Newly-acquired Model 1898 Rifle

[chuck in idaho]

John,
Sounds like you have one of the Italian walnut stocked rifles, GREAT find!
Any chance of a picture?
The Italian walnut was used because of a shortage of American black walnut in 3 s/n ranges form late 1899 to early 1901.

The late Bill Mook collected them. Here's some information he had posted in the past:

"I started collecting the "yellow Italian walnut" stocked Krag rifles in 1977. The problem I had in attempting to get a box of 10 was to get a three-way match of cartouche dates, serial numbers and rear sights by model and variation.

The first group of the rifles have stocks with 1899 and 1900 dated cartouches. They use the Model of 1898 sights. The serial numbers on my 6 fall between 234,502 and 268,788.

The second group have stocks with 1900 and 1901 dated cartouches. They use the Model of 1896, Variation 4 sights. The serial numbers on my 10 fall between 278,978 and 309,881.

The third group, which are those pictured, have stocks with 1901 dated cartouches. They have Model of 1901, Variation 1 rear sights. The serial numbers fall between 322,031 and 329,350.

Will try to get a good picture of them in the shipping box.
Bill Mook"

From Bill's information your rifle IS correct with the M1901 rear sight.

FWIW: I have 4 of the IT. walnut stocked Krags and always looking for more.

HTH
Chuck

Information

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[mbarrad]

The Italian walnut was used because of a shortage of American black walnut in 3 s/n ranges form late 1899 to early 1901.

Hmmm.. I initially thought the Italian walnut was a mistake from the contractor that sold the military the walnut wood for the Krags. I would like to know which is correct.

Congratulations John and welcome to the world of Krags. Sounds like you have a very nice Krag!

[chuck in idaho]

Interesting, I had not heard of the mistaken wood shipments before. I would be interested in hearing more about them?

If you have a copy of The Krag Rifle Story by Mallory & Olsen check page 98. Mallory mentions that Windmueller & Roelker were the company that supplied the stocks and Springfield that approved the shipments. Bill Mook was the person that got me started on the Italian walnut stocked Krags and he had passed the information on to me in one of our conversations.

Regards
Chuck