with poor results and possible injuries. It is possible that this may have unjustly led to the Arisaka having a reputation (at least for the last ditch rifles) for being of poor construction".......
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_99_rifle