Folkes,
I have 4 Danish Krags.

Now has anyone found ammo?
Cases?
[for less than the price of racing gasoline, that is]
Oh, and reloading dies, and load data that they have tried.

Thanks, Paul

Paul,

Yes, I have a batch of Danes too.  I have been reloading for years  now.  I have used different cases, some reformed from 45-70 cases, some 7.62x54R, recently using 8x56R with some success.  Dies from CH-4D are good but quite expensive.

I was just out shooting a heavy barreled target sporter yesterday.  I have to work on the front sight a bit and try it again.  I found this one will only chamber spitzer bullets, not any round-nose ones.  They can sometimes be a bit finicky.  I do love shooting them, though!!!

If you decide to get into it, I have some loads that I use that I will share with you.  Then again, if it costs too much, and you get frustrated, I will take those Danes off your hands!!   :-)

Best,
Tom

Tom Butts wrote on Jun 30^th, 2017 at 6:18pm:

Paul, Yes, I have a batch of Danes too.  I have been reloading for years  now.  I have used different cases, some reformed from 45-70 cases, some 7.62x54R, recently using 8x56R with some success.  Dies from CH-4D are good but quite expensive. I was just out shooting a heavy barreled target sporter yesterday.  I have to work on the front sight a bit and try it again.  I found this one will only chamber spitzer bullets, not any round-nose ones.  They can sometimes be a bit finicky.  I do love shooting them, though!!! If you decide to get into it, I have some loads that I use that I will share with you.  Then again, if it costs too much, and you get frustrated, I will take those Danes off your hands!!   :-) Best, Tom

In the 1920's the danes started refurbishing the Krags as they were pretty much shot out and worn down.
The original barrels has a "Metford" rifling and a leade over 1" to accomodate the 227grain round nose bullet of the time (chamber A). Newer stamped on the barrels as noone knew that there would be revisions on chamber design.

The replacement barrels has a standard cut rifling and a C chamber with a little over 1/4" leade. Later the leade was lengthned to almost 1 1/4" to accomodate armor piercing and tracer bullets wich was way longer than the original 196gr spitser.

Pic 1: Is a black powder loaded round 77grains highly compressed and 7½ grains of priming powder to set it off. A 227grain steel jacketed bullet going a whooping 470m/s~1540fps but generating 2300bar~33.3kpsi of pressure.
And the "Metford" rifling used in the first barrels.

Pic 2: shows the marks stamped on the action just ahead of the bolt.
Top mark is a standard C chamber of little over 1/4" and the bottom one is for the long throat.

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Chickenthief, thanks for this information.  I love the Danish Krags and always want to learn more about them.  I may have more questions for you!!

Best,
Tom

By the 1930's tracers and armor piercing bullets became all the rage and machineguns too, so longer bullets loaded to higher pressures was the norm.

That resulted in the elongated 1 1/4" leade on the late c chambered rifles so they could digest the new ammo and not blow up. Only a select few were converted because it was only specially trained riflemen that had this ammo, the grunts had standard fmj and that was it.

I found some bullets in a case of 8x58RD tidbits.

Top: 173grains Tracer
2: 196grains standard fmj
3: 230grains RN fmj (old style)
Bottom: 124grains fmj short range/reduced load

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