Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Gunsmithing Bringing back a family friend - restoring an 1898 Krag

Some time ago, my Dad gave me a nice 1898 Krag rifle that had been given to him as a young man by his Uncle. It's a very nice rifle and the bore is vg - and it shoots very well! The only downer was that the Uncle had "sportered" the stock which was very common at the time of course. This was a simple stock shortening job - cut the forestock off and discard along with the front barrel band. This has always bugged me and I've been wanting to right this "wrong" about as long as I've owned the rifle. I did find correct replacement stocks for sale but they were going for $400 - $600 and I just couldn't bring myself to pay that. So, I kept looking hoping to find parts or an old stock that I could use as a "doner" to replace the lost wood. Well a few weeks ago, while perusing gunbroker I found that there were a bunch of parts listed in for the 1898 Krag! I found the front band and then found a replacement forestock - dimensioned to slip under the rear band - perfect!

Well I finally started working on this a couple of days ago and have reached completion of the fitting and assembly.

I forgot to shoot a pick immediately before starting... but here's the rifle right after I removed the rear barrel band and cut the stub of the original stock (you can see the stub sitting on the bench):


As you can see, I drilled three holes in the buttstock end to match the holes in the replacement piece - I found that a section of 45/70 brass worked perfect for the large hole as a reinforcement and a couple of cut nails worked for the smaller ones.



I also forgot to shoot a pic of the replacement wood "in the raw" - I used Pilkington's English Red spirit stain (available from Brownells) which when wet, is a very close match to the original color of the stock - but when it dries, the red fades and it goes brown... I tried several applications attempting to get the red to stay but it just wasn't to be...


Everything fit well though and the boiled linseed oil is working well but I do need to apply several more coats to get it to shine.



The replacement wood just doesn't have the same "sheen" as the original - I think I need to compress the grain some and keep applying the BLO until it builds to a shine...
[img]http://www.gunsnet.net/album/data//500/HPIM2215.JPG[/img]

Overall though, I am very pleased. It all fit together well and I was able to drill the cross screw and pin holes correctly and accurately. In holding the now whole rifle, in retrospect, its kind of a mystery as to what people were thinking by chopping these up - they didn't look as nice and the weight "gain" was almost undetectible... but then, those were different times.

Nice job. Look pretty good to me. Keep applying the oil and the shine will come up. Wet sand with 400 grit and then 3 more ultra thin coats. I like it.

Thanks. Sand with the oil on it? Hadn't thought of that. Have been using some 0000 steel wool though...

Let it dry completely first then WET sand. Use wet or dry paper. Wet being the key part. That way the paper doesn't clog up and will keep cutting. Best to remove the gun from the stock first. Steel wool will leave little bits of wool in the finish. Apply the oil in ultra thin coats. Make one drop cover the whole thing. That means you have to rub hard. You're going for a coat that is molecules thick. Wait three days or so and give it another coat. After 3 or 4 coats you'll start to see a shine. Just keep it up till it's where you want it, sanding every 3 or 4 coats. If you keep it up it'll shine like a new penny. It doesn't happen fast but it'll get there.

Very nice job! Keep on rubbin...

Nice job!

Another way to get a shine with BLO is melt beeswak and BLO together, cut with turpentine or Mineral Spirits to achieve a paste with about the consistency of shoe polish. How you do it is up to you, but I wouldn't do it inside the house- fire hazard. Apply coat, wait a few minutes, buff off. Shiney, and smells good. This was an old Army trick, taught me by an old WWII Army Ordnance Artificer. But like all oil finishes, don't rely on it as a weather seal.

Well, I got tired of rubbing on BLO and decided to try some treewax. That did the trick straight away - now has a nice sheen like the rest of the stock

OSOK,

Very nice work on that. The Krag is a wonderful round and a great hunting weapon.

Have you killed anything with it?

Thank you - no, I haven't taken this one hunting yet - but I need to! I have some cast bullet loads (200 grain Lyman gas checked) that go about 2000 fps which is approx the original weight/velocity of the old military loads. They would do nicely for deer

You got me thinking now.