Found a Krag!

[arlon]

I've looked for a nice unmolested Krag to add my collection and finally stumbled across one. Of course as soon as I find one I find they have quit making ammunition for it. No worries, it will never see anything but a cast bullet anyway. Always wanted a Krag, my Great Grandfather carried one to Cuba when he volunteered in San Antonio so many years ago.

Now I just need to slug the bore and find out what to start shooting in it. Have dies and a few moulds but still need brass. I'm thinking the NOE mould from the recent group offering might be perfect when ever they get them going.

Always heard these could be pretty accurate. Any tips from actually loading and shooting them would be of interest.

[Der Gebirgsjager]

Congratulations on your acquisition. There are at least several of us here that shoot them. I've had fairly good luck using IMR 4895 and wheel weight bullets from an RCBS .311 mold (would have to go look at it to tell you the mold number) that cast at right around 174 gr. I don't gas check them, but have some others that run about 165 gr. that I do gas check.

[arlon]

Got a few minutes to go through the Krag. Better than it looked at the shop I found it in. Bore as as perfect as I've seen in a mil-surp, little crud in it was nothing but dust bunnies thankfully. Blue under the wood was perfect, little wear in the blue on the upper part of the barrel, nice stock with a few stains and dings from actually being used. Just enough to give it character.

[samari46]

Congratulations on your new Krag. Finding one that has a nice bore to shoot is even better. I looked for one with a nice shootable bore for years (lotsa gun shows) and was giving up. Finally at a small gun show found one that had been sporterized as in having the bbl cut back to 25" and stock cut down. Had a sporting type front sight and still had the original military rear. Enjoy your Krag. Frank

[Texas by God]

I just finished kicking myself in the rear again for trading off my Krag years ago. Mine slugged .309" and I would resize Rem CoreLokts meant for the .303 British in a Lee push through die.
It still had the 30" barrel but someone cut down the forend, removed the rear sight and installed a nice Lyman receiver sight. I almost got MOA groups @ 100 yds off the bench and killed a nice buck with it. I miss it everytime I hear the name. Be sure to examine the locking lug with strong light & magnification for cracks as mentioned in the Lyman manual. A friend has his Grandpa's Krag with a missing mag cutoff; I have offered to repair it many times and he's not interested. Dang he makes me mad. Enjoy one of the greatest rifles ever, my friend!
Best, Thomas.

[retread]

Graf's has 30-40 Krag brass in stock if you need brass.

[arlon]

Graf's has 30-40 Krag brass in stock if you need brass.

Thanks, just grabbed 100...

[tdoyka]

good find!!!! i know you'll luv the krag.

just remember to scrub out your bore down to the steel. it took me about 5-6 days. it was day 4(i think) when i thought the barrel was clean(patches were white) and i did the krags bore. before i had my chunk of lead 1/2 way down, i was picking up copper, burned powder and things i don't want to know. so back to cleaning my bore. it took me about 1 or 2 days to do. i used gunslicks foaming bore cleaner, sweets and shooter's choice. when i was done, my bore was .3085". i shoot 165gr ranch dogs(they weigh about 174gr) and go .311". i used 3 powders( rel7, varget and h4198) and i felt best with 25.5gr of h4198.

my gun has met with bubba sometime before my great grandpap purchased it. i bought a redfield peep sight on evil bay and i have shrunk my groups down, it goes 3/4"(only did that one time) - 1 3/4" at 100 yards(benched and 5 shots). i also found the original gun stock in my late grandpap's cellar. it must have took 5lbs off when i switched it over.

S & S Firearms Home if you find something you might need

[arlon]

Hope mine will shoot that well! Might be more difficult with the original sites but it isn't going to be altered in the least. Bore looks to be perfect on this one as well.

[Adam Helmer]

arlon,

Good find on your Krag; is it a rifle or carbine and does it have the Buffington (windage adjustable) rear sight? I have several rifles and some have the Buffington sight and others have a tangent rear sight that is not windage adjustable. In 2000 I found a totally "bubbed" M1896 Carbine at a yard sale. The barrel was cut to 16.5 inches and the stock was a Bishop type circa 1965. I was able to use the stock and a great gunsmith fitted an 03-A3 barrel rechambered to .30/40 o make a nice 20-inch barrel woods carbine.

I shoot only cast boolits in my Krags and 2400 and IMR4198 are the best powders. I cast out of wheelweights, add a dash of tin and water quench in a bucket direct from the moulds. I size all boolits .309 and gas check them. My best are the Lee .312-185RN, Lyman #311467 and Lyman #31141.

I hope this helps.

Adam

[tdoyka]

Hope mine will shoot that well! Might be more difficult with the original sites but it isn't going to be altered in the least. Bore looks to be perfect on this one as well.

the original sights on mine were ok but i had a hard time finding where a boolit should go. they were just too small , esp the peep sight. i couldn't find a thing with it. the redfield 102k sight more than made up for it. the original sights would go 2 - 2 3/4" at 100 yards, the redfield goes 3/4 - 1 3/4" at 100 yards(mostly goes 1 1/2").

i would be afraid to alter yours. i would let it be. if your eyes go bad and you can no longer see the sights, i would go with a no drill sight, like mine. they no longer make them, but if you do evil-bay, someone will bid out what you need.

i hope the bore is perfect, i don't want to see anyone do what i have done. if you like to know what year you have, you can go to
Krag Collectors Association Forum - Index
and ask them "srs please". all you need is the serial number. it will tell you what year and if it done something(like it went to kettle hill or you won't find a thing, like i did).

