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Old December 1, 2012, 10:22 AM   #1
kraigwy
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Krag Christmas Present w/pictures

I managed to get a few pictures of my Krag Christmas Present before wife raps it.

Barrels great, action smoother then a prom queen's thighs and based on what I can find out from Joe Poyer's "The American Krag Rifle and Carbine" its all orginal.

Gonna pop a few rounds too before she gets it rapped.












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Old December 1, 2012, 12:16 PM   #2
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I envy you.
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Old December 1, 2012, 05:15 PM   #3
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Nice Krag, I see you have Poyer's book. His book is absolutely the best source out there on the Krag that I know of.
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Old December 2, 2012, 08:23 AM   #4
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Poyer's book does contain a wealth of information and a few errors, but the Krag bible is from Lt Col William S Brophy "The Krag Rifle". A Krag collector needs both on hand.

kraigwy, is that a 1898 rifle? I see it has the 1901 rear sight. Finish is very nice on that one. Getting hard to find unmolested Krags. I picked this 1898 up yesterday, not near as nice of metal as yours.




I sure wish I had been around for this ad.
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Old December 2, 2012, 07:24 PM   #5
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Looks like a very nice Krag. Wood looks to be above average. With a good bore it should shoot really good. And you'll get in much less trouble messing around with that than with a prom queen's thighs.
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Old December 3, 2012, 03:27 PM   #6
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Hey! No fair peeking! You really scored.
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Old December 5, 2012, 10:27 AM   #7
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Gah! Such a good looking rifle. I have never seen a non-sporterized one outside of the Infantry Museum at Ft. Benning.

The only reason I could possibly fathom to own a sporterized one would be to emulate Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Does the Krag- accept M-1903 style bayonets?
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Old December 5, 2012, 10:55 AM   #8
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Does the Krag- accept M-1903 style bayonets?
No Sir, it has it's own bayonet.

I found a pretty good one, a 1901 version which goes with my '98 made in 1901 w/its 1902 sights.

Just got it yesterday. I'll take and post pictures later today. It's almost in as good as shape as my Krag.
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Old December 5, 2012, 11:04 AM   #9
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I found a pretty good one, a 1901 version which goes with my '98 made in 1901 w/its 1902 sights.

Just got it yesterday. I'll take and post pictures later today. It's almost in as good as shape as my Krag.
Cool! Now you need the old cloth cartridge belt, too.
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Old December 5, 2012, 02:38 PM   #10
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I've never seen a Krag before but I must say that I'm surprised with the number of similarities between it and the springfield 1903 and yet everybody claims that the 1903 is nothing but a mauser copycat.... nothing ever comes up about the krag being a mauser copycat....


beautiful rifle man, let us know how the old war horse shoots.
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Old December 6, 2012, 09:10 AM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by kraigwy
I found a pretty good one, a 1901 version which goes with my '98 made in 1901 w/its 1902 sights.
Looking at the photo I see a rear sight that is windage adjustable, is that correct? There are 5 versions of the 1902 rear sight and none are windage adjustable, as I recall that is the key identifying feature. I could remember that wrong, but don't think so.

Krag rear sights is a very large can of worms, 17 possibilities, and that's before you mix and match parts.

The Krag bayonet has a interesting history, based on the 1889 Swiss magazine rifle bayonet, Springfield produced 7 or 8 variations in less than 10 years.

Last edited by madcratebuilder; December 6, 2012 at 09:20 AM.
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Old December 6, 2012, 09:46 AM   #12
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The 1901 rear sight does have adjustments for windage. It has a double base, the upper part swivels horizontally on the lower.

Windage marks are scribed on the back of the upper base. The windage points are .040 inch apart.

The windage corrections are quite course, 5.86 MOA. (Thats .04 X sight radius divided by range equals windage corrections).

I have the type 4, 1901 sight which was used after serial number 330,000.
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Old December 6, 2012, 10:19 AM   #13
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As to bayonets. There are way too many variations for me to afford to collect. But I did try to get an example for each of my rifles from the Krag to the M16A2.

So from left to right:

Krag 1901 Bayonet
M1918
Springfield (and used through WWII on the Garand)
M1 M5a1 Post war Garand bayonet, used in Korea
M1 m4 Carbine
M14 m6
M16a1 m7
M16a2 m8



As mention there are dozens of variations and models. The original '03 Springfield was a rod bayonet, but (I believe it was) Teddy Roosevelt vetoed that and went with the knife bayonet.

Odd they went from the rod bayonet of the Single shot Springfield's to the Knife blade on the Krag then back to the rod for the Springfield.

The most "useful" bayonet is the latter M8 (M16a2). It has a wire cutter, knife side and shredded edge for cutting through aircraft frame. Though I think this knife is a bit heavy (I use mine all the time for repairing fences).

Bayonet charges are history, but the bayonet is still quite useful for the soldier. Though I never poked anyone with mine, in Vietnam I used the heck out of my M7, from digging fox holes to toasting pieces of sliced C-rat white bread.

I've also seen the M7 bayonet used on the end of a rifle to aggravate a water buffalo. Not a good idea, the buffalo whipped his butt, and he had to be medivaced.

I like bayonets.
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Last edited by kraigwy; December 6, 2012 at 05:04 PM.
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Old December 6, 2012, 01:23 PM   #14
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Quote:
I've also seen the M7 bayonet used on the end of a rifle to aggravate a water buffalo. Not a good idea, the buffalo whipped his butt, and he had to be medivaced.

I like bayonets.
That is hilarious, Kraig!

I'm surprised at the amount of change in the AR-type bayonet models.

Last edited by Ambishot; December 6, 2012 at 01:25 PM. Reason: More info??
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Old December 6, 2012, 01:36 PM   #15
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Pops gave me his old M-7 that he was issued by the USAF for my Mini-14.

I was issued the M-8 but never carried it because I had an M-203 under by M-4.

I carried my cousin's Ka-Bar that we carried into Iraq back in '03 instead.

Bayonets are awesome yet practical.

Nice collection, Captain.
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Old December 7, 2012, 03:43 AM   #16
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Are you going to cast your own 30 cal. bullets now?
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Old December 7, 2012, 08:40 PM   #17
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I've been casting 30 cal bullets since the '70s.

When I was heavy into High Power in Alaska, I'd cast and shoot 30 cal bullets in my M1 at 50 ft NRA targets for winter offhand practice.

Got to keep in shape some how with its too cold to go outside and shoot.
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Old December 7, 2012, 10:56 PM   #18
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The Rod Bayonet used on the M1888 Springfield had been in development for some time, Uncle Sam did not manufacture new socket bayonets for the Trapdoors but used Civil War surplus, as that supply ran down the rod bayonet was developed with the idea of it doing double duty as the cleaning rod.
It's been a while since I looked at mine but I am pretty sure the Krag bayonet will fit on an M1903 and M-1 and the later ones on the Krag, Uncle Sam kept the specs the same for the barrel opening and catch.
I enlisted in the Army in June, 1967, we had bayonet practice in BCT, I think these younger troops are missing something.
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Old December 8, 2012, 12:54 AM   #19
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How did those cast 30 cal. bullets effect the gas system in a M1? I thought the lube would plug things up. But there I go thinking again.
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Old December 8, 2012, 12:58 AM   #20
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I just checked, the bayonets (Krag & Springfield) look simular but they have different locks, they aren't interchangable. You can get them on but you can't latch one to the other.
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Old December 8, 2012, 02:30 PM   #21
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SIGSHR

I stand corrected. The Krag bayonet WILL fit on my 1903 Springfield, but I can't get the Springfield bayonet to fit on my Krag
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Old December 9, 2012, 12:13 AM   #22
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Odd they went from the rod bayonet of the Single shot Springfield's to the Knife blade on the Krag then back to the rod for the Springfield.
Had to do with the diameter (and thus durability) of the bayonet. The M1888 Springfield cleaning rod/bayonet was half again as big around as the '03's counterpart. That made it substantial enough not to bend when parried, unlike the '03's, which Teddy Roosevelt demonstrated (using a bayonetted Krag).
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Old December 9, 2012, 12:39 AM   #23
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Any of that hardware gets spots on that quilt you might get your hair lifted!!

Nice Krag,Kraig!! Happy Christmas to you.
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Old December 9, 2012, 03:48 PM   #24
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There is something about hearing your company commander shout

"Comp-anee! FIX, bayo-nets!"

On the individual unit level, like Troop and below, we did plenty of bayonet training for our secondary role as National Guardsman instead of Cav Scouts.

As previously stated, I didn't carry one down range becaus I was a grenadier, but cold steel is very nice to have.

Next question: What kind of scabbard is issued for the -1901 bayonet?
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Old December 15, 2012, 02:15 PM   #25
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I've got too good an imagination - the idea of fighting with bayonets scares the puddin' out of me. But in regard to the earlier post about the Krag and the 1903 and their relationship to Mauser, the Krag has a single locking lug. Krag also has a claw extractor, but it is smaller and in a different place on the bolt than that of a Mauser. That, along with the side-gate magazine, make the Krag much different. At the time the Krag was adopted, the main Mauser was the Argentine Model 1891, and the claw extractor had not appeared at that date, but it still had the famous dual, opposed locking lugs.

On the other hand, if you look at an '03 Springfield, I think you have to admit the close similarity to the contemporary Mausers. I am sure most of you know that the U.S. paid royalties to the Mausers. Wasn't that nice of us? An interesting thing is that the '03 retained the magazine cutoff that first appeared on the Krag, but which was never found on a Mauser. Our ordnance people apparently maintained an allegiance to the idea of single loading fire for a long time after discarding the trapdoor Springfield.
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