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Will,
Welcome to KCA, Home of Krag lovers! We love everything Krag and you have jumped right in with your purchase.
You appear, on first examination, to be one of the rare ones to have stumbled into a rare situation. It looks like you have found a M1898 Krag carbine! There were only 5002 of these made and most of them have been lost to history. The M1898 carbine is often faked because it is so rare. The stock appears to be a later arsenal replacement with the cartouche 1901. The rear sight looks to be a correct M1901 carbine sight with the little "c"s stamped on it. I can't see all of it but it looks correct.
The barrel looks to be the correct 22 inch carbine barrel with the Springfield Armory brazed front sight base.
And, most importantly, the serial number, 123263 is right smack in the known M1898 carbine range.
These are difficult to authenticate for absolute sure but these are some of the details we look for. One big reason these are difficult to authenticate for sure is that the receiver has no specific markings that designate that it was originally built as a carbine, like the M1899 carbines (anything marked Model 1899 was always manufactured at Springfield Armory as a carbine). There was also a lot of overlapping of serial numbers whereby Krag carbines and rifles can both have serial numbers in this small range that M1898 carbines are found in.
If you picked this up, with accoutrements, for $900, you got the deal of the year! Authentic M1898 Krag carbines in good shape, and with a good bore to boot, are worth around $2000! (or more!)
This does not mean you can't shoot it! Krags are meant to shoot. Some would say don't because it is worth so much. But, it shouldn't hurt it because .30-40 ammo is not damaging to the carbine.
So, welcome and congratulations! You should be patting yourself on the back. Most people who buy a Krag and come here looking for an opinion of "How'd I do?" are given bad news.
You're the exception!
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Recent Carbine Purchase (Read 2024 times)