Looking for info on 1896 krag

WyomingWhitetail · August 17, 2014, 11:20 PM

Might get ran out of here for what im going to ask about but figured this would be the best place to find info on my new rifle.

I bought a 1896 Springfield the other day and it appears it has a serious chamber issue. I took it to the range and fired one round and noticed it was a little hard to extract and inspected the case and saw that it was deformed and split about a 1/4-1/2 inch in front of the rim. After inspecting the chamber it appears that there is something that appears like a drilled hole in the bottom of the chamber. I somehow missed this on my initial inspection of the chamber and bore. It may be just a large pit? Im not really sure but the rest of the action looks fine and the action appears to be in really good shape.

The serial number on it is 79148 and the sights have been changed and the stock has been sanded down/cut down (the grip grooves are almost gone/half length stock). So i don't think it has any real value, but i want to make sure before i go about rebarreling it. My plan right now is to take an old remington 308 barrel i have and fit it to it and re-chamber it to shoot cast out of the 30-40.

So basically im asking if anyone can explain the hole in the barrel and if there is any reason why i shouldn't rebarrel it. Also wanting to make sure the factory loads aren't to hot for the old action (probably only shoot them to get the brass).

Thanks

tahunua001 · August 18, 2014, 01:35 AM

hello there, I can't answer most of your questions as I am not very knowledgeable on krags at all but I would be willing to say that your rifle is no longer 30-40 krag. if you are getting split casings it is because the chamber is much larger than the casing and as the powder burns and the case expands, it has nothing to prevent outward bulging and so the brass stretches until it splits. your rifle is likely 30-06 or something larger.

Blindstitch · August 18, 2014, 02:37 AM

Another candidate for a chamber cast.

But since you're talking about rebarreling it there might not be an issue. The only thing I wonder about is 308 to much for the action.

WyomingWhitetail · August 18, 2014, 07:30 AM

i guess i should have clarified. I am not going to re barrel this rifle to .308. i just happen to have a factory .308 barrel that i would fit to this action then rechamber the 308 barrel to 30-40. I dont think it has been rechambered as the rest of the case looks good except for a bulge and split at the location of the pit or hole in the chamber.

Thanks

Jim Watson · August 18, 2014, 08:15 AM

A friend has a .303 with pristine bore, but a large pit in the chamber that gives hard extraction.

I have heard of drilling holes in chambers as a quickie demil. Maybe yours was a drill rifle at the Little Hellions Military School.

You will have to do a good deal of setting back of that .308 barrel, a Krag reamer is not going to clean up a .308 chamber.

Wyosmith · August 18, 2014, 09:27 AM

Whitetail, where are you? I am in the Wind River Valley.

A few years ago I rebuilt one that came to me with similar problems. The chamber was messed up and the bore was not perfect anyway.So I rebarreled it and customized the whole rifle.

When you get a rifle that has been butchered in some way and you need to replace major parts all collectors valu is already gone. So the best way to make something worth having is to pull out the stops and do the whole job. Either go through the process of getting all period correct parts and restoring it back to issue condition or go "whole hog" and sporterize it the way the old masters did in the days before WW2
Either way you can retreve the "class" of the old guns, but a patch job usually does nothing for value and in some cases it will lower the value.

gyvel · August 18, 2014, 10:06 AM

Wyosmith, I'm mostly a fan of original military rifles and generally not a fan of Krags, but THAT is one beautiful sporter.

That, to me, is pure classic elegance.

James K · August 18, 2014, 07:45 PM

Does that "split" run lengthwise or crossways on the case? The latter could be incipient case separation and is almost always a result of excess headspace, not uncommon in old U.S. Krags with the single locking lug.

A chamber hole made to deactivate the rifle would almost certainly be drilled from the outside, through the receiver. If it is not, then the chamber may be messed up but I doubt it was deliberately done to deactivate the rifle.

Jim

WyomingWhitetail · August 18, 2014, 08:17 PM

The split runs length wise down the case. And i believe the cause of the split is the defect in the chamber causing a localized bulge in that area and over stretching the case.

That is a beautiful krag and very similar to what i may do with this one eventually. I already have a custom Mauser in the works so this one may have to wait. I am up in Sheridan. How does your krag shoot with the new barrel? Im curious as to the accuracy of the krag action when properly built. Seeing how much i would have to trim off of the .308 barrel i may have to source a different barrel but oh well.

