Finicky-Feeding Krag Sporters
Someone else may have done all the hard work, but Krag-Jørgensen rifle modifications often require tweaking. Sporterized Krags remain ubiquitous and one is bound to land on your bench at some point.
Professionally-executed Krag- Jørgensen sporters command surprisingly high prices at gun shows and at auction, especially those with some kind of famous gunsmith or owner provenance. I am a confessed quality Krag sporter "junkie." I’ve seen some outstanding works of gunsmith art and consider myself fortunate to own several. Many use the original barrel, perhaps shortened. Others retain reworked government issue stocks, featuring high combs fashioned from the excised forend and skillfully mortised into the stock.
Some of these high-level Krags also exhibit pistol grips similarly crafted and mortised, with woodgrain painstakingly aligned with that of the rest of the stock. Krag rifles have been reworked skillfully into hunting rifles and target guns and fine examples of gunsmithing craftsmanship are coming onto the market in search of new "caretakers" as the estates of deceased original owners are sold.
It took a foreign design to bring the United States Army out of the single-shot era and into the age of the repeating military rifle. The U. S. was playing catch-up in any event; many other countries had already adopted repeaters. Germany and Spain had various versions of the Mauser, the Austro-Hungarian Empire employed the home-grown clip-fed Mannlicher, and France used the 8mm Lebel.
New to Russia was the M91 Mosin-Nagant and Great Britain had adopted the Lee-Enfield, the magazine and feed system of which were designed by an American, James Paris Lee. Top: Example of one of the many variants of the Norwegian Krag-Jørgensen rifle in as-issued form. Center: A sporterized U. S. Krag in the author’s collection with shortened original barrel featuring an M1903 front sight band and a Lyman Cocking Piece rear peep sight.
The higher comb and pistol grip were grafted on apparently using wood from the cut off forend. S. Krag. This one is stocked to the muzzle Mannlicher-style and has a Redfield receiver sight to compliment the soldered-on commercial ramp front sight. Bluing is deep, dark, and high-gloss. The Americans entered the final decade of the 19th century armed with the most recent iteration of the single-shot 1873 Springfield Trapdoor in .45-70. The United States didn’t always enjoy a leadership position in weapons technology.
The 1890s saw the U. S. Ordnance Department at cross purposes, torn between an interest in adopting a magazine-fed repeating rifle firing a flatter-shooting high-velocity cartridge at odds with old-school doctrine which held that repeaters wasted ammunition and that single-shot rifles were more cost effective.
Although Ordnance evaluated nearly all the contemporary arms available, for various reasons it kept coming back to the Krag-Jørgensen bolt-action rifle which appeased the more frugal of the American generals because it could be fired singly by hand-loading a cartridge either directly into the receiver, singly from a full magazine using the magazine cutoff, or if urgent matters
Top: This Krag sporter was done by the famous north central Pennsylvania gunsmithing firm of Taylor and Robbins and set up for target shooting with a Lyman 17A front sight and a complimentary receiver sight. A pistol grip was flawlessly mortised into the wrist of the military stock. warranted, repeatedly from a full magazine of five (5) cartridges. The key to this flexibility was the Krag’s unique integral horizontal box magazine located below the bolt runway.
A spring-loaded door (magazine gate) on the right side of the receiver was opened, automatically withdrawing a spring-loaded cartridge follower arm.
Loose cartridges were placed singly in the magazine and closing the magazine gate caused the follower arm to extend, pushing the cartridges to the left against a concave sideplate and upward against the closed bolt body if the cartridge cutoff was set to "off." If the cutoff was set "on" the cartridges were stopped a fraction of an inch away from the bolt so that the boltface rim could not engage the cartridge case.
The ease of loading single cartridges was both a blessing and a curse because the Krag had no provision for fast "packet" loading from a clip. Some ideas were tried, most notably the Parkhurst system which employed a modified loading gate and modified rear magazine wall that accepted a Mauser-style clip from which five cartridges could be stripped into the magazine with the push of a thumb. The Krag-Jørgensen was adopted by the United States in the form of the rifle known as the U. S.
