A Krag in .308??

[olyinaz]

It's a Norwegian Krag, but even so is this wise?

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewIt ... =295046075

I'd always thought that Krags were best in the older 40-something thousand PSI chamberings and not the newer 50,000+ designs. Or was this common practice once upon a time?

Oly

[windy]

still got a one-lug bolt, i'm thinkin'. don't think i'd wanta shoot it with full-deck loads, even if it is a norwegian, and much tougher than th' local variety. nice smooth actions, though, and i love that thar loadin' tray!
mind yer topknots!
windy


"sonny, whar i growed up, "magnum" wuz jist another word fer "lousy hunter".

[AJMD429]

Same here. I'm no metallurgist nor gunsmith, but if I wanted a .308 I'd get one or have one made on a Mauser bolt action. The Krags are cool guns though; ammo should not be all that scarce and can be reloaded with common components. I suppose if I had a bunch of guns in a similar-powered/pressured chambering that would feed well, I might re-do it if I planned to shoot high volumes through it and wanted to use the same ammo, but most likely I'd just leave it in the original chambering, and appreciate it for what it is, not what it almost-is...

[sharps1863]

Yea I saw that listed too. I dont think I would want to trust shooting it much unless it was with light reloads. I seen a couple of 1911 Swiss straight pulls re-chambered to .308 at a gun show a while back. Most diffidently would not want to shoot one of those.

[earlmck]

Plenty of experts have given their opinion on the Krag action. "Quite weak", they tell us. But one fellow loaded them up until they blew up before he gave us his opinion -- P.O. Ackley. In his words "It gave no trouble even with powders as hot as #4198 in quantities sufficent to require compression to get in the case. Such loads blew the primers but did not hurt the action." He ended up with a case full of 2400 before the action ruptured and even then it wouldn't have done serious injury to the shooter. He tested four actions, two standard and two that had been re-heat treated. All similar results.

Ackley wouldn't have worried about shooting that Krag rebarrelled to 308 if it was done by a competent gunsmith. I wouldn't either.

[Alan Wood]

Plenty of experts have given their opinion on the Krag action. "Quite weak", they tell us. But one fellow loaded them up until they blew up before he gave us his opinion -- P.O. Ackley. In his words "It gave no trouble even with powders as hot as #4198 in quantities sufficent to require compression to get in the case. Such loads blew the primers but did not hurt the action." He ended up with a case full of 2400 before the action ruptured and even then it wouldn't have done serious injury to the shooter. He tested four actions, two standard and two that had been re-heat treated. All similar results.

Ackley wouldn't have worried about shooting that Krag rebarrelled to 308 if it was done by a competent gunsmith. I wouldn't either.

"Ackley wouldn't have worried about shooting that Krag rebarrelled to 308 if it was done by a competent gunsmith. I wouldn't either.[" And therein lies the rub this being a used weapon we have no idea of the gunsmiths skill level. I wouldn't trust that weapon with my sight or worse.

[Ji in Hawaii]

Please correct me if I'm recalling incorrectly but weren't all the European Krags twin locking lugs? I thought I read that the US Krags had one lug removed from the design for smoothness. Also the 30/40 US round was lower pressure than the Norwegian 6.5 x 55 round (also used by Sweden).
For the price (currently) I'd consider buying it and just shooting lower pressure reloads though the original 6.5 x 55 round was no slouch.

[Charles]

The Norweigan Krags are considerably stronger that the US Krags. They were made later and with better steel. Still, I would not want one or shoot one in .308.

[olyinaz]

I've thought about this some.

I'm not certain how steel ages, but Ackley probably did his tests over half a century ago, so that's something to consider.

Also, my reloading manual has a special section for old military rifles in 6.5x55, and the Krag is the weaker of the two actions. If 60,000 PSI was fine and dandy for thee actions they wouldn't have that section.

The rifle wasn't designed with a steady diet of 60,000 PSI in mind, but it was almost certainly proofed at that pressure. Who shoots proof loads in their rifle on every outing? Sounds unwise to me...

