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At the local flea market today..$500. It is stamped Model 1896 SN#103585. Stock is stamped 1897. Wood appears to be un-messed with, exterior metal is very good, bore is strong with good rifling. Lands are dirty and a good cleaning is in order. The cut out for the bolt handle on the stock is rounded. Rear sight is calibrated to 1800. I will post pics later.
[IMG]http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...1896Krag-5.jpg[/IMG][IMG]http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...1896Krag-3.jpg[/IMG][IMG]http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...1896Krag-2.jpg[/IMG]There are some intere[IMG]http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e2...1896Krag-1.jpg[/IMG]sting marks on both sides of the fore stock.
Yes it is a horror story. The bore was cleaning up very well. I decided to give it a rest and check out the naked rifle. As soon as that hand guard came off...those wretched ugly marred tracks of the big wrench revealed themselves to my eyes. I thought..well it has been re-barreled obviously. Then I noticed a slight gap and grabbed the barrel with my hand..it was loose. I hand tightened it as far as it would go about 3/4 of a turn. The barrel was then canted at about the one o'clock position. Whoever had this rifle before the previous owner, a friend of mine, had obviously backed the barrel off to get the sights to line up...then replaced the wood. I called my friend who had I bought the rifle from. He was told by the previous owner that his father had hunted with this Krag. I can imagine that if it was fired in this condition that something noticeable might occur. Well good for my friend and myself that the rifle remained un-fired while in our hands. I will take it to my local smith on Monday and see if he can index and headspace this Krag.
I dropped this Krag off at the local smith this morning. He will index the barrel and ream the chamber and also make sure the headspace is correct.
I wonder if he hunted w/ it with a different barrel? Or maybe it was a "sporter" put back together, more or less, for sale. Or it was just the usual hogwash, and the fellow who sold it to your friend was just out for a quick buck. You have a good cautionary tale from this incident at least.
Thanks for sharing the "horror"!
I will remove the wood from any Garand for a look see, it is a bit more difficult with a Krag..it never dawned on me that this barrel would be loose. I would vote for the hogwash story!
At one time Numrich had some barrels made for both rifle and carbine, and they had indexing problems. Also, I had a rounded shank barrel that I could hand screw into an early 98 receiver that went past the alignment mark and allowed the sight to lean to the left. Yours should tighten right up and index with the sight leaning to the right, just needs a wrench.
If it was in the UK you would need to add $1500+ to your original $500.
Nice rifle, seeing bargains like this, the more i,m thinking of emigrating...