Rifle, Springfield Model of 1892. Improve- If you find one of these on a Krag, it’s a sure bet to be a sporter. The ID of the front sight band was just about perfect to solder on a Krag barrel at a length from 22" to 26". This makes an iron sight setup that is very friendly to 50+ year old eyes, as the author can attest. ments and simplifications were made in rifle and carbine forms in models of 1896, 1898, and 1899. The cartridge was designated the .30 U. S. or .30 Army, but popularly known as the .30-40 Krag.
The cartridge, very similar to the .303 British round, was noteworthy not only for being the first .30 caliber cartridge adopted by the U. S. Army, but also because it was the first U. S. military cartridge designed from the outset to employ smokeless powder. The Krag was truly a transitional arm in every sense of the word. In addition to ushering the U. S.
Army into the era of magazine-fed repeating shoulder arms and high-velocity smokeless cartridges, it was standard issue for only a decade; about the same short duration of official service as the M14 that followed 60 years later. Replaced by the M1903 Springfield, Krag rifles and carbines found their way to National Guard and other reserve units, with some Krag rifles remaining in service by VFW and American Legion burial details for rifle salutes during vet-
S. Krag sporter. Receiver sights were popular additions to sporterized military bolt actions because they were less expensive than a scope and lengthened the iron sight radius which helped a shooter improve shot placement. 5×55 with its 2.5X Redfield Bear Cub scope attached with a Weaver side mount. The banded front ramp can be used in conjunction with an optional Williams WRGS rear sight for which the barrel is tapped. eran funeral services just 10 to 15 years ago.
Many Krag rifles were sold as surplus through the National Rifle Association and directly by the government ostensibly for the promotion of rifle practice via the National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice and Department of Civilian Marksmanship (since replaced by the Corporation for the Promotion of Rifle Practice and Firearms Safety, Inc. that governs the Civilian Marksmanship Program) for training, practice, and competition via Service Rifle matches but many The high gloss, ultra smooth hand rubbed stock finish is evident.
Krags so disposed were purchased for a dollar or two with intentions for hunting use and altered to remove excess weight. Gone were upper handguards and upper bands with their bayonet mounts. Saws were taken to stock forends and followed by wood rasps and sandpaper. Carbine stocks saw sling swivels installed because they were not so equipped as-issued.
Barrel shortening was made easy and inexpensive because the Krag rifle barrel diameter at roughly the 24" length was essentially the same ID dimension as the M1903 Springfield front sight base. If a sporterized Krag doesn’t wear a screwedor soldered-on ramp style front sight base, it is likely wearing a "bandtype" M1903 front sight base with a mere stub of a blade insert to allow for proper sighting with the trajectory of the .30-40 cartridge.
Shortening Krag barrels also did away with damaged crowns and worn muzzle rifling that resulted from cleaning from the muzzle with rods or pull-throughs. Lopping off six inches of rifle barrel yielded a 24" tube most often with relatively sharp rifling with which to crown a muzzle. Many sporters I have examined were left cut square at the new muzzle and not even crowned.
Professionally crowned or not, the result was that most shortened Krag rifles did exhibit improved accuracy after cutting as compared to that of their respective muzzle-worn, fulllength configuration. Nearly two decades into the 21st century and more than 135 years since the adoption of the Krag rifle and carbine, sporterized Krag rifles can usually be found at just about any gun show and on the various online gun listings and auctions.
Some brick-and-mortar gun shops will accept Krag sporters on trade but many do not for fear of liability issues that
Above center: Norwegian Krag sporter’s cut-off lever marked "S" in the up position. may arise from a combination of misuse, late 19th century metallurgy, and manufacturing process variation that was extant around 1900. Recall that Krags were produced in the decade before the introduction of the M1903 Springfield, whose receiver heat treat issue and resolution followed years later. People shy away from sporterized Krags because its single lug bolt has a known tendency to crack at the root.
The Krag bolt was manufactured at a time when metallurgy and heat treating were more art than science, instrumentation was primitive, and process control was often guesswork at best. While the Krag bolt was plenty strong enough for the original versions of the 6.5×55 and .30 U. S. Army, American handloaders being who they are tended to push the .30-40 cartridge to its limits.
