Dick,
You're right and everybody has made some good points. It's never wrong to be cautious but unfamiliar/new/young people hear the overly cautious tales so much, they're scared to even fire these rifles. With the low numbered Springfields, there was a heat treating problem (a small percentage were tempered too hot) but the failures appear to have resulted from coupling a gun that was tempered too hot with substandard WWI mass production ammo. Every indication is that the ammo was more to blame and that modern quality ammunition would be perfectly safe in one of those rifles. The trouble is you don't know if a rifle had over-pressure WW1 rounds fired through it in the past, or how many or how many bad rounds it takes to make one fail. It sounds like most low-numbered Springfields were in service through the end of WWII without other incident. I've never believed or suggested that a Krag should be tested at pressure levels of a 30-06 or 308 but I regularly hear and read that the Krag action is 'weaker than the Lee-Enfield' for example. Have you looked at an L-E bolt? It's no different than a Krag; it has one lug forward, one at the rear and the handle lug. Interestingly, US ammo manufacturers load the 303 no higher than the 30-40 yet European manufacturers load them nearly to 308 velocities and don't lose a wink. I like 45 grains of W760 with a 180 gr. RN and I can find only one source to recommend quite so much for a Krag rifle. I could probably find a dozen that recommend not exceeding 42 grains with W760 or H414. That's a big difference. But, I worked up from 42 until I was satisfied that I could slightly exceed the Winchester recommended maximum which is 44.5 grains. I wouldn't necessarily be comfortable doing that with any Krag.
Mark