Japan

In 1543 Portuguese traders demonstrated matchlock muskets at Tanegashima.¹ The island’s lord, Tokitaka, bought two and asked the sword maker Yaita Kinbei to reproduce them.¹ Japanese smiths copied and improved the weapons and were soon making matchlocks in their thousands.² Early centres developed in Kyushu and around Osaka and Kyoto, where swordsmiths applied their existing metalworking skills to firearms.³

Sakai’s merchant-led works and Kunitomo’s blacksmiths became the two largest gunmaking centres.^{4, 5} In Sakai, gunsmiths and their descendants made weapons for about 300 years, chiefly for the Tokugawa shogunate.⁴ Kunitomo made matchlocks for four centuries, serving sixteenth-century warlords and later the shogunate.⁵ The shogunate tightly restricted the manufacture and possession of weapons.⁶

In 1870 the Meiji government founded the Osaka Arsenal inside Osaka Castle to modernise armaments and establish domestic supply.⁷ Its machinery and workers came from the former shogunate’s Nagasaki Iron Works, with more machinery from the Tokyo Sekiguchi works.⁸ Rivers and canals let raw materials reach the arsenal directly from nearby seaports.⁹ In February 1893 Kuraji Miroku began making hunting guns in Kōchi Prefecture.¹⁰

The Sino-Japanese War of 1894–1895 and the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905 enlarged the arsenal’s site and equipment, while improvements in production technology also encouraged private industry.¹¹ Miroku added whaling guns in June 1934.¹² The arsenal’s wartime workforce exceeded 60,000, but shortages of workers and materials reduced its production capacity near the end of the Second World War.¹³ Bombing on 14 August 1945 destroyed 90 per cent of its equipment.^{13, 14} Miroku was incorporated in Kōchi City in July 1946.¹⁵

After the Japanese ban on production, Miroku obtained permission in March 1951 to resume making hunting guns.¹⁶ Its side-by-side line began in 1952 and its over-and-under production in 1961.^{17, 18} From the early 1960s SKB combined modern technology with craft methods to make competition and field shotguns.¹⁹ In 1966 it began making shotguns for Ithaca, supplying semi-automatics, side-by-sides, single barrels and over-and-unders.²⁰ The FN group’s 2024 report dates Browning’s partnership with Miroku to 1965.²¹ Miroku dates its sales and technology alliance with Browning to December 1966, and Kōchi Prefecture links that alliance with Miroku’s entry into international markets.^{22, 23}

Miroku moved its head-office plant to Nankoku in June 1972 and began making the Browning Citori in 1973.^{24, 25} By 1984 SKB had agreed with Roy Weatherby to make semi-automatic and over-and-under shotguns.²⁶ SKB made its last Weatherby models in 2004 and decided in late 2009 to close its Japanese factory.^{27, 28} Miroku began making the Citori 725 in 2011.²⁹

In the year to October 2025, more than 90 per cent of sales in Miroku’s hunting-gun business went to the Browning group, whose main markets included the United States and Europe.^{30, 31} That year Miroku bought materials and parts from multiple suppliers, including overseas sources, and worked to use common parts, diversify supply and buy in advance.³² Miroku completed its Nissho factory at Nankoku Nissho Industrial Park in February 2025.³³ By September 2026 the factory had been in full operation since February 2026.^{34, 35}