T. O'Heir · August 20, 2014, 02:13 PM

"...re-chamber the 308 barrel to 30-40..." I'd re-think that. You'd have to do more than just re-chamber. You'd have to convert from rimless to rimmed too. Not impossible to do, but it'd be pricey.
Plus the .308's case is bigger in diameter than the Krag's. A Krag reamer won't do anything.

RevolverRO · August 20, 2014, 06:38 PM

Criterion has reasonably-priced replacement Krag barrels.

James K · August 20, 2014, 08:01 PM

The OP says that he will rechamber the barrel, so I assume he will cut off the back end and rechamber. My question would be whether cutting off the Remington barrel will leave the breech with enough diameter to rethread for the Krag, and also enough barrel diameter to be safe. I would consult with a gunsmith before depending on being able to effect that conversion.

Jim

WyomingWhitetail · August 20, 2014, 10:01 PM

Well at this point i think ill just buy a new barrel. The Remington barrel is already pretty light and short and a new blank can be had reasonable. I didn't look up cartridge dimensions before my first post so i didn't realize that the .308 was bigger. As far as cutting back the barrel and rechambering it that would be no big deal and even if i had to mill the back of the barrel for something it wouldn't be a big deal, i have access to the machines to do it.

Wyosmith · August 21, 2014, 07:45 AM

Hi again Whitetail.
The rebarreled Krag shoot very well. It’s got irons only, so how well I cannot say. My eyes are not super sharp like they once were. However I was shooting eggs at 100 yards with it from a rest and out of 10 shots I hit 9 of them, so it can't be too bad.
The 30-40 cartridge can be extremely accurate. I have re-barreled them in the past and used scopes on them. On some of the rifles I have re-worked I have been pleased to get 100 yards groups under 1".

If you use an old 308 Winchester barrel you need to cut off about 2” of the breach end so you can get into new metal for the 30-40 reamer to cut. The case body of a 30-40 is smaller than a 308.

Because the subject of a conversion to 308 has been brought up I will touch on that here too.
The 30-40 head is larger than a 308 head because of the rim so the bolt face is larger too. That means a LOT of work to bush down the bolt head and rework the extractor to make it work with a 308, not to mention the fact that you may also have feed problems because the Krag magazine is set up for the original shell which as I said above is “skinnier” than a 308.

One thing to note is that a 30-40 has a larger case volume than a 308 so you are not gaining anything in a re-work to 308. The weak link in the chain is the Krag action (in many cases) Yes you can lap the bolt back to a point it bears on the handle and the lug both and have it re-heat treated which will triple the strength and then it will be strong enough for a full power 308, but if you did all that work you are still better off to just use the Krag shell and load it up. As I said, the shell itself is all the 308 is and a bit more. However the original US Krag is fine just like it is. The idea that we have to add velocity to it is simply not true. A 220 grain at 2000-2100 or a 1580 at 2700 is just fine.
For US Krag rifle I strongly recommend it’s left in the 30-40 shell. It ain’t broke, so you should not fix it.

On the rifle in the picture above I used a 28” long Douglas barrel. I have also used 27” Green Mountain barrels a number of times on various rifles and they have been wonderful. You will be into it a few hours of machine time if you use a GM barrel because they are just 1.2” blanks, but I have not had a bad one yet.

August 17, 2014, 11:20 PM	#1
WyomingWhitetail Senior Member Join Date: January 12, 2011 Posts: 221	Looking for info on 1896 krag Might get ran out of here for what im going to ask about but figured this would be the best place to find info on my new rifle. I bought a 1896 Springfield the other day and it appears it has a serious chamber issue. I took it to the range and fired one round and noticed it was a little hard to extract and inspected the case and saw that it was deformed and split about a 1/4-1/2 inch in front of the rim. After inspecting the chamber it appears that there is something that appears like a drilled hole in the bottom of the chamber. I somehow missed this on my initial inspection of the chamber and bore. It may be just a large pit? Im not really sure but the rest of the action looks fine and the action appears to be in really good shape. The serial number on it is 79148 and the sights have been changed and the stock has been sanded down/cut down (the grip grooves are almost gone/half length stock). So i don't think it has any real value, but i want to make sure before i go about rebarreling it. My plan right now is to take an old remington 308 barrel i have and fit it to it and re-chamber it to shoot cast out of the 30-40. So basically im asking if anyone can explain the hole in the barrel and if there is any reason why i shouldn't rebarrel it. Also wanting to make sure the factory loads aren't to hot for the old action (probably only shoot them to get the brass). Thanks

