Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Mausers and Military Rifles Krag barrel

fellow gun head called me today and he picked up a Krag rifle for cheap at a yard sale. He got it home and realized the barrel is pitted horribly but the rest of the gun is very condition for its age. Im guessing corrosive ammunition. He wants to get it rebarreled but after checking on barrels on ebay etc. that he is out of luck. I told him to just hang on the wall of his man cave and leave it at that.

Check with Criterion Barrels

Thehttps://criterionbarrels.com/product-category/30-40-krag/?v=7516fd43adaa

They show "out of stock" but it would be worth a call to see what their production schedule might be.

I'd shoot it first.

Plus 1! If it's "safe", take it out and just 'see how it shoots!' Work from there!
My take!
Best
John

The CMP will occasionally have Krag barrels on their site.

kwg

you can get a new barrel out of Douglas with a fairly quick turn around in comparison to other companies.
and they are good shooters.. just checked their site...

I have a 30/40 Krag, that is one of 5,000 made Cavalry Models made... its in great shape and is still a darn good shooter, considering it is probably an original barrel. it was sporterized some time in the 50s when they were dirt cheap.

it has a 24 inch barrel.. would love to come across one in great shape and reasonable price with the 31 inch barrel.

Guy I knew in Boy Scouts ( one of the dads, who was not a gun person ) had one that was in real spotless condition, that came from his grandpa... Bought it from the CMP, because they had the original purchase invoice still.. bought sometime in the early 50s or so... Invoice was a $1.50, if you can believe that.. saw it for myself.

that ship sailed long ago...

Crappy Krag barrels can still shoot surprisingly well in terms of usable hunting accuracy. If push comes to shove, the Criterion route is the way to go if possible, IMO (I've used Criterions on Springfields, Krags, and M1's and can attest to their quality). And like Seafire said, contouring any .30 barrel blank to Krag dimensions is a cakewalk for a guy with a lathe who knows how to use it. I would have to wait until I'm home to double-check but I'm pretty sure they were a simple straight taper.

Krags are easy to rebarrel.

I substituted an old Mossberg 30-06 barrel in a man's Krag carbine last year so he could bring it back to a good shooting hunting rifle. You need to chamfer a radius on the feed ramp side, and cut for the extractor, but it's an easy job. The old 30-06 was from a bolt action so I cut off 1-1/2" of the rear end and turned a new shank. Chambered it to 30-40 and installed sights, blued it and that was it. It shoots very well and the customer was delighted. I made sure the stamping from Mossberg was down under the wood line so it would not show, and engraved 30-40 US Krag on the barrel.

If rebarreling a rifle you need a long enough barrel blank to start with. I have bought them from McGowen in the past.

thanks for the replies, his son shot it to today and was getting 2.5-3" groups at 50 yards with iron sights. This rifle is drilled and tapped for a side mount and he is going to try and find one, put a scope on it and call it good.

Scopes on Krags: difficult ergonomics. Two choices, both with side mounts. One has the scope sticking up straight from the side, to not interfere with the top ejection of spent brass - makes for awkward cheek positioning. Other is to cantilever the scope over the action centerline as normally done with rifles, but then the spent brass bangs into it and usually drops back down into the open action - some guys choose to deal with that rather than the more common awkward first choice. I have a Unertl target scope mounted on a Krag target rifle, on center, and I've learned to withdraw the spent case short of engaging the ejector and then plucking it off the extractor manually - not something I would particularly want to have to do in the deer woods.

Savvy Krag-ers usually go straight to an aperture rear sight for easier more accurate shooting versus the issue rear sights.

Update on the Krag rifle, my friend and his son both shot it again today the groups are opening up to 5-7" now. He doesnt want to bother with a scope now, just going to trade it off at the next gun show.

my eyes got bad a few years ago and i went to an old Redfield 102K aperture sight.



100 yards sighting in an aperture with 165gr Ranch Dog and H4891


165gr Ranch Dog
[img]https://i.imgur.com/4pV0D7p.jpg?1[/img]

i have another Krag that was rusted. i took a piece of 4" sewer pipe and a cap and i put it upright with a stainless steel band clamp and i filled it up with Evapo rust and i put the barrel and action in. i did do strip the bolt and trigger and everything else in to a big owl of evapo rust.

30-40 Krag rusted and inside of the barrel was rusted too.


30-40 krag with Brownell Oxpho blue and the inside of barrel was clean



someday my gunsmith will D&T on the offside and then i will put on a Weaver sidemounts.

nice looking rifles, TY for sharing

Try cleaning the barrel! I have gone as far as to use rest remover in a couple restorations. Most of the time Kroil, Hoppes copper solvent and brass wool wrapped around a brush will work wonders. Once the elevated parts of pits are removed, the pit doesn't effect the bullet as much. A couple fowling shots, and it may shoot a lot better.

Your thought about corrosive ammo was spot on. After the military adopted the 1903 Springfield, the Krags were retired and sold cheap. A lot were bought as deer rifles, shot a couple of times a year, then put back in the closet without cleaning. That's why you find Krags with good exteriors and corroded barrels.