So, the Krag search has brought forth another treasure with lots of questions.

I bought this obvious cut down Krag rifle for the beautiful stock it is wearing. It appears to be a nice, complete M1898 carbine stock with the sling ring, early short carbine stock with the long nose as well as a clearly legible 1898 cartouche. I want to switch this onto one of my M1898 carbine receivers and have a correct early M1898 carbine.

This cut down has many interesting features that I discovered when I got it and started to examine it carefully. It has a replacement barrel without a proof mark and some light teeth marks from a vise. It seems to be installed properly otherwise. It is a 22 inch barrel with an added M1903 front sight.

There is no hand guard protecting the rear sight. The rear sight is incorrect in that it has an M1898 carbine base with an M1902 slide with a peep. The slide has the slightly uncommon feature of having the lines crossing the slide but not going through the numbers. Joe Farmer says this is a very late M1902 variation that is uncommon.

The serial number on this receiver is my highest number of 482709.

I noticed a star stamped into the rear of the bolt body. I have never seen this before. I know that some National Match rifles are stamped with a star to indicate NM accuracy for that rifle.

And, most interesting is the presence of an NRA stamping on the stock in front of the trigger guard and on the top of the butt plate.

I know that many people have discussed that DCM altered carbines provided to the NRA are only able to be verified if the original serial numbered receipt is available for provenance and proof.

What do you make of these features? I know anyone can stamp a rifle with anything they want but the NRA often did stamp some of their firearms in the past.

I'm stumped. Still a great stock but I'm not sure if I should change this from "as found" and mess up a neat treasure. I guess Bannerman could have done this.

Thanks for the help.

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