August 18, 2014, 01:35 AM	#2
tahunua001 Senior Member Join Date: July 21, 2011 Location: Idaho Posts: 7,839	hello there, I can't answer most of your questions as I am not very knowledgeable on krags at all but I would be willing to say that your rifle is no longer 30-40 krag. if you are getting split casings it is because the chamber is much larger than the casing and as the powder burns and the case expands, it has nothing to prevent outward bulging and so the brass stretches until it splits. your rifle is likely 30-06 or something larger. __________________ ignore my complete lack of capitalization. I still have no problem correcting your grammar. I never said half the stuff people said I did-Albert Einstein You can't believe everything you read on the internet-Benjamin Franklin

August 18, 2014, 02:37 AM	#3
Blindstitch Senior Member Join Date: April 14, 2013 Location: Milwaukee, Wisconsin Posts: 2,693	Another candidate for a chamber cast. But since you're talking about rebarreling it there might not be an issue. The only thing I wonder about is 308 to much for the action. Last edited by Blindstitch; August 18, 2014 at 02:43 AM.

August 18, 2014, 10:06 AM	#7
gyvel Senior Member Join Date: August 30, 2009 Location: Northern AZ Posts: 7,172	Wyosmith, I'm mostly a fan of original military rifles and generally not a fan of Krags, but THAT is one beautiful sporter. That, to me, is pure classic elegance. __________________ As always, YMMV. __________________________________________ MIIAA SIFE

August 20, 2014, 02:13 PM	#10
T. O'Heir Senior Member Join Date: February 13, 2002 Location: Canada Posts: 12,453	"...re-chamber the 308 barrel to 30-40..." I'd re-think that. You'd have to do more than just re-chamber. You'd have to convert from rimless to rimmed too. Not impossible to do, but it'd be pricey. Plus the .308's case is bigger in diameter than the Krag's. A Krag reamer won't do anything. __________________ Spelling and grammar count!

August 18, 2014, 07:30 AM	#4
WyomingWhitetail Senior Member Join Date: January 12, 2011 Posts: 221	i guess i should have clarified. I am not going to re barrel this rifle to .308. i just happen to have a factory .308 barrel that i would fit to this action then rechamber the 308 barrel to 30-40. I dont think it has been rechambered as the rest of the case looks good except for a bulge and split at the location of the pit or hole in the chamber. Thanks

August 18, 2014, 08:15 AM	#5
Jim Watson Senior Member Join Date: October 25, 2001 Location: Alabama Posts: 18,541	A friend has a .303 with pristine bore, but a large pit in the chamber that gives hard extraction. I have heard of drilling holes in chambers as a quickie demil. Maybe yours was a drill rifle at the Little Hellions Military School. You will have to do a good deal of setting back of that .308 barrel, a Krag reamer is not going to clean up a .308 chamber.

August 18, 2014, 09:27 AM	#6
Wyosmith Senior Member Join Date: December 29, 2010 Location: Shoshoni Wyoming Posts: 2,713	Whitetail, where are you? I am in the Wind River Valley. A few years ago I rebuilt one that came to me with similar problems. The chamber was messed up and the bore was not perfect anyway.So I rebarreled it and customized the whole rifle. When you get a rifle that has been butchered in some way and you need to replace major parts all collectors valu is already gone. So the best way to make something worth having is to pull out the stops and do the whole job. Either go through the process of getting all period correct parts and restoring it back to issue condition or go "whole hog" and sporterize it the way the old masters did in the days before WW2 Either way you can retreve the "class" of the old guns, but a patch job usually does nothing for value and in some cases it will lower the value.

