I have looking for a Krag in the usual places like Gun Broker, For Trade on forums. Curious where did the members on here find their Krag?
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I have looking for a Krag in the usual places like Gun Broker, For Trade on forums. Curious where did the members on here find their Krag?
I happened to wander in to a local gun shop and there was a 1898 Krag in the rack and it is now mine. ☺
Chilliwack gun show, 2014, sporterized down to look like a school gun or Constabulary carbine. It has a near perfect barrel, so I payed him his $200 and started the hunt for brass and dies. I have the dies and quite a bit of brass, problem is much of it doesn't last too long and cracks. Mine's an 1898...
Found my sportered 1896 in a pawn shop in Duluth, Minnesota.:)Quote:
Originally Posted by RangeHound
Attachment 54083 Attachment 54084
I found the rifle and one of the carbines at gunshows. The other two carbines came from the same pawn shop but several years apart. The 3 carbines are all really cut down rifles but one has a real carbine stock. Salt Flat
My best luck on complete and relatively correct Krag rifles has been gun shows. Parts and project guns have been 'deer rifles' that showed up at a local gun shop and on GunBroker. I have gotten a lot of small parts on ebay. (It always pays to be patient. Stuff shows up eventually). I have had some of my 'most fun' with sporterized Krags that didn't cost much and had great bores!
Very nice collection..... Thanks for sharing.
Attachment 54154Attachment 54155
Attachment 54156
Ok then I better put in a pic so you can at least see what I'm starting with.
Jim/BAR: That's a nice cut-down Krag to play with. If it were mine, I would sure be tempted to find and fit a front band/bayonet-lug to complete the 'school rifle' look.
You mentioned your 'brass' is splitting. (In what area? Neck or Case Head?). If the necks are splitting have you tried annealing the case mouths? If cases are stretching and beginning to separate at the head, have the Head-space checked and a "new" bolt might solve the problem. With the ".30-40 Army", it is always good to 'back-off' the Resizing Die a turn or two and 'neck-size only'. This also avoids working the case-shoulder, which has been nicely 'fire-formed' to your rifle's chamber.
You have a point about the neck only. I was doing that originally and it was ok with what I had, but this brass in some cases is over 100 years old. It's all I can get around here and when I pulled it down for the brass and bullets, some bullets had corrosion at the base. One case had powder that had virtually turned back to a liquid. All primers would be dead I should think, or unreliable at best. I had F(A) 00, F(A)99, WRA 31, RA 17,WRA Co 30 USG and a few others, all 220 gr ball bullets. I'd suspect the breakdown of components in some cases is at least partly responsible. The splitting is at the base, half way up, and at the shoulder. Mostly lengthwise.
The barrel in this is about perfect, so I had no problem paying him the whole $200 CDN. I have a front band and a bayonet, a member here was kind enough to pull it out of his pocket during a dope deal we had happening...It shall become a school gun eventually. I know there are some here that will ask "Why"...you don't really need to put a bayonet on it...but, I want to. The bayonet had been hit with a grinder and I had to draw file the ugly out of it. It looks good now. The scabbard is a picket pin case that was attacked by a rodent at some point. I'll have to bone that damage down too... Many things on the work bench before I can think of myself...you guys understand I'm sure.
BAR, That was a good price especially with the good bore. Really nice thing is that the handgaurd, rear sight and buttplate are present. They are usaually gone or messed with. Neat project! Salt Flat
Thanks SF...I'll have this in picture form while I do the work. Hope it turns out well enough to be proud of and put here for viewing. I should have taken pics of the blade before and after. Yes, it was a good price. Otherwise, I wouldn't have touched it.
Jim: Don't shoot any loads using that early Brass! The cases have just become brittle because of time. There is no way to salvage 80 to 116 year old cartridge cases. You can clean and use the projectiles, but, nothing else. Don't test your Guardian Angel further!
.30-40 Brass may be seasonal, but it is still made. (Graf & Sons' has it). If all else fails, 303 British Brass can be fire formed to make useable Brass for a Krag. (Note also, early U.S. Krag ammo was mercuric primed, which is death to brass).
Agreed. I know it's brittle and out of shape. I have a quantity of good brass and I can buy loaded live here for $42 CDN for 20 rds of hunting ammo. That way I at least have good brass...I also have some newer stuff that's in great shape. I kept some of the oldest and best shape stuff for the cartridge collection...the one you have pictured is one of them but it looks tinned. Mine are not. Unfortunately, 303 brass is just as scarce around here as 30-40.
Jim: Maybe I misunderstood your earlier Post. It sounded like you were reloading 1898 vintage cartridge cases.
The U.S. Frankford Arsenal (FA) went through a period when they tinned .45-70 and .30-40 cases in attempts to reduce corrosion.
Interestingly, during the Spanish American War, the U.S. contracted with Kynoch for a supply of Cordite loaded .30-40 ammo to alleviate shortage of ammo. I believe these cartridges were marked with a "C".
Hopefully, some forum members can direct you to a good source for "Brass Canada"!
I've been re-loading all of it and most successfully. I'll get usually two shots before they crack and some are still good. I don't have much choice here, I have to shoot what I can find. There have been no incidents because of cracked brass to date. I've had lots of 303 and 30-30 and 30 cal do the exact same thing. I have some tinned and "C" cartridges in the collection.
I have acquired about 20 Krags over the 45 years I've been collecting - most came from gun shows, but recently Gunbroker has proven to be a good source, as long as you are very careful.
How long is the barrel on your Krag? It looks to be considerably less than 22". School guns and PCRs had carbine barrels which were turned down at the muzzle.
As to your brass, while it really isn't recommended because of the shorter case length, can you not obtain some newer/better .303 cases? That would seem to be a safer alternative to burning up really old Krag stuff which is so prone to failure. You might even be able to sell the rounds you find to a cartridge collector, and finance new brass that way. Good cases, neck sized, should last for perhaps 20 firings, with light/modest loads.
