Is It Safe To

[Alfred]

The metal and heat treatment of the Krag was the same as that of the SHT M1903; it was simply carried over from the old rifle production to the new.

A couple of factors reduce the chance of a Krag action failing. One has been mentioned, the fully enclosed case head possible with a rimmed cartridge. Another is that the Krag operates at much lower pressures, and yet another is that Krags were not made under the kind of wartime pressure in effect at Springfield in the 1917-1918 time frame.

I have fired many Krags, and only saw one blow. The case we removed from the chamber had the headstamp of a German 7.9 s.S round. We never learned how the shooter managed to get the round into the chamber, or if he somehow resized the case. But the rifle let go, breaking the single locking lug and spreading and cracking the receiver.

Yes, the Krag does have a safety lug, the rear of the guide rib. On the Norwegian and Danish Krags, that lug bears so the rifle is a much stronger dual lug system. But on the U.S. Krag, that lug (for reasons unknown to me) was made to not bear and act only as a safety lug in case the front lug failed.

Jim

There were some European Krags chambered for the 7.92 cartridge by the Germans. I don't know if any were issued and the project is said to have been a failure, but I've read posts on European forums by owners of Krag sporters that were in 7.92, probably gunsmithed conversions or put together with leftover barrels from the German project.
Some were saying the rifles were unsafe while others were saying they were safe. Of course European sporting ammo for the 7.92X57s and earlier J bore 8mm can be obtained in lighter pressure loadings that are for use in rifles like the Gew 1888.

I've fired some mixed headstamp 7.92 in a Persian carbine I once owned and one round rocked me back on one heel and spun me 180 degrees, the muzzle blast was so fierce I thought the carbine had exploded, a long duration tracer flare came out of the clay bank behind the target so bright I had after images and can't say whether it was green or purple. This had to have been a special heavy loading for aircraft MGs.
A round like that could destroy most rifles less sturdy than a Mauser 98 action, and probably some 98's.

Theres also the Danish 8X58R. If an owner thought it was an 8mm mauser caliber rifle and managed to chamber a mauser cartridge in the much larger diameter chamber a blow out is the likely result.

[kragluver]

Regarding the safety lug bearing vs not bearing (on the US Krag's), if anyone can shed any light as to why this was done on the US Krag, I'd like to hear it. I've hypothesized that perhaps this made manufacturing easier as the bolts would have been easier to fit (no need to hand fit the bolts and serialize them). Nevertheless, it did weaken the US Krag system.

[Jim K]

Hi, kragluver,

I have tried to find the answer to that question and have not been able to do so. None of the books I can find gives any hint of a reason. The only thing I can come up with is that Army Ordnance was unfamiliar with the locking lug idea and thought the single lug was adequate (and with better steel, it might well have been); if so, then the safety lug sort of makes sense. (And of course the example was the Danish Krag, the Norwegian Krag came after the U.S. Krag. But the Danish guide rib seats as a lug. I have never understood why Krag, who was personally involved in the U.S. testing and setting up production, let them make that mistake.

One fallout was that when the M1903 was designed as a combination of the Krag and the M1893 Mauser, the Springfield designers wanted to keep the safety lug. To do so, they used the same system as the Krag. That not only required shortening the extractor, but also required them to lengthen the lug to put it outside the right locking lug raceway. That meant that when they had to put on a rear receiver bridge, they had to raise it way up, resulting in a high sight line, high sights, and a poor cheek position on the stock. (They had never seen a Mauser 98, so they didn't know about the simple and easy way the Germans solved the safety lug problem.)

Hi, Alfred,

I have never seen a Krag chambered for the German 8x57 although I have no doubt it has been done. The Danish 8x58R is as hot or hotter than most 8x57 loads, so there is no doubt that the action is strong enough. But I can assure you that the rifle I mentioned was not some exotic European rifle; it was a plain old U.S. Krag, and it was not rechambered or reworked that I could see. How the shooter ever got that 8mm case in there, I don't know. I will say that during and shortly after WWII, a lot of odd things were done to keep shooting, since commercial ammo was about impossible to obtain. So the blown Krag could have been an experiment gone wrong.

I don't know what ammo you encountered, but the standard s.S. ball was pretty hot, a 196 grain bullet at close to 2700 fps. I don't know of any German issue load in that caliber that would be unsafe in a Mauser 98; the Germans were pretty careful in that regard. They did specially mark cases of aircraft MG ammo ("nür für Bordwaffen"), not because it was hot, but because it had passed the special primer tests necessary for ammo that might be fired through the propeller arc. In fact, I knew a man who, as an army captain in 1945, had the chore of inventorying a small German ordnance depot. Among the miscellany was 5 million rounds of brass case 7.9 that had been rejected by the Luftwaffe as not up to specifications and was pending issue to ground troops.

Jim

[Alfred]

Some Krags given away as drill rifles and rifles for honor guard use at funerals were de-milled by drilling out the chamber so a Krag round could not be fired safely at least, and various otherwise unsuited blank cartridges could be used.

A fellow on an Italian rifle forum said he had run across a number of Carcano rifles whose chambers had been drilled out that way at gunshows in Kalifornia years ago. These may have been drilled out to chamber the 5 in one theatrical blank cartridge. I think the Krag blank guns used a cadet blank of a larger caliber once used in either Remington Rolling Block or trap Door actioned cadet rifles.
Thats about the only thing I can come up with that would allow a 7.92 mauser cartridge to chamber, unless it was a 7.92X33 STG cartridge.

