Krag 1896 - my first Krag

[jon_norstog]

Promo,

The '98 carbines were in a couple bolcks in roughly 33K to 37K S/N. The Krag heavies on the "other" list can give you better numbers. No cartouche is not a sign of an inauthentic rifle. It is the sign of a replacement stock, most likely done at one of the arsenals. There were a lot of modifications made, particularly to carbines. The US Army finally quit pretending that cavalry were going to fire their carbines in mounted charges, so they dropped the "saddle ring" around 1898 or '99. A lot of older carbines got called in for "upgrades" which included a new, no-cartouche stock, new sight, and for some of them, sling swivels.

Rifles and carbines both got rusty in Cuba - it rained every day and all they had to prevent rust was bacon grease. So they went back to arsenal for refurbishing.

The 1898 sight was calibrated for the new, hotter 30-40 round the Army adopted after the Spanish American War. It was a pretty strong load and rifles started blowing up. So most of the '98 sights got taken off and replaced with the 1901 sight.

And so on.

There is this guy 5 Mad farmers, who has primary source material on all the modifications done to the Krag. He says he is going to publish. Look for his book, it will be a monster.

jn

[andiarisaka]

Hi Jon! Promo sent me some pics of the carbine. It's a cut down 98 rifle, or a real carbine with rifle sights stuck in a cutdown rifle stock. It had been spot annealed on the right, where a Lyman 57K would go, so I'd guess it got to Europe post-war, somehow. The price on it was around $1400. I have some cutdowns I could export for that kinda money!

[jon_norstog]

Hey, Andy! I keep running into the same people in all the low dives I haunt. Maybe I should join a garden club and forget about old guns.

I think it's kind of cool that a bubba job Krag would make it all the way to Europe, and be appreciated for its virtues instead of being belittled for what it is not. I hope Promo takes it to the range and shoots rings around everyone else with it. They could call it the 7.62 x 59R.

jn