M1898 Krags at the South Store
At the South Store on 3 Feb, there were 16 or so M1898s. Half came with stocks painted white and half had unpainted stocks. Only one had a cut down stock; 15 rifles came with full length stocks & hand guards plus barrels. The one with the cut down stock had a beautiful, crisp 1900 cartouche. None of the unpainted stocks had visible cartouches & I could not tell what was hidden under the paint, if anything. About half of the stocks had cracks; one was bad enough so that someone had thoughtfully repaired it with two brass wood screws. A couple stocks had missing chips and one of those had a hand guard missing a chip. A couple hand guards were cracked.
The metal finish was mostly "patina"; one had about 90% original blue, truly beautiful. It also had the stock with the wood screws & missing chips plus a dark bore. All of the bores were "dark" and ranged from NRA poor to fair condition. All of them had caked debris in the bore and need cleaning. About half should clean up enough to be a good, not excellent, shooter.
About half the rifles were missing the front sight; perhaps 6 were missing the rear sight. All of them have bolts, magazines, magazine cut offs, side plates, butt plates, triggers, trigger guards, and both sling swivels, etc. About 5-6 were missing a stacking swivel or part of one. One rifle had a Buehler commercial safety; the others were GI. Most were marked something like 'headspaced' or 'headspace OK'.
The ones with the painted stocks have M1902 rear sights and most of the ones with unpainted stocks have M1901 rear sights (others are missing).
Some rifles were Y grade & the others X grade.
There were also 6-8 Krags that were chromed with full length stocks but I did not look at these.