[bob208]

I have about a dozen krags. rifles from a converted 92 to a 1901. carbines 96,98 and a 99. I shot a point with the 99 using the 311299 loaded to 1800 fps. one shot went through end to end front to back.

[Mk42gunner]

I've got an 1899 carbine made in 1901 IIRC, with the correct sights. I will say the sights are meant for a young man's eyes.

Very handy little carbine.

Robert

[Char-Gar]

I've looked for a nice unmolested Krag to add my collection and finally stumbled across one. Of course as soon as I find one I find they have quite making ammunition for it. No worries, it will never see anything but a cast bullet anyway. Always wanted a Krag, my Great Grandfather carried one to Cuba when he volunteered in San Antonio so many years ago.

Now I just need to slug the bore and find out what to start shooting in it. Have dies and a few moulds but still need brass. I'm thinking the NOE mould from the recent group offering might be perfect when ever they get them going.

Always heard these could be pretty accurate. Any tips from actually loading and shooting them would be of interest.

OK...here are my tips.

1. Gas check cast bullets from 160 to 220 grains work best.
2. Seat the bullets short enough to run through the magazine. The rifles has a long throat and bullets seated to touch the lands won't function through the magazine.
3. Krag rifles have quite large throats so size your bullet .312 or larger if they will chamber in the rifle. Every Krag rifle I have fired, and that is many, did very well with .313 cast bullets. I have owned two Krags that required me to neck turn the brass to use .313 cast bullets and still chamber.

[Multigunner]

Wish I had kept the old wall hanger Krag Carbine I had many years ago. The bore was beyond redemption after a generation left in a closet without cleaning after firing corrosive ammo and thickly Cupro Nickel fouled.
I gave up on it when streamers of cupro nickel broke loose from the grooves and I found the metal under it cratered like the moon. Even then if it had not been for so many of those craters having eaten through the lands I might have tried having it lapped.
Back then it was impossible to find a replacement barrel, then about thirty years later new barrels became available for the Krags.

In any case I find the Krag action fascinating . It might fall short as a military action but is an excellent sporting rifle action in its power class. The loading system is as handy as it gets without stripper or enbloc clips.
A modern reproduction would be great. If they could reproduce the Winchester 1895 they could certainly reproduce the Krag in modern steels.

[tdoor4570]

If you need them Krag brass can be formed from 303 Brit. between my son and I we feed 4 krags with cast and j-words 3 krags all ran into bubba and one is completely org.witth bayonet

[fifty four]

Nice find on your Krag. And as usual, excellent advice offered here on CB. In defense of old "Bubba" chopping up these fine old rifles, it has to be remembered that when they were sold off back in the 1920's and '30's, they went for 2 or 3 dollars. Some were mildly modified, or were just hacked up, and some were made into beautiful sporters. I love Krags for their history and extremely high quality of manufacture and have restored/rescued several, as well as owning a few that only needed a good cleaning. They are capable of outstanding accuracy with jacketed (I use 150, 180 and occasionally 220gr. Found they feed best with round nose) and cast (when sized large enough). I prefer the M1902 rear sight to the M1901 (there were different aperture sizes for the '01, though they were all for young eyeballs) and either of those to the non-windage adjustable M1892 and 1896 sights. Of course, in military configuration each model sight requires a different (and usually expensive) handguard, but originals can be found and decent reproductions do exist.

[texasnative46]

arlon,

LUCKY you are!!!
(I wrote several papers in my grad school days on the S-A War and always wanted a real/unmolested Krag carbine of the sort that "went to Cuba" with the Roughriders & USVT, to match my circa-1890 Mauser 7mm "long rifle" that the Spanish troops had.)

yours, tex

[gnoahhh]

OK...here are my tips.

1. Gas check cast bullets from 160 to 220 grains work best.
2. Seat the bullets short enough to run through the magazine. The rifles has a long throat and bullets seated to touch the lands won't function through the magazine.
3. Krag rifles have quite large throats so size your bullet .312 or larger if they will chamber in the rifle. Every Krag rifle I have fired, and that is many, did very well with .313 cast bullets. I have owned two Krags that required me to neck turn the brass to use .313 cast bullets and still chamber.

Charles nailed it. I would add don't bother slugging the bore. Do a chamber cast to determine throat diameter and size your bullets accordingly- a half-thousandth under is about perfect.

I shoot a lot of 155 PB plinkers that are death on beer cans at 50 yards. For serious target work I like 180-220 grain bullets loaded with enough RL-7, SR-4759, 2400, etc. to give me 1600-1700 fps. For deer hunting I load a 220 at 2000fps pushed by 4350 (it duplicates the old gov't load). Truth be told, I successfully shot a few with 1600 fps loads. To quote Doug Marcaida on "Forged in Fire"-- "Eet will keel!"

[arlon]

Finally got time to snag a few images.