Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Krag-Jørgensen Model 1898

I recently bought a lot of two Krag-Jørgensen Model 1898’s at auction, these are the first I ever owned (or ever wanted to) and it’s the first time I had a chance to closely examine one. They are really very interesting rifles, I really found the design features interesting. I now see why sporting conversions of these were so popular, some of the features make them seem more suited to that than to ‘modern’ military use.

I only wanted one of the two but you couldn’t split the lot. Here are some pictures. Both have 1902 cartouches.





Different front sights, the muzzle cap will not fit on the lower one.

Same Buffington rear sight on both, this sight was one of several used on these rifles over the short period they were in service. The graduations will not be correct for the one I wanted and it’s the one I consider worth the most by far. It was re-barreled about the 1902~1904 period and is now a single shot.





The only thing done to the gun was to replace the barrel, no other modification were required. The bore is off center so the firing pin will hit the rim of a 22 Long Rifle cartridge, doing this also places the rim of the cartridge up where the original extractor will catch it for extraction. It is slightly heavier than an original, 9lbs 10oz compared to 9lbs 8oz, but for use as a trainer it would be almost ideal because everything else is exactly the same as the service rifle - because it is the service rifle, it could be returned to original 30US (30-40 Krag) just by replacing the barrel...but what would you do with a 30" Pope barrel if you did that?



I found a video that really goes into detail on the features of the Krag-Jørgensen (which means it is very long @ 1 hour 45 min.- The Milwaukee Brewer’s started losing, so I watched the whole thing).

Krag 1898 video

After seeing how the magazine on these works I now know one major reason why this rifle was chosen in the US military trials over the others, including the Savage; the Krag-Jørgensen addresses all of the wants that were asked for when using loose ammunition. It can easily be switched to block the magazine for single loading; the magazine can be loaded, unloaded or topped off with the bolt open or closed, with or with out a round in the chamber – and this can all be done in a prone position without having to raise the rifle. The video goes on to explain that after facing the stripper-clip loaded Mauser’s in Spanish-American War our military realized being able to shoot single shot and using loose ammunition was not a very good thing anymore… even though we'd won!