If you mean me, my Krag has a 21 1/5" barrel. It's not a proper anything, but looks to have been cut down to resemble a school gun at some time. Done long ago, it's got the age patina that only time will produce. I suspect it was done way back when no one cared about these old rifles.
Wow, that picture is surely misleading, then.
Here is a picture of my "school gun"
Financing new brass isn't the issue Dick. It's finding brass at all. And 303 is just about as scarce because it's prized as highly here as 30-40 is in the US. My pic has no way to judge scale really I guess so it's hard to get a handle on the barrel length. Looking at it myself, it looks about 14", doesn't it? I did measure it though and it's exactly 21.5"...close...no cookie. I'll make do. It'll end up done like the school gun or CC after I'm done though.
That is amazing - I wonder if modern digital cameras have a new way of minimizing the optical flaw known as "barrel distortion" (which has nothing to do with gun barrels!) at close range? In the old days, with SLR cameras, a distinct curvature would be visible. I based my comment on proportions. Yours appears, from the photo, to be of very nearly equal length from front of magazine to band as from band to muzzle, which would mean it was way short. I presume you made the 21.5" measurement in the bore from face of closed bolt? The photo is really a puzzle! Enjoyed the chat.Quote:
Originally Posted by browningautorifle
Yes, I measured with a rod inserted into the barrel with the bolt closed. Of all pics taken, I've never had this happen with that camera.
So, finally got round to altering my cut down rifle for the front band. Now it looks like a school gun for the most part. I know why my pics came out funny before, I'd used the macro setting and it gave a false look to the pic...here's the before and after...
The bayonet had met a grinder so I had to paper out some severe scoring and it's not quite done, the picket pin case has been chewed by a vermin so it needs some work too. I still have to make a screw for the front. It was given to me by a member here, very kindly, and here's the far end of the work...
I have never figured out this 'thing' with Krag bayonets and picket pin cases. The U.S. Cavalry certainly used picket pins. They carried carbines and did not use bayonets.
Krag bayonets were carried in metal scabbards. I suppose mounted Infantry would have carried picket pins in their saddle bags. I would guess for safety those picket pins would be in their cases and bayonets in their scabbards. The 'marriage' of Picket pin cases and bayonets just doesn't make a lick of sense!
Well, the picket pin had the case, which strapped to the saddle. Each man was issued one and they came with a pick head and the shovel head and retaining pin...and a bag of one horse shoe and some nails tied up with a leather thong. The parts for the digging tools are long since scarce but the pins show up. I've read that the surplus of bayonets was aimed at the hunter/field-hand market way back when they were surplus, and the scabbards didn't come along. They all seemed to be in a picket pin case. I think it boils down to a surplus organization put them in these picket pin cases and now here we are...like so many things after time it seems like it was always that way.
Stokes Kirk 'had your back' if you were Big-Game Hunting and ran out of ammo!
W. Stokes Kirk 'special' front sight to make a quasi 'school rifle'.Attachment 55332
There we have part of the story. Being a hunter, I can see the value in taking to the field with a rifle and bayonet...er...on the other hand, who are they kidding? But the price is right.
W. Stokes Kirk 'special' front sight to make a quasi 'school rifle'. (No one has figured out the basis for the mentioned 'Navy style rifle').
Attachment 55332
Here's the shovel and attachments for the picket pin if you haven't seen them...
Nice detail on the U.S. picket pin equipment. I think I'd rather go into a fighting campaign with that equipment than a bayonet. It reminds me of a WW-2 British shovel/pick tool, I use to have. The detachable handle had a fitting to mount a No. 4 Rifle 'spike' bayonet to probe for land-mines.
I know the one. The picket pin had so many uses in the original design. Wonder how it worked out? Can't be too well considering how few kits we see today.
Sometimes rarity may mean something was used a lot!
TRue, sometimes to it's end. You'd think those tools would have had a hard life, digging in that hard old caliche out in NM and such. That handle of the picket pin would have been hard on the hands even with your ropers on...
I had previously posted that I found a Krag at a LGS. It was a cutd own model which was made to looking like a carbine and had a 1892 rear sight on it. I got it for a decent price so I wasn't upset that it wasn't a "real" carbine. A few weeks later I went back to the same shop and they happened to have a full size rifle in the rack so I now have two Krags. from what I can tell it was made in October of 1903 which makes it one of the last Krags built at Springfield Armory.
A bit of an addendum on my home cooked school gun...now thanks to a friend on this forum I have the front band screw and installed. I changed the sling I made for a 1907 sling that looks much better, until I can get another. My picket pin case didn't clean up very well and I have a WTB on the other forum for a steel scabbard, if anyone knows of one...? I have pics of some of the fine details now, the name carved in the left side and the writing on the stock at the trigger guard. It says "Shanghi" and there's more under the wood that shows this rifle to have been with the USCS at one point. Also, can someone tell me if this was the correct sight for this rifle when it started? It leaned to one side and I had to shim it to stand straight, seemed odd...thought it might have been replaced by an owner at one time. The front one appears to be the shorter one...
Nice rifle, Jim. It turned out great.
I acquired two rifles and four carbines. I still have one rifle and one carbine. Of those I have records on:
Rifle M1898 local gun store 1977 $185.50
Carbine M1896 local gun store 1976 $206.70 sold
Carbine M1899 local dealer 1972 $84.00 sold
Carbine M1901 Yuma gun show 1968 $55.00 sold
Carbine M1896 acquired in trade c.1977
I think your best chance of acquiring want you want is through Gunbroker, but you should be prepared to pay a premium price. And no pipe dreams about finding one at 2000 market value.