Will it blow up? Unlikely. Will it stretch or start to fail in some other way? Almost certainly, I'd think, if a shooter puts a lot of full-spec .308 ammo through it. Do we know how much it's had already? No. COULD it fail to a stress fracture on the next shot? Unlikely, but yes, it could. My Norwegian shooter friends tell me that old Krags routinely fail in Norway because they've been well used for a century without a break. They just get old and fail.

Could a guy buy this and shoot light loads in it? Sure! And that's all I'd do with it, but you still have no idea how hard it's been ridden, and even a 45,000 PSI failure is not something I want to be under or behind.

Them's my thoughts. With a genuine Fajen stock and how pretty it is, if that thing had been in .257 Roberts or some other mild chambering I'd have been foaming over it. Not in .308 Win.

I still want a custom U.S. Krag in .25-35!

Oly

[DarryH]

There are some heavy loads these days, and those guns are a lot older now, by what.....
40 to 80 years older ????????

Many Krags were reamed out to accept 30-06 blanks to be fired by honor guards.
Now I sure wouldn't want one of those on myshoulder when I touched off a live round!!!

[Sixgun]

We old gun Winchester & Colt collectors have a saying-"when in doubt, do without". I suppose the same can be said about 100 year old guns that are rebarreled to a 55,000 psi cartridge. After all, I don't think anyone is starving here and we all can afford a Remington 700 if the need arises.

Now you know why the bid is $142 with no reserve---junk is junk and always will be junk.------------Sixgun

[Malamute]

That's interesting information about Ackley and the Krags, but you also should keep in mind that many US Krags have been found with the locking lug cracked. There isn't a tremendous difference between the US and Norwegian Krags in design or execution.

If one liked the gun, it could be rebarreled to the original 6.5x55.

Looks like a standard, one lug bolt.

[32-20]

These Krags were sold as the Globe model 777 around 1960. An article in the Aug. 1961 amer. rifleman said they should be safe if done on a good action, but since they were 50-60 years old (in 1961) there was no way of knowing for sure the action cond. and said the shooter had to decide on if it should be shot. If I had it I would use 30-40 krag data since the 30-40 and 308 have the same case capacity.

[markinalpine]

I see Spanish Mausers rebarelled in 7.62x51 NATO a lot. Work was done, in some cases, by the Israelis.

[olyinaz]

These Krags were sold as the Globe model 777 around 1960. An article in the Aug. 1961 amer. rifleman said they should be safe if done on a good action, but since they were 50-60 years old (in 1961) there was no way of knowing for sure the action cond. and said the shooter had to decide on if it should be shot. If I had it I would use 30-40 krag data since the 30-40 and 308 have the same case capacity.

It's sad that they were rechambered at all! 6.5mm kicks butt and should have never been swapped out.

Oly

[CaptainFinn]

The Krag bolt has a long 'rib' along one side. On the Norwegian Krag the rib bears down on a slot in the receiver, functioning as a second bolt lug. The U.S. Krag has a similar rib, but it doesn't contact the receiver. I have read that an old 'trick' back in the day was to lap the Krag bolt lug so that the rib contacted the receiver much in the same way the Norwegian model did. In addition, the bolt handle itself functions as a lug, not that I'd want to depend on it if the front locking lug failed.

[bobbyjack]

The Krag is a 308 it a 30/30 with ten more grains of powder,it replaced the 45/70.

And got it's azz handed to it by the 7x62 Mauser,and then the the military found the

right rifle after paying mauser money for the thier development of the 03 springfield.

The 30/40 kraig is good for what was designed for Replacing the 30/30 flat nosed

cartridge with a speer point,but the ability to use stripper clips made the mauser

years ahead of the Kraig!

Bob

[olyinaz]

The Krag is a Norwegian designed rifle adopted by Denmark, the U.S., and Norway (in that order). It was chambered in three different calibers for those three nations and had several different features in each case, but the family resemblance is clear. The best chambering of the rifle (in my view) was in 6.5x55mm for Norway, but in all cases the chamberings were relatively low pressure designs.

.308 Winchester is not a low pressure chambering. That was where we came in here and what the conversation was about.

Oly

[Pete44ru]

I see Spanish Mausers rebarelled in 7.62x51 NATO a lot. Work was done, in some cases, by the Israelis.

