Hello Krag Friends,

I recently purchased this 1898 "Short Rifle" and thought I would post it here for viewing and comments.

The seller said that he had acquired several of these that appeared to have been cut down by Vet organization to same length as an '03 Springfield (Perhaps for uniformity?????) Seller said that he had these re-crowned and that the barrels are decent, serviceable and the the rifle functions as it should. I don;t think he fired any of them.

I have a long rifle and liked the short rifle (Being an '03 collector), the price was decent, so I purchased it.

It is an 1898 with serial 472932.  (You need to Login to view media files and links) gives a year of manufacture as 1903, which seems to match the cartouche.

It is at my dealer, waiting for me to return home Next October.
Barrel length is 23". It is my intention to have it sent to my gunsmith to have a correct front sight installed (S&S) and also have the sharp edge rounded off......If anyone objects, please chime in and include reason.

It has the 1902 Rear sight. My dealer tells me that the rifling is "good". His words. Won;t be until October when I can actually inspect.

Anyway....here is is.....

Additional...

Am waiting for my dealer to provide some measurements that I asked for.

Goodness.  Please don't ruin a bayonet just to fit this Krag.  The bayonet will be around longer than you and will be sold after you tire of it or after your demise to some dude who will buy it from a picture on the 'net and find out it does not fit his rifle. At any rate the gun and bayonet will become seperated in the future.

Send the gun to the CMP and have a new one spun on to it and do a wood restoration.  Or you can have the muzzle turned down since it is already buggered.  You can get a replacement forearm piece and splice it in if the stock has been cut back.

Just my opinion but I try to live by the hippotomus oath when it comes to Krags or any mil rifle for that matter.  Doctor do no harm.

I also agree with Culpeper that the muzzle should be altered to fit the bayonet if you must. Don't ruin the harmless bayonet. It never did anything to you! Keep it intact for the next Krag enthusiast.

Just working on the outside of that crown will make it a lot better. The only book I read on gunsmithing told how to cut and crown a barrel without a lathe. Forty years ago so I forgot some of the details. Cant even remember the name or author.
On the inside portion of the crown he would chamfer the bore with a 45 degree bit then use some brass ball shaped laps in a brace (Before power drills were common) to work it out. On the OD I think the procedure was to file then sand it to shape.

A couple of quick questions, when the CMP was handing out all those Krags in the thirties, they did not come with the bayonets did they? How did a person get them?

Thanks for the comments.

From the measurements, I think that the stock may be longer than 38"......standard OAL of the PC/School/Short rifle stock. Even if i were to have a new 22" barrel installed, a bayonet would not attach as it would be shorter than the 23" the barrel is now. Besides, there is a long waiting list to sedn something to CMP.....I am already on it, for something else.

Also, the repro barrels do not have the correct thread on the rear sight mounting screw holes.

Would you still be upset if I used a beater bayonet? Or purchased a replacement Guard to modify, rather than having the existing barrel turned down? Wouldn't that entail removing the barrel in order to mount it into a milling machine? I will discuss that with my gunsmith.

Forend replacement splice? Why would I remove the whole forend on this rifle? Actually, I will not see this rifle until next October, when I come home. The idea was to have my 01-FFL ship it to the gunsmith to have the front sight installed and contour the muzzle (It's already been cut down and re-crowned.....Not by me), then have Gsmith ship back to my 01-FFL so that I can do the paperwork when I come home. Why not wait til I come home, you may ask?.....Because I will only have 30 days and I have stuff to do. Besides, Gsmiths aren't know to be fast. He may not be done by time I have to return overseas and he may not be willing to hold onto the rifle for another year until I can come home again to get it.

Actually, I have a barreled receiver on the way, which I am going to have to find a stock for, so I might just do the barrel turning for the bayonet on that....or the separate stripped receiver and barrel that I have for another build. Have to find a stock fot it, so I could do the forend splice thing on that and set it up to accept a bayonet.

I appreciate the comments.

I received enough criticism from the M1 Garand crowd "Purists" when I had a BM59 built, about "destroying" a piece of history.

Understand about altering the bayonet. Was going to try to find a beater bayo and fix it up.  Am just trying to keep expense of turning the front of the muzzle.....unless that can be done WITHOUT removing the barrel.

Whig wrote on Dec 31^st, 2018 at 10:11pm:

Jason60chev wrote on Jan 1^st, 2019 at 9:21am:

The folks on this forum are really great!  Most helpful, friendly and at times humorous.  Like a family, well some families.  Ha.  I'm always impressed with their knowledge.  When it comes to everything Krag, this is the goto place.

Yeah, as to the Garand forum.  You can guess what I think about that attitude.  BTW the BM59 is a really neat rifle.
Vic