Another orphan sporterized Krag followed me home

[JMax]

Perfect and thank you. I have a sporterized 1998 rifle made in 1903 and a Norwegian made in 1916. Love them both and am gathering as much info as I can to keep them functioning and shooting well.

[adrians]

Kir_kenix

[Frank46]

Check out Von Gruff's postings he recently did. I believe he used the forestock band and made a sling eye for a rifle he's currently doing. The item in question came off a #1MKIII enfield. Hope this helps. Buckshot once did a post on adding a second receiver screw on the underside of the krag receiver. Frank

[kir_kenix]

You all have given me alot to think about. I haven't got a ton done, but the action is pretty much ready to go. Several days (no exaggeration) of bore scrubbing got me down to bare metal. The bore isn't perfect, but not too bad for a 115 year old rifle. Looks like the barrel dimensions are .300+/- and .3085+/-. Still haven't taken a chamber casting to see what I'm dealing with there.

I used "Blue Wonder" and steel wool to remove any pockets of rust from the barreled action, and a bit of cold blue to touch up anyplace that was bare. A Rice peep sight is inbound from a member here (thanks!), so I just have to get that mounted. A magazine disconnect was installed from the parts box that matches the action bluing pretty closely. Pretty much just waiting on the stock to show up and finalize design for mounting another action/barrel screw. I've also settled on "Tru-oil" as my finish because I plan to hunt with it.

Most of my free time has been spent playing around with my buddies .300 Blk that just refuses to shoot anything well, so its been a nice distraction from the Krag. Seriously...this is the worst shooting AR upper I have ever seen, so I'm going to toss another barrel on it when I get back from drill. I was 99% sure it was his red dot, but nope, looks like the barrel (AR Stoner) is the only culprit left after trying a few different optics, installing a free float, swapping bolt carrier groups, etc.

[RPRNY]

That's a tight barrel for a Krag. Should ingest .310 happily and eject with satisfying accuracy. Fill the long throat. They love the Lyman 311284!

Sent from my KFOT using Tapatalk

[kir_kenix]

I paper patched some Lee 113 soupcans and sent them down range today. Wasn't worried about accuracy, just trying one last time to clean the bore up a bit more. 25 pp boolits took care of all the dark spots on the lands. Followed that with some more 311041's over 2400 into 3-3.5" group at 90 yards.

I received my Rice peep, and it is in good working order. I will need to do a little bit of work to get it mounted (tap a blind hole in 'extractor holder thing'). Wish I hadn't done such a thorough job peening that bolt into place when I swapped extractors.

My credit card still hasn't been charged, so I'm at least 1 month away from the stock getting here...downer.

[Ken in Iowa]

Check out Von Gruff's postings he recently did. I believe he used the forestock band and made a sling eye for a rifle he's currently doing. The item in question came off a #1MKIII enfield. Hope this helps. Buckshot once did a post on adding a second receiver screw on the underside of the krag receiver. Frank

I haven't been able to find those. Can you help?

I wonder if drilling and tapping the magazine bottom would be better than the receiver ring itself.

[shooter93]

If you look at the pic I posted of my 35 Krag Ken you can see a second screw in front of the receiver. The maker made a piece that dovetails into the heavy part of the barrel and the screw goes into it. That rifle shoots extremely well. He built three others like it and they all work well.

[Jake70]

So, I have a thing for sporterized Krags. I've gathered up a couple of them in the last few years, and they always become projects that may or may not ever get finished (a .25, .35, and .40 are "in the works"). I've had one at my gunsmith for a couple years that he still hasn't got around to stocking, so I'm going to try to do this one myself.



Story goes:
This morning my buddy called and said he found "most" of a '98 Krag carbine...$125 and it was mine. I went over, not expecting much. He had a fairly well done barreled action and trigger guard. It was obviously a rifle somebody had hacked up, not a carbine...but no biggy to me. Looks like a '03 front sight and a rear Williams ramp sight had been fitted. Bluing looked good, but the bolt was covered with light surface rust. Bolt wouldn't cock because it was full of what I assume was 30 year old WD-40. I took it home and started cleaning it up.

I had an extra stock somebody crudely bubba'd (left handed Winchester stock somebody hacked to hell) that the action fell into, more or less. 3 hours of diesel, valve lapping compound, and super fine steel wool got the bolt cleaned/freed up. The bore had a tremendous amount of junk in it as well, but it cleaned up fairly nicely. Headspace was good, so I figured I'd see if it would shoot.



I shot about 20 jacketed rounds (180 gr hornady, mild load of IMR-4350) and bore snaked the barrel. Bore was looking even better! I had some 311041's (sized .310 in front of some 2400) loaded up for another Krag so I gave them a run. Printed a 3", 5 shot group at 100 yards. Not bad for a $125 rifle and a poorly fit left handed stock...I'm a righty by the way.

So I decided I'm actually going to finish putting one of these Krags together. I ordered a grade AA American black walnut stock from Richards Microfit and another "whatever is the cheapest" so I can practice in-letting/butchering that one first. Supposed to be 96% inlet, but I know from experience that the amount of material needed to remove can vary drastically. Should be a fairly easy project and I'll try and remember to post updates as I go along. Only other thing to hunt down is the magazine disconnect lever, or steal one from another Krag I guess.

So hopefully in 8-10 weeks when my stocks show up, I'll be the owner of a respectable looking sporterized 1898 that actually shoots fairly well. If I don't destroy the economy stock, maybe I'll be able to finish one of these other pile of parts around here as well.

Stay tuned and keep your fingers crossed.

With all the sporterized Krags floating around for cheap, I've been thinking of doing something like this too some day. It's sad to see all those old war horses bubbafied, but might as well make them into something more than just an old military rifle with a cut down stock.

[tdoyka]

very nice rifle kir_kenix.

i still have nightmares from cleaning my krag down to bare metal. it took me 5 or so days(6-8 hours/day) until i did. my '98 was built in 1903 so i do have a .3085" barrel. i use a 165gr ranch dog and a 25.5gr?(have to check) of h4198. i also did rel7(3rd best) and varget(best out of all). the varget kicked a little too much, so i went for h4198.
to tell you the truth, 1800fps is basically the best for deer hunting.

my krag has been bubbasized(i believe about when it was first sporterized and given to the public for peanuts), barrel has been cut down to 22", the front sight is a 1903 model and the hand grips are gone. it was my great grandfather's "new" rifle, he thought it was like a status symbol since he came to these United States. the only thing i did was put on an old 70-kt sight on it.

i'm sure glad your wife bought this gun!!!