Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Dovetail slot on Krag barrel

I found a great old sporterized Krag carbine a couple years ago though polished and blued (nicely) it's original carbine stock was sanded to a splinter. You have to wonder what the guy was thinking; it is an actual 1898 carbine in the correct serial number range, with correct 1898C rear sight and stock with squared bolt recess and filled holes where the saddle ring had been. Only problem was/is a forend screw was used to support the forend with a dovetail slot cut on the bottom of the barrel just forward of the chamber, under the rear face of the rear sight base approximately. Barrel thickness at the dovetail is .940 at the narrowest and I did the math, subtracting .308 and dividing by two minus cut depth (.080) to leave .236 remaining. Is that enough? I've shot a dozen rounds, presuming that factory loads had been used in it for years. What's the minimum? It's a 45K psi cartridge of course and factory loads don't exceed 40K.

My gut feeling is you're ok. I would feel better about that if I knew just how far forward it is. Regardless, if you have fired factory ammo it's probably all right. Were it mine I would hedge my bets and relegate it to the use of mild reduced loads.

A better idea would be to send off to the CMP for a new Criterion Krag barrel (made by a sub-division of Krieger). They're only $200 or so, exterior dimensions are the same as the originals, interior dimensions are "modern" .30 caliber dimensions- not like the interior dimensions of original barrels which can be all over the map- and are beautifully made. I bought two so far and am mightily pleased.

Thanks for the reply. I would definitely rebarrel it if it were a cut down rifle but I think there's still some inherent value in keeping the original carbine barrel in spite of the refinish and dovetail. I'm not sure of the length of original throats but the rear of the slot is probably under the forward portion of the throat. Further forward and it would be under the rear sight screw hole, which might have factored into its placement. Also the barrel wall is thickest there.

Don't ascribe too much sentimental value to a barrel that's been re-blued and had a dovetail cut in it. All collector value is gone, it is now but a shooter even if it was originally a carbine barrel- but I see where you're coming from.

Remember, back when that gun was sporterized, Krags were a dime-a-dozen. Nobody collected them and their value lay only in their ability to expel a chunk of lead out the end of a barrel.

What would drive my decision regarding replacement would be how good the bore is and how well it shoots.

The originals sure did run sloppy , didn't they.

GTC

Pre-1899 Krags had bore dimensions all over the place. I've seen them run as high as .314 groove diameter, and never less than .309. They brought barrel maker Harry Pope in to take a look at things and he was aghast when he watched the barrel department at work. He made a bunch of caustic recommendations, some of which were adopted. The result was the last couple of years of Krag barrel production saw noticeable improvements in tolerances but by then the Krag was being phased out.

That's not to say early Krags aren't accurate. It's just that with extreme examples care must be taken to adjust bullet size to barrel dimensions. (Using cast bullets helps in that regard.)

Anecdote: Inside the concrete impoundment dam of the lake at Fort Ritchie in Cascade, MD, are over 10,000 Krag barrels used as re-bar. I got that from an old guy who was on the CCC crew that built it in the 1930's.

The armory's transition from the capacious and tool friendly .45 bore down to the smaller .30 saw a whole rethink in deep hole drilling methodologies, AND tool steels driven forward
involving old Harry being part of the brain trust, and old JMB another.
As is so often the case in "defense contracting" the well ensconced engineers and management had to be dragged kicking and screaming along with anything vaguely resembling progress,..."but we've always done it this way" their songs.

As a fairly dumb, and undeniably bold kid, I had several totally trashed Krags, courtesy largely due to corrosive primers on top of already capacious dims.

I thank my lucky stars that all of the surplus .303 ammo I ran through them was of decent quality. Can only imagine what an encounter with some of those old sporting cordite loaded bombs might have wrought.
First barrels I ever hand lapped, those. Groups tightened right up.

GTC

This one is about as accurate as the only other one I've owned which was a M1898 cut down rifle from 1902. Before trying the 1896 carbine sight, the 1902 rifle sight was my favorite. Both shoot 1" or slightly less with iron sights at 50 yards. That's about as good as I can shoot any iron sighted rifle. I haven't slugged the bore so don't know it's actual bore size but I bet it's not far from 308 based on accuracy. My experience with an Argentine Mauser proved that just a few thousands can make for horrible accuracy. I hadn't heard the story about Pope advising Springfield; that's interesting.

Clearwater reboring would only rebore if there was over .2 above the groove depth and they did a LOT of reboring. .236 should be fine. Muddy-Muddy

Hmmm. So they would only rebore a .224 barrel to minimum .424? Methinks you got your numbers screwed up!