While the Krag cartridge and even the barreled action may able to withstand the increased pressures, the single lug could only put up with so many hotter rounds before cracking. Proven crack detection systems include dye penetration or magnetic particle inspection, however, barring those capabilities in your shop, examine the root area where the rear of the lug meets the bolt body using magnification. You can also try application of copious oil to the bolt and lug and wipe it off.
After propping up the bolt vertically with the head upward, periodically examine the bolt body for oil running down the bolt from the area of the rear of the lug. If a crack is present, oil that had wicked into the crack will run back out over the next day or two. Disassembly Regarding Krag disassembly, first open the bolt, withdrawing it completely to the rear, checking clear.
Holding the bolt handle in place with one hand, use the other to lift up the front of the extractor, the long thin metal strap on top of the bolt that serves as a guide rib. Oneeighth of an inch should be sufficient. Turn the bolt handle slightly counterclockwise as viewed from the rear. The extractor "cams" out of its slot in the receiver and the bolt locking lug can be aligned with the slot in the receiver and the bolt removed to the rear.
With the bolt in the hand, pull back on the cocking piece while turning the bolt sleeve assembly counterclockwise as viewed from the rear. Continue rotating counterclockwise until the front of the bolt sleeve clears the curved boss at the inner end of the bolt handle. Control the mainspring force by bracing a thumb against the back of the safety lever while turning the sleeve assembly.
Once the sleeve has cleared the rear of the bolt body, remove the bolt sleeve and firing pin/striker assembly from the rear of the bolt.
The extractor bar readily "cams" out of the slot in the receiver, allowing the bolt lug to align with the receiver slot so that the bolt can be withdrawn from the receiver. Bracing the cocking piece on the bench, grip the mainspring firmly and pull back slightly to reduce force on the striker, then pivot the striker off the circular head of the firing pin assembly. The striker is removed toward the front while keeping the mainspring under control.
Release the restraining force from the mainspring once the striker is removed. Withdraw the firing pin assembly from the rear of the bolt sleeve. Select a properly-sized hollowground screwdriver to remove the screw in the front band, then slide the front band over the front sight and muzzle. Remove the screw from the rear band, push the pin out of the band, then slide the band forward off the stock and over the end Sleeve and firing pin/striker assembly can be then withdrawn from the bolt to the rear.
Release the mainspring in a controlled manner to avoid a "launch." of the barrel. Remove the handguard by carefully prying up; it is held in place by riveted spring clips that clasp the barrel. Depending on the model of rear sight, you may need to swing the rear sight leaf vertical. Rotate the handguard rear sight slide. Remove the front and rear trigger guard screws and the trigger guard. Separate the stock from the barrel.
The rear sight can be unscrewed from the barrel if desired; depending on the model of rear sight, the two screws may be different, so pay attention to which screw comes from which location in the rear sight. Remove the butt plate screws and set aside the butt plate. Close the magazine gate and use a screwdriver to lift the flat blade of the magazine hinge bar spring up until it’s out of its seat. Hold the magazine gate closed and use your hand to gently tap the magazine hinge bar forward and out.
Separate the loading gate from the receiver and remove the springsteel magazine spring. Pivot the carrier and follower outward, then remove the carrier. Push the pin out of the carrier and separate it from the follower. Remove the side plate screw and the side plate itself. Note that Norwegian and Danish Krag side plates are retained by the magazine cutoff spindle. Using a small slotted screwdriver, compress the cutoff plunger (or arm on Norwegian Krags) and wiggle the cutoff out of the receiver.
Push the trigger/sear assembly forward and down, then wiggle the sear, pushing from right to left until its round bearing clears the receiver. Control the trigger return spring to prevent its launch. out the cartridge ejector pin, at which point the ejector can be removed from the receiver. Bores of individual examples that exhibit excessive wear or corrosion are another cause for concern.
Some Krag rifles I’ve closely examined will swallow a CMP Muzzle Wear gauge up to the shoulder, and the gauge itself fits the bore like a broomstick in a bathtub. Hard to hit the proverbial barn wall from the inside of the barn with what amounts to little more than a smoothbore. Other bores with rifling present but dark in appearance have been
It is suggested to place a cloth over the receiver to trap the trigger return spring. Of course, you can use two hands if you don’t need to hold a camera! found either to be decent shooters or they pattern like a scattergun. Although not a guarantee that the rifle to which is has been fitted will be accurate, there’s nothing like a bright, shiny bore with sharp lands and an undamaged crown to begin with. All that said, there are Krag sporters and there are Krag sporters.