FWIW, the 7.62x51NATO is loaded to MUCH lower pressures than the commercial .308 Winchester which will interchange/chamber - as some relatively new purchasers of those milsurps have unpleasantly found out, when they naively touched off .308W's in them.

.

[kragluver]

First - as others have stated, a .308 in the Krag action is too much. It would stretch the receiver and eventually most likely cause dangerous headspace issues leading to possible case head separation and gas leakage. I 100% agree as already pointed out that we know nothing about the gunsmith who did the rechamber-work on this .308 Krag. It could have been Bubba or a master. We'll never know. That Krag is only worth what the piece parts could bring - I would never shoot it!

The Norwegian and Danish Krag's did not have two locking lugs (like the Mauser). However, the bolt guide rib was designed to bear on the receiver which resulted in essentially two lugs bearing. On the US Krag, the receiver was relieved very slightly such that the guide rib did not bear. I think (opinion only - no engineering data to back this up) that Springfield purposefully did this to avoid having to hand-fit and serialize bolts to receivers - simplifying manufacturing and parts utilization. Springfield Armory's museum has on hand a two-lug Krag with a bolt essentially like a Mauser. It was apparently one of the rifles evaluated during the 1892 Magazine Rifle trials. Why this bolt arrangement was not adopted I do not know. Perhaps nobody at the time could conceive of chamber pressures of over 40KSI. Remember, a 220 gr bullet at 2000 ft/sec in 1892 was really state of the art!

The Krag is however a pretty darn strong and safe action - when kept to the 40KSI range it was designed for. You have a single locking lug with two safety lugs - 1) the bolt guide rib against the receiver and 2) the bolt handle in the receiver mortise slot. A member over on the Krag Collectors Forum purposefully milled off the single locking lug such that the two safety lugs were the only things keeping the bolt locked in place. Then it was tested to destruction. Basically, the bolt held with all reasonable overloads and the receiver ring and rear guide rib broke only after a heavy charge of Bullseye. In the Ackley tests, he found similar results (although with a complete Krag bolt/receiver). When the action finally let go, it was the receiver ring that broke and the bolt held.

Keep in mind too that the US made Krag was manufactured from the identical ordnance grade steel that the early (pre 800K) M1903s were made from - forged and heat treated the same way. The Krag receiver is as likely to be brittle as a low numbered 1903. The difference is that with the rimmed cartridge, the bolt head completely surrounds the base and the case head is fully supported by the chamber. A case head separation and gas leakage is not going to get into the receiver well creating a hand grenade. In a Mauser action, the rear lower part of the cartridge is unsupported by either the bolt or the receiver wall. In that case, a case head separation will cause gas leakage into the receiver where it has a lot more area to work on. I do think the brittleness manifested itself in a different manner in the Krag with the cracked bolt lugs when the 2200 fps .30-40 loading was introduced. I doubt they would have had any of those issues with a more modern steel or circa 1918 heat treat practices.

[olyinaz]

First - as others have stated, a .308 in the Krag action is too much. It would stretch the receiver and eventually most likely cause dangerous headspace issues leading to possible case head separation and gas leakage. I 100% agree as already pointed out that we know nothing about the gunsmith who did the rechamber-work on this .308 Krag. It could have been Bubba or a master. We'll never know. That Krag is only worth what the piece parts could bring - I would never shoot it!

The Norwegian and Danish Krag's did not have two locking lugs (like the Mauser). However, the bolt guide rib was designed to bear on the receiver which resulted in essentially two lugs bearing. On the US Krag, the receiver was relieved very slightly such that the guide rib did not bear. I think (opinion only - no engineering data to back this up) that Springfield purposefully did this to avoid having to hand-fit and serialize bolts to receivers - simplifying manufacturing and parts utilization. Springfield Armory's museum has on hand a two-lug Krag with a bolt essentially like a Mauser. It was apparently one of the rifles evaluated during the 1892 Magazine Rifle trials. Why this bolt arrangement was not adopted I do not know. Perhaps nobody at the time could conceive of chamber pressures of over 40KSI. Remember, a 220 gr bullet at 2000 ft/sec in 1892 was really state of the art!

The Krag is however a pretty darn strong and safe action - when kept to the 40KSI range it was designed for. You have a single locking lug with two safety lugs - