There is an article on Krags in the Fur Fish and Game magazine from November 1920. The article is from "The Gun Rack" on page 18.  The article talks about the hunting qualities in of the Krag and favors the carbine over the "clumsy" rifle. The carbine was obviously still available as military surplus, so sporterizing Krag rifles was probably not popular/necessary at the time. But for $5 versus $50 it was a steal for a quality firearm. As the article states, if you loose it over the side of a canoe you weren't loosing much of a big investment. Thus, that mentality may have lead to the rough abuse some Krags have been through. And if you crudely bubba-ize a Krag at least it wasn't that valuable, at least back then.
By the way, I own a bubba-ized Krag and won't give it up.
I can't seem to paste the web site, it has too many caps for this forum's rules. But go to Google Books and search for (fur fish game krag rifle) and you might find it.