When collecting them, I generally ignore the crudely-modified barn workbench hack jobs and concentrate only on the sort of well-executed "custom" converted Krag sporter produced from the 1930s to the 1960s, many of which exhibit true American craftsmanship of a bygone time. It is not uncommon for many Krag sporters to use the original barrel, usually shortened to between 20 and 24 inches.
As mentioned previously, the barreled actions usually reside in either reworked GI stocks or high-quality commercial stocks from "back in the day." Some Krag sporters reuse the issue military rear sight, others may have a Redfield or Lyman receiver sight installed, and still others may see a "bolt peep" such as the Lyman #2 Cocking Piece rear peep sight dovetailed into the cocking piece head.
Of course, many Krag sporters were converted from military configuration during the widespread introduction of "shooting telescopes," and thus wear scope mounts and vintage glass optics such as an early Weaver, Lyman Alaskan or All-American, Unertl Hawk, or Kollmorgen/Redfield Bear Cub models for example. One such custom Krag sporter found its way to my bench recently but it wasn’t a common American .30-40.
No, this one was an Old World Model 1912 cousin manufactured in 1923 by Norway’s royal Kongsberg arsenal, wearing a 24" commercial barrel chambered in 6.5×55 and carefully stamped with the gunsmith’s name and the cartridge above the chamber. A beautiful example of American gunsmithing talent, it was fitted in a commercial walnut stock that had been finished to an ultra-smooth high gloss not unlike the Browning polyurethane, however, the Norwegian’s timber wasn’t finished with that abomination of a chemical.
The barrel was beautifully polished and blued, with two plug screws on centerline for an optional Williams WRGS rear sight, and wore a commercial hooded ramp front sight. A professionallyexecuted muzzle crown job was evident. The Norwegian 1912 wore aside-mounted Weaver scope base which provided the foundation for a vintage 2.5X Redfield scope with a picket post and crosshair, my personal favorite scope reticle. The entire ensemble, although a bit on the heavy side, made me a little green with envy at the owner.
The complaint was the Norwegian wouldn’t feed from the magazine. The customer had seen the rifle at a gun show and was captivated by it, not only due to the physical beauty of the rifle, but also because it was in his favorite chambering, 6.5×55.
It isn’t recommended to fire current European CIP-standard 6.5x55SE ammunition in a Norwegian or Danish Krag, but handloads and SAMMI-rated commercial ammo can be used in 6.5 Krag rifles which have been thoroughly checked by a competent gunsmith. "It’s a single-shot," the customer said, waving his arms in frustration in the direction of the subject rifle resting in the Midway rifle vise on my benchtop. "It won’t feed from the magazine." Knowing that the Krag was equipped with a magazine cutoff lever, I showed the customer that feature and we tried cycling a magazine full of my 6.5×55 dummy rounds with the cutoff "on," that is, blocking the cartridges from being picked up by the boltface and chambered.
The rifle functioned as designed, the bolt slid fore and aft without touching the top round in the magazine. Confident, I flipped the lever to "off" and cycled the bolt. The cartridge would not feed. Say what? Opening and closing the magazine cover to reseat pressure on the dummy rounds in the magazine did no good. The customer was right—his new rifle was a bolt action singleshot. Reaching for that certain screwdriver I use for removal of Krag cutoff levers, I popped out the cutoff faster than it took to type this.
As
Krag-Jørgensen (Speci ications subject to change without notice) 1 Bolt Body 2 Extractor 3 Bolt Sleeve 4 Extractor Rivet 5 Safety 6 Firing Pin Assembly 7 Mainspring 8 Striker 9 Ejector Pin the magazine was still loaded with the 6.5×55 dummies, I worked the bolt and was rewarded by the sound of a cartridge head being captured by the extractor hook and some increased drag on the bolt as the cartridge fed into the chamber.
