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Posted: 9/15/2006 10:35:54 AM EDT
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OK, who here has the time to put up with a few possibly dumb questions? I have a Springfield 1898 Krag rifle that's been sitting in the gun safe for a few months largely because I haven't decided what to do with it yet. The cartouche on the stock is a little worn and therefore hard to read but it looks like it's stamped with 1902 from what I can tell. The action on it is still pretty smooth but the trapdoor that feeds cartridges into the chamber appears to be broken. I say "appears" because I don't know how these things are to function as I've never shot it (I don't know that it's safe to shoot but more about that later). When I open the trapdoor, there's a lever there that comes attached to the door but doesn't have any "spring" behind it. That is, if I HAD some 30-40 Krag, it would seem that the shells would enter the magazine ok but the cartridges wouldn't feed up into the action after an ejection because there's nothing to "push" them up there ... ? The stock on this Krag is kinda beat up and the bluing (if it had any) is long since gone. I don't know of a way to check out the rifling inside the barrell without taking it to a gunsmith. But, I can tell you that when I look down the barrel, I can't see any rifling. I don't know if it's completely worn down or what. SHOULD I be able to see any rifling in the barrell merely by looking down it from the front? Long story short I guess ... I feel I'm going to have to take this to the gun smith to figure out whether I've got a piece of history that's no longer safe to fire or a piece of history that still functions. If all it is now is a paper weight, what about refinishing it? Anyone done this before with an old Krag. I'd hate for it to be just a paper weight as I think it's pretty cool. |
| Patience. ALL old Krags are worth something. In fact they become more collectable by the minute. Even if yours is a beater, but possible to restore, it will have a value, depends on condition. Is your barrel shot out? Possible, but it is still definately worth doing some research on. When in shooting condition, these make a fine short range deer rifle. ALL krag actions are "smooth", in fact, they may be the smoothest out there because of only a single locking lug, which makes the rifle action a bit weak, but plenty safe to use with the proper ammo. Get it checked by a gunsmith, and at worst, you may have a good gunshow trade item. |
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Open the mag door slowly looking into it from the top as the door passes half way the lift lever will engage and swing across and meet with the trapdoor in a cut. When you close the door the lift lever will immediatly begin to cycle torwads the magazine port and close there is no click or detent that it falls into. As far as rifling clean the barrel and dry rod it several times to get out the cleaner and lube and look again, a bore light helps if not take out the bolt and point the barrel at a light and look from the recever down. |
OK, I had no idea how to take the bolt out of the thing but I did find this web site on disassembling the Krag and was able to remove the bolt quite easily. I held it up to the light and, much to my surprise, the bore looks AWESOME. As far as your advice on the magazine, I'm not familiar with the terminology you used but I'm going to look on the same web site I found the disassembly information on and see if I can put what you had above and the information from the web site together to answer my question. If I can't, I might be back. Thanks, though. |
With the magazine door fully open it will normally look something like this. The follower folds back into the magazine door. As you close the door, you should see the follower come out of the recess in the door like so. This advances the cartridges for feeding.  The idea was the soldier could just toss rounds in to replenish the magazine. |
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