Yesterday Annapolis and I met up to troubleshoot his rifle.  I noticed and as he has pointed out that the gun is not just as slick as others have described about the smoothness of the Krag.  Cycling without ammo the bolt is slicker than whale snot.  I will leave that aside for the moment.

I loaded factory Remington ammo in it and ran it through five shots.  I found I would have to be definite of my purpose to pick up a round and get it chambered.  I noticed Annapolis had the similiar issue when I had him run it and I observed.

He also had a problem with a round not extracting but the next round behind the chambered round was positioned incorrectly with the point angled wrong on the side plate preventing extraction.

I brought 3140 with me.  It is my unmodified Krag and he had brought 177xx which is a 1894 modified to 1896.  We compared the bolts and the extractors and I could not discern any difference.  Looking back I believe I would bring a couple of my other krags on the second go round.

Towards the end of the evaluation before we switched to shooting our other guns I ran ten rounds of Winchester through 177xx and the ninth round got hung up and would not chamber.   I do know a couple of my Krags will not chamber a round (I forget which because it has been eleven years after all) every now and then but others elsewhere think it is a function of the pointed bullets not being fed correctly due to nose shape.  I will load up a bunch Sierra 220s so one variable is taken out of the equation.

Like I told Annapolis, I am not the krag expert but we can work the issue and find the problem.

Paul (Culpepper) is a splendid fellow!  He traveled to Michigan and met up with me at Cabelas in Dundee, and we spend a fantastic hour and a half just talking and sharing coffee (Ok, I had the coffee, he had a pop)!  I look forward to meeting up at Perry next month to shoot side by side, along with my Son and Madsenshooter!

Now, to the problem at hand:  There is many cases of Krags having problems chambering rounds with spitzer bullets from the magazine well.  Some will and some won't without problems... or just won't altogether!  My Krags will, however if I don't crimp the bullets, the bullets will telescope into the case neck every single time.  This is an inherent quality of the Krag design, as it was designed for round nosed bullets.  There have been cases of some (less than honorable) gunsmiths trying to modify the side plate and/or chamber trying to improve this, but all that does is make it worse. 

My advise would be to try some round nosed bullets if possible, and see if the feeding improves any.  Also, you might check to see if the rounds were positioned correctly when placed in the mag well (just speculating because it has happened to me).

I forgot to ask... was the magazine cutoff in place or removed?  That will also sometimes hamper proper feeding.

This has gotten more complicated.

We started with a bolt that would 'hang-up', even on occasion while single-loading a cartridge.

Now, it is coupled with a magazine 'feed problem'.

IMHO - First the bolt 'hanging-up', on single-loaded cartridges, needs to be solved. When that is rectified, then magazine feeding & ammunition issues can be addressed.

As I now understand it: 'Annapolis' has a model 1892 Krag-Jorgensen, that was given the model 1896 'updates'.

This introduces quite a range of Parts possibilities: 4 different magazine cutoffs (all should work), 3 different Bolts & combinations of different bolt sub-assemblies (most should work), 2 different magazine side-plates (1892 & 1896) and their variations, and the possibility of the wrong (1898) follower-assembly having been installed. There is also the possibility of worn, broken or damaged parts.

(Of course, when this model 1892 Krag was updated in the early 1900s, the ammo it was tested with was the 220 grain U.S. Army rounds).

A Pound???  How you gonna get that much powder in one case???  LOL

Let us know how things work out on this, as I'm sure that the results will help solve problems for many others too!

>~~~~ Snicker ~~~~<