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

It would be interesting knowing how the 1901 sight works with 22 ammo given it’s calibration for the 220-grain service round. I’d pop on a Redfield 70 if the 1901 sight proved to be problematical.

The old Pacific no-drill sight is another option.

Very, very nice. Love that left-hand twist.

interesting read: http://www.oldbike.eu/centurycolumbia/?page_id=431

I have a Krag sporter. It is accurate and that magazine!!!!!!! Coolest thing ever - just drop 'em in pointing in the right direction and you're good to go. Damnedest thing. :-)

T.S.

A little late responding, but I had to find a few things that I wanted to get pictures of. First there was a questions of the sights... well over the years I acquired some Rice peep sights, not something I plan on using....




I often wondered exactly how these attached, I though there was a screw that had to be replaced with a longer one, it appear that it's a pin that has the head staked in place that would have to be replaced with a special screw... now that I know that, I 'think' there may have been one of those screws in a parts lots I got one of the sights from... but where it is today is unknown!


The original Krag still had these in the butt, not sure of the cleaning rod, it does not have a handle and is not long enough to clean the whole barrel from one end, but that's all that will fit?


I did test shoot the Krag 22 with some CB Longs, nothing that would tell me how well the sights will work. It extracts well until the case is about 3/4 out of the chamber and then, because there is nothing opposite the extractor to keep the case from dropping down, it slips off leaving the case where you can get hold of it, or shake it out. If it comes out all the way it will fall into the magazine well...Hmmm?...wonder how many 22 cases it would hold before you'd have to empty it?

I am not sure exactly what the the 22 Pope Armory cartridges were but I am quite sure one feature was that the rim of the case was not crimped to hold the bullets, that was a feature of all the first 22 Long Rifle cartridges because they were intended for target use in single shots and it was felt the crimp affected accuracy. There is not much of the bullet in the case and without the crimp it could easily be dislodged - Stevens even warns when extracting a live round of the possibility in single shots that the bullet could be pulled from the case if it's chambers so the bullet contacts the rifling.


Due to un-crimped 22 Long Rifle ammunition still being around some early semi-auto's in 22 Long Rifle were marked for 'crimped cartridges' because of the possibility of bullets coming out of the cases. Some other repeaters from the time just weren't offered in 22 Long Rifle, the Winchester pumps weren't until a couple years after the Model 1906 was introduce.


The early Savage 1912's had the "CRIMPED" stamp added, as pictured above, later it was added to a new roll stamp.

Offset bores in 22's were not a new thing when the Pope conversions were done, all Quackenbush Safety Rifles had an offset bore to allow for milling the rear bottom of the barrel flat for the swiveling breech block.

image limit of 6 reached - will have to use click on the link to see the Quakenbush....

[img]https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/gallery/80/full/75780.jpg[/img]

I never cared for the Rice sight. Too limited range of adjustment. And yes, Gene, the extractor rivet does get replaced with a screw when using the Rice sight.

The Krag cleaning rod sections were meant to be shared by squad mates- mix and match to make a long enough rod for the 30" rifle barrel. The three sections work to do a carbine barrel.

No Krags but I do have this...



(still located at Photobucket. Hope you can see it.)

Given that most Krag extractors are held on with a rivet I always wondered how the Rice site was attached. The Rice sight is a clever design but it always looked like an econo sight to me.

... bring 'em to the Savage Fest, I'll have the rifle & we can break the box open....
Yes, the Krag should make it to the Fest.

I can see your picture for now, I have found that photobucket will on occasion let the pictures through, might not see it tomorrow, I also found that the fix mentioned in the above sticky does work, have it on my older computer.

I found there was another type of 22 conversion for the Krags, I believe your ammunition was intended for that one. It was a little more involved, it appeared to use an extractor in the replacement barrel that was activated by the original extractor and apparently had an ejector. 1898-kragjorgensen-gallery-practice-rifle. (but I think they will still shoot just fine in mine....)