A refitted Mauser barrel is a possibility I suppose. I could not find a replacement barrel or anyone willing to try to turn and fit a custom barrel around here, and gave some thought to other calibers, though not to one more powerful than the Krag.

I wish I'd thought of having the original barrel sleeved with a liner, I heard some Garand owners do that to preserve markings of worn out barrels..

[jon_norstog]

Regarding the safety lug bearing vs not bearing (on the US Krag's), if anyone can shed any light as to why this was done on the US Krag, I'd like to hear it. I've hypothesized that perhaps this made manufacturing easier as the bolts would have been easier to fit (no need to hand fit the bolts and serialize them). Nevertheless, it did weaken the US Krag system.

These guys, 5 Mad Farmers and Dick Hosmer, who used to post on this list would probably be likely to know. If anyone does. I'm inclined to go with the ease of manufacturing explanation, but would love to hear from those guys. They know things!

jn

[kragluver]

I too would like to hear what 5MF and Dick have to say on this. I always enjoyed reading their posts on the "old" Jouster forum.

Jim K - thanks for the insight on the carryover of the Krag safety lug design into the 1903. I had never considered the points you raised. I too wonder why old Ole didn't correct the SA designer's errors with regard to the Krag "safety lug". As I see it, the way the bolt handle is recessed into the receiver on closing really provides the Krag with a safety lug. No need for two safety lugs!

[Alfred]

If I remember correctly the left hand lug of the original Lee action design was also meant to be a non bearing safety lug the guide rib was the actual bearing locking lug, it was later changed to be a bearing locking lug as chamber pressures went up with the cross over to Smokeless powders. The four lug 1899 Lee bolt actions reverted to having both rear lug and guide rib as non bearing safety lugs with the forwards lugs the locking lugs.

Early experiments with the Lee Enfield Rifles revealed that accuracy was impaired greatly if the left hand lug did not bear evenly with the right hand lug at the rear of the guide rib. Heavy proof test rounds generally served to "set" the lugs as evenly as they'd ever get.

Some Krags can be found with both lugs bearing, sometimes due to wear or set back of the single lug, but as often due to manufacturing tolerances or replacement bolts that just happened to fit that way.

If the guide rib of a replacement bolt was bearing the armorer couldn't be sure if the front lug was bearing I suppose. Not without tests that would be hard to do in the field.

Notes on replacement of damaged bolts stated that the bolts were completely interchangable and required no hand fitting, so the rifle owner should just send in the damaged bolt with an account of the failure and a new bolt would be sent to him free of charge.

I found this recently in a reprint edition of the American Rifleman journal.
I'll scan the page and post it later.

As a side note I looked up some WW2 MG loads and found that the cartridge I fired in the carbine was probably a "bright Trace" with extra bright and long duration burn.
Another loading listed was an extra powerful armor piercing load with 15% increase in pressures over the previous MG loads that could stress even LMG actions. It had twice the penetration of the hottest previous AP loads. I would say that such a round would be dangerous in most rifles though not likely to blow up a 98 actioned Mauser in good condition. It would probably cause increased headspace in a Mauser after relatively few shots though. One round of that would be very dangerous in a converted Krag or a Commision Gew 88, and probably not safe in any converted 98/40 or Carcano actions.
This ammo was rare because it used a Tungsten Steel core and sufficient sources of the metal quickly became difficult to secure.

[Jim K]

AP rounds are often a bit hotter than standard loads because of the way an AP (rifle caliber) round works, but they would not be hot enough to damage a gun. No one ever said the Germans were stupid and it would be pretty dumb to issue ammo that would damage or disable a firearm in combat.

FWIW, an AP round does not penetrate armor from sheer energy, like punching a hole in a tin can. What happens is that when the bullet strikes the armor plate, its kinetic energy is converted instantly into heat*, which softens and often actually melts the armor at that point, allowing the bullet core to penetrate and do damage to what or who ever is behind the armor.

If the armor is thick, the melting/softening will not extend far enough in to let the core penetrate, and the core will stick in the armor. IIRC, there is a German tank at Aberdeen with a dozen or so .30 cores stuck in its turret armor. Apparently some GI believed that AP mean AP and kept trying.

*The same conversion of kinetic energy to heat is what bulges barrels when a bullet meets a barrel obstruction. The barrel is not bulged solely by the pressure; it is softened by the heat first.

Jim

[Alfred]

Well theres quite a safety margin in the Model 98 design and not that much of one in the Krag single lug design.
http://www.geocities.com/Augusta/8172/panzerfaust5.htm

On rereading the above it would appear that the round I fired may have been the even heavier charged later version of the Bright Trace round.

The hard core rounds ceased production in 1942 and were hard enough to come by that its not likely many were used in rifles. From the data it was probably close to proof test pressure levels for a rifle.

This sort of bullet may be why US troops found that the German LMGs could penetrate the armor of our halftracks in North Africa. That was a major suprise at the time.

[Jim K]

I can't imagine why the Americans should have been surprised at the ability of German bullets to penetrate that light armor. Except for the engine louvers, the M3 Personnel Carrier (half-track) had only 1/4" armor and the standard U.S. AP round will penetrate (up to) 1/2 inch of standard armor plate and 3/10 inch of face hardened armor at 200 yards.

Jim