in 1872 — the most advanced arsenal in Japan before 1871 He was born the eldest son of , a retainer of the
Shimazu clan. In his youth he studied the Tachi school of
swordsmanship, a derivative of
Jigen-ryū, as well as the
Takashima school of
hōjutsu. He also studied Western gunnery. Murata's first combat experience was during the
Bombardment of Kagoshima by the
Royal Navy in 1863. During this battle, Murata was strongly impressed by the British guns, and began to research contemporary European firearms technology. He studied using European books he acquired from
Nagasaki. In early 1865, Murata presented to the Satsuma authorities his own design for a
bolt-action rifle. This was an astonishing feat for an inventor educated in a
medieval society, as the bolt-action was then a state-of-the-art technology even in Europe. However, Satsuma rejected his design because it was considered to be beyond the limited manufacturing capacity of the Satsuma
arsenals. Murata first visited France, and was received courteously through the offices of his friend Echemann. When he showed his 1865 rifle design to French officers, they told him it was very similar to the Dutch
Beaumont rifle. Around that time, Murata built a
summer house in
Ōiso,
Kanagawa Prefecture. Murata's rifle featured a
firing pin actuated by a simple but powerful
leaf spring, a somewhat antiquated design compared to the more complex
coil springs used in most bolt-action mechanisms of the time. This feature it shared with the Beaumont rifle. It is unknown why Murata chose this type of spring, but a number of reasons have been suggested. Japanese gunsmiths already had centuries of experience manufacturing leaf springs for the
matchlock firing mechanisms of
tanegashima arquebuses, and Murata's own training in
traditional gunnery had likely familiarized him with the mechanical aspects of the centuries-old matchlock. At the
Koishikawa Arsenal in the early 1880s, Murata oversaw the manufacturing of the first Murata rifles to be distributed to the Japanese armed forces. Many units were personally inspected by him, and early production models were stamped with his or
monogram. The first Murata rifles were made using steel imported from France, and technicians from Germany were hired to teach the art of
drawing brass
cartridge cases. Much of the machinery for mass producing early 11x60mm Murata cartridges was procured by the Japanese government from the
Winchester Repeating Arms Company. == Later life ==