I was planning on selling the Rice sights on ebay as one lot since they are all different, but I think I now have to keep them as curiosity pieces to go with the Krag (singular, just plan on keeping the 22).

I would be keen to know the rifling rate of twist in this rifle. Noodling around on the Krag collector's forum turns up some controversy over the ROT in the Stevens-Pope barreled Krags. One guy claims a 1-28 twist and obviously gets much better accuracy with .22 shorts. I have no clue what the bullet weight is for the Armory cartridges. Since at the time serious indoor target shooters favored the .22 short cartridge over the long rifle, perhaps Stevens made a few so chambered? .22 long rifle ammo didn't hit its stride until the immediate post-WWI period. Word amongst some is that the bores varied in diameter also, with some being .226-.227 (sound familiar?), and that cartridges weren't crimped making extraction of unfired rounds dicey.

Rick- how about cutting that box open so we can see if the cartridges were crimped or not and what the bullet diameter is. Kidding!!

Evidently these guns were made at the behest of National Guard units of several states and wasn't an idea cooked up by Army Ordnance. The chief of Ordnance at the time (1904-1908 time period) balked at the idea of them and ordered all extant rifles to be re-barreled back to the .30-40 cartridge. No one knows the extent to which that order was obeyed. Plus, the barrels could be purchased from Stevens privately so some were undoubtedly converted to .22 by private individuals.

It is said that the dovetail front sight slot was done that way to accommodate a "target" front sight. (Arsenal barrels have a shallow mortise into which the issue front sight base is soldered.) Again, who knows for sure. If intended for a target front sight (I'm assuming globe sight, but maybe they considered the Beech front sight to be a target sight too) then why no provision for a target rear sight? The M1901 rear sight, while being probably the best of the issue Krag sights, would be a poor choice to mate with a "target" front sight.

Pretty murky territory, but fascinating nonetheless. I'm glad it's Gene who has the rifle- he is best equipped to suss out the details of it IMO!!

The M1898 Gallery Practice Rifles you referenced, Gene, was Army Ordnance's answer to the training rifle problem. It was Pope's idea to go the other direction with the eccentric bore and utilize the issue bolt (and thus keeping the rifle easily converted back to .30 in an emergency if needs be), after the National Guard outfits approached Stevens for a solution (where Pope was ensconced at the time as chief barrel guy).

One of the state National Guard's in 1901 asked Stevens to modify a Krag to .22 for training. In order to find better ammo, Stevens worked with Peters and created the Armory loading. The online .22 Box ID (originating from the Tony Dunn book) shows seven different Peter's Stevens-Pope loadings for the Krag starting in 1905 (1905-~1920). Winchester began loading, two versions, in 1906 and UMC, one version, in 1907. The last two were not as popular as the Peters and are rare.

I checked the rifling, it's 1:16 and the gun is chambered for 22 Long Rifle. The bore is quite consistent with just a few very light spots that I think are lead from the muzzle to just in front of the chamber where there is more leading - until I can get that out any bullet will be made under size and will probably just rattle down the 28 or so inches of cleaner rifling.

Another problem with early 22 ammo was the external lube, early lubes were quite messy and you could buy bare lead ammo, some of the guns from that period have terrible leading, this one is not all that bad, checking the bore from the muzzle it looks quite good. It would not easily chamber a 22 Long Rifle when I got it, it must have been shot a lot using shorts, the chamber did clean up good, still working on the tight spot though.

Non-lubricated 22 ammunition must still have been an issue into the mid to later 1930's, the gun pictured is an early non-gilled Savage Model 6 from ~1935~1936~.



Added, I forgot to comment on the dovetailed front sight, I think the reason could that it was just the cheapest & easiest way to do it and it would be durable enough for the intended use of these.

Found this in my Newton book I was reading today. Thought it might be of interest.

From the reading chair last evening.
The Story of Pope Barrels, Ray M. Smith

Probably nothing new but interesting nonetheless.