One down and the next four dummy cartridges fed and extracted equally smoothly. "That’s it?" the customer asked, eyes wide in surprise. As I examined the cutoff lever spindle I explained that the rifle was certainly and obviously operable without the cutoff lever. The forward end of the spindle exhibited a flat ground approximately 5/8" long, turning it into a semi-circular profile.
The round section is intended to hold the top cartridge case head just below the bolt raceway so that the bolt cannot 19 Magazine Spring 20 Carrier and Follower Assembly 21 Sear Spring 22 Sear 23 Trigger Pin 24 Trigger 25 Rear Guard Screw 26 Trigger Guard 27 Front Guard Screw 28 Magazine Gate 10 Ejector 11 Bolt Assembly 12 Magazine Cutoff 13 Sideplate Screw 14 Sideplate 15 Receiver 16 Barrel 17 Front Sight 18 Hinge Bar "catch" the cartridge head and feed it.
The ground-away flat section allows the cartridge to present itself closer to the bolt so that the edge of the case head is in the bolt’s path, permitting feed. But why wasn’t it working as intended? As it happens, just like there are American Krag rifles and then there are American Krag rifles, the same is true with Norwegian models. The receiver and cutoff designs were changed at one point and the cutoff was modified to one with a shorter spindle.
The cutoff in my customer’s rifle had along-spindled cutoff but required a short spindle to function properly. The portion of the spindle that was ground away to allow passage of the cartridges was at the forward-most section of the spindle and a good length of the round pro- American Gunsmith Reader Services 1.
Cut-off shank resides in a slot in the top rear of the side plate, behind the semi-circular feature. The side plate may need to be pried free as many of them area tight fit. Despite the offset mass of the magazine door and the channel to which it is attached, the rifle does not "feel" heavy towards the right when handled, even with an empty magazine. file of the long spindle was blocking the top cartridge from being picked up by the bolt.
Now before anyone says, "It had to be an American Krag cutoff!" let me add that American Krag cutoff lever spindles are larger in diameter than those used in Norwegian Krags; they won’t fit, period, without being turned down. My customer had some choices. First, live with the cutoff lever being removed from the rifle. Second, grind the rest of the spindle length to extend the flat which would allow the cartridges to feed. Third, purchase a proper replacement from a used gun parts source.
Finally, because the cutoff was sort of like a person’s appendix and not really used, he could elect to cut the spindle off so that no part of it was projecting through the receiver to contact the cartridges. Although the cutoff on a Norwegian Krag locks the sideplate in place, the commercial stock performed the same function on my customer’s rifle so this last option was a viable one. As an aside, American Krag sideplates are held fast by a screw.
Since he is cursed with a bit of obsessive-compulsive disorder, my customer didn’t want to leave that spindle hole in the receiver open and he didn’t want to pay almost $50 to acquire a proper cutoff, let alone pay me to polish and blue it.
He elected the low cost option, which was to cut off the cutoff, as it were, and reinstall the remaining The Krag receiver was machined from a single billet of steel, requiring an enormous amount of metalworking, time, and skill in its manufacture, translating into tremendous cost that would make manufacture today prohibitive, even with CNC equipment. The beveled portion of the spindle permits the top-most cartridge in the magazine to be presented in the path of the boltface, allowing the cartridge to feed.
When the cut-off is rotated downward, the shortened spindle and lever into the receiver to plug the offending hole. This still retains the sideplate but isn’t long enough to reach the case head of the top most cartridge in the magazine. So that’s what I did that evening while the customer waited; after all, he’s a good friend. With the cutoff lever reinstalled and twice a full magazine of dummies cycled through it without issue the customer left delighted with his no longer single-shot bolt action Krag rifle.
This story has an epilogue, as many do. The customer sighted in his new purchase and took a nice 6-point with it that season. But human nature being what it is, and humans being finicky themselves, he brought the rifle back early the following year, saying that it was too heavy to carry in the woods compared to his beloved Remington Model 7 in 7mm-08.
Since I was complimentary of the Krag’s workmanship when I modified the cutoff, and since he knew I liked and collected old Krag sporters, would I be interested in owning this one? Silly question. AG full-diameter spindle section blocks the cartridge from being picked up by the bolt, turning the rifle into a hand-fed single-shot.
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