Strength of Krag actions

[jon_norstog]

Para,

don't forget the Ruger #1, and both the original and the new Winchester Hi-walls. What else? The gatling gun.

The green box 30-40 loads throw a 180 gr. round nose at 2400+ fps. I call that way better than the .30-30. I like Sierra 220 RN for elk in the woods. I switched to the Krag from my 8x57, primarily because I like the rifle better. Long as I'm hunting in timber I'll stick with the iron-sighted Krag, cause it is so much easier to lug over deadfalls and through heavy brush.

The biggest problem with the Krag is it's probably too much gun for deer. Maybe with 150 gr. bullets loaded for "conditions" it would be OK ... others may disagree.

jn

[Bob S]

No (?) about the Winchester Single Shot. It was offered in .30 Army (which we call 30-40 Krag today); No. 3 receiver (that's the "high wall"); standard barrel was 30" round No. 3 weight; shotgun buttplate.

More recently, the Ruger No. 3 Single Shot. I have two.

Resp'y,
Bob S.

[andiarisaka]

Remington #5 rolling blocks too, rifle and carbine, very few of both.

[Balvar24]

In regards to the single locking lug...I have read where people stoned the front lug until the safety lug also became a true locking lug. The claim was that the two bearing surfaces made the action substanially stronger. I'm not recommending to do it. Nor have I attempted such.

[andiarisaka]

I just got a bolt from a fellow who did this, headspace would be excessive, not a big deal if you plan for it on the first firing, either by greasing the cases or seating a bullet long and hard into the rifling. One could also make his Krag ammo for this setup from .405 Winchester brass, which has a thicker rim. The fellow opted to replace his bolt body with a new one. Luckily the majority of the metal removed via the use of valve grinding compound came off the locking lug and not the locking lug recess in the receiver. On the other hand I have a 92/96 that someone set up with the safety lug touching, it does not have excess headspace. The bolt body is an original 92 item with the uncut safety lug, some armorer's work I would guess. I've also read about someone removing too much locking lug, so that the safety lug took all the pressure, and the receiver cracked where the safety lug made contact.

[Jim K]

That safety lug usually has enough clearance that IMHO removing metal from the front lug to make it bear would not be a good idea unless one set the barrel back also to prevent excess headspace.

Comments on the Ruger (No. 3, but I don't think the Ruger #1 was made in .30-40 as a standard caliber) and Winchesters are appreciated. Remington RBs in.30-40 are so scarce I will cop out on that one as not being a standard caliber. As to the Gatling gun, I did say commercial sporter and I don't think the Gatling quite fits.

Still, it seems a very small commercial use of a cartridge that was U.S. standard for some 11 years, and is not at all a bad round.

Jim

[jon_norstog]

Jim,

I agree w/you on the whole lug-lapping thing. If you want both lugs bearing, get a Norwegian or Danish Krag.

I do think that if the US had stuck with the 30-40 the way the Brits stuck with the .303, you would have seen lots more rifles chambered. Well, the Winchester model 54 wouldn't look like a springfield - it might have been been a Krag-based design? An Remington might have refined the Lee. Savage would have figured a way to use the 30-40 in their 99. Maybe a shortened 30-40 with the shoulders blown out.
\
the P14/P17, instead of the Lee, might have been the take-off for a series of sporters from Remington. What else? H&R would have made a break-open 30-40.

You got to remember that it wasn't until after WWII that the '06 became king of the hill in sporter-land. During the depression no one could afford a sporting rifle, and the 30-40 was kind of the default big game rifle in the north woods (to some extent), and especially the west and Alaska.

As to the rest of your post: What??!! The gatling isn't a sporting rifle?

jn

[andiarisaka]

Hi Jon, scarce indeed, one of the RB 30/40 carbines came up on gunbroker not long ago, seller was from here in Indiana, had no idea what he had. Guys on the Remington Collectors forum denied their existence. It was rusty, had parts missing, sold for over $600, which I'm sure surprised the bejeebers out of him. So you're into custom bikes, someday I'll post a pic of my customized 1970's vintage Schwinn road bike.

[Jim K]

The .30-40 saw a lot of sporting use in the 1920's and 1930's only because the Army was selling off the rifles for as little as $1.50, dirt cheap even for that time (equivalent to $50-60 today). This was at about the same time experimenters began to develop "wildcat" cartridges, and the .30-40 became the basis for at least half a dozen variations. In many cases the old Krag was rebarrelled, other folks worked over rolling blocks, Winchester and Stevens single shots, and other rifles to take those cartridges. While many of the .30-40 based wildcats filled a gap and were moderately popular, most enjoyed a brief writeup in one of the gun or sporting magazines and quietly went wherever old wildcats go.

Jim

[jon_norstog]

Jim,

The Krag saw a lot of families through the depression in the west .. putting deer and elk meat on the table. When I was a teenager, just starting to hunt, I used to listen to the stories the old guys told. Some of them were still using the same rifles .. one guy had an '86 winchester 45-70, another had a beautiful Savage 99 with a tapered octagon barrel, in 38/55. Then there was the Krag. Almost all of those guys had a Krag story to tell.

PO Ackley was wildcating the Krag all over the place, is why he was interested in the strength of the Krag action. There were so many of them around.

After the war the country entered a period of great prosperity. Wages in the woods went way up, a sawyer or log truck driver could make the equivalent of $90-100,000 a year. Winchester sold a **lot**of model 70s in the west. Add to that the DCM 03-A3s you could get for $12.50, and all the surplus Mausers flooding in. Good times turned the Krags into backup guns.

well, that's one POV on the matter,anyway.

jn