1898 rifle forearm repair?

[Sgt911]

Thank you. I ended up buying two rifles, a carbine and a sporter. One rifle needs nothing, one needs the forearm splice, the carbine needs just a handguard and the sporter, well, it will forever be a sporter. I'm still waiting on all of them, will post pictures.

[Sgt911]

UGH. I contacted Dunlaps, they told me to contact Taylor. Taylor said all Krags were American walnut. I'm stuck.

I know they are not correct, but I'm I correct in thinking the stock in the picture is European/Italian walnut?

[Sgt911]

I showed the folks at Taylor my picture and this:

" According to Franklin B. Mallory, "The Krag Rifle Story", page #75, the N.Y.C. firm of Louis Windmuller and Roelker furnished 13,000 stocks of Italian walnut in June, 1899. "They were given a contract for 20,000 additional stocks in July, 1899". (I do not know, but suspect, they were actually providing stock blanks to be finished at Springfield). Attached photos show '1900' Italian stock above an '1899' American black walnut stock. "


They said they were not aware of this "but" American walnut is all they had.

[andiarisaka]

There's another option, the fellow who makes complete repro stocks on ebay. He makes some in European walnut and ought to be able to do a forearm. Here's his profile page: oldsailorao36 on eBay He makes fake cartouches too, but might not be an all bad guy despite that.

Your thinking is correct, that orange tiger striped wood is the Italian, which looks European to me. I have one of the Japanese Type I rifles made in Italy, same wood. In fact I thought about sacrificing the type I stock to whittle out a Krag forearm, but the dimensions didn't figure out.

[Sgt911]

Thanks I'll give him a shot

[andiarisaka]

Good luck, you'd have thought someone would have the sense to make a few out of European walnut. That color varied quite a bit, some were without the tiger striping, some were nearly yellow and I'd like to have of them. I see he has a couple handguards for the 1901 sight at a fair price, and they appear to be made of the Italian walnut.

[Sgt911]

Dunlaps emailed me back. Now they say they can do it, but have to locate the right kind of wood.

Someone heard you about that handguard, the nicer one was bought a few minutes later

[andiarisaka]

I once ran my mouth on a forum about a Krag rifle that was in what was once a 96 Cadet rifle stock. It disappeared within minutes.