August 18, 2014, 07:45 PM	#8
James K Member In Memoriam Join Date: March 17, 1999 Posts: 24,383	Does that "split" run lengthwise or crossways on the case? The latter could be incipient case separation and is almost always a result of excess headspace, not uncommon in old U.S. Krags with the single locking lug. A chamber hole made to deactivate the rifle would almost certainly be drilled from the outside, through the receiver. If it is not, then the chamber may be messed up but I doubt it was deliberately done to deactivate the rifle. Jim

August 18, 2014, 08:17 PM	#9
WyomingWhitetail Senior Member Join Date: January 12, 2011 Posts: 221	The split runs length wise down the case. And i believe the cause of the split is the defect in the chamber causing a localized bulge in that area and over stretching the case. That is a beautiful krag and very similar to what i may do with this one eventually. I already have a custom Mauser in the works so this one may have to wait. I am up in Sheridan. How does your krag shoot with the new barrel? Im curious as to the accuracy of the krag action when properly built. Seeing how much i would have to trim off of the .308 barrel i may have to source a different barrel but oh well.

August 20, 2014, 06:38 PM	#11
RevolverRO Member Join Date: February 16, 2008 Location: Culloden, WV Posts: 71	Krag Criterion has reasonably-priced replacement Krag barrels.

August 20, 2014, 08:01 PM	#12
James K Member In Memoriam Join Date: March 17, 1999 Posts: 24,383	The OP says that he will rechamber the barrel, so I assume he will cut off the back end and rechamber. My question would be whether cutting off the Remington barrel will leave the breech with enough diameter to rethread for the Krag, and also enough barrel diameter to be safe. I would consult with a gunsmith before depending on being able to effect that conversion. Jim

August 20, 2014, 10:01 PM	#13
WyomingWhitetail Senior Member Join Date: January 12, 2011 Posts: 221	Well at this point i think ill just buy a new barrel. The Remington barrel is already pretty light and short and a new blank can be had reasonable. I didn't look up cartridge dimensions before my first post so i didn't realize that the .308 was bigger. As far as cutting back the barrel and rechambering it that would be no big deal and even if i had to mill the back of the barrel for something it wouldn't be a big deal, i have access to the machines to do it. Last edited by WyomingWhitetail; August 20, 2014 at 10:06 PM.

August 21, 2014, 07:45 AM	#14
Wyosmith Senior Member Join Date: December 29, 2010 Location: Shoshoni Wyoming Posts: 2,713	Hi again Whitetail. The rebarreled Krag shoot very well. It’s got irons only, so how well I cannot say. My eyes are not super sharp like they once were. However I was shooting eggs at 100 yards with it from a rest and out of 10 shots I hit 9 of them, so it can't be too bad. The 30-40 cartridge can be extremely accurate. I have re-barreled them in the past and used scopes on them. On some of the rifles I have re-worked I have been pleased to get 100 yards groups under 1". If you use an old 308 Winchester barrel you need to cut off about 2” of the breach end so you can get into new metal for the 30-40 reamer to cut. The case body of a 30-40 is smaller than a 308. Because the subject of a conversion to 308 has been brought up I will touch on that here too. The 30-40 head is larger than a 308 head because of the rim so the bolt face is larger too. That means a LOT of work to bush down the bolt head and rework the extractor to make it work with a 308, not to mention the fact that you may also have feed problems because the Krag magazine is set up for the original shell which as I said above is “skinnier” than a 308. One thing to note is that a 30-40 has a larger case volume than a 308 so you are not gaining anything in a re-work to 308. The weak link in the chain is the Krag action (in many cases) Yes you can lap the bolt back to a point it bears on the handle and the lug both and have it re-heat treated which will triple the strength and then it will be strong enough for a full power 308, but if you did all that work you are still better off to just use the Krag shell and load it up. As I said, the shell itself is all the 308 is and a bit more. However the original US Krag is fine just like it is. The idea that we have to add velocity to it is simply not true. A 220 grain at 2000-2100 or a 1580 at 2700 is just fine. For US Krag rifle I strongly recommend it’s left in the 30-40 shell. It ain’t broke, so you should not fix it. On the rifle in the picture above I used a 28” long Douglas barrel. I have also used 27” Green Mountain barrels a number of times on various rifles and they have been wonderful. You will be into it a few hours of machine time if you use a GM barrel because they are just 1.2” blanks, but I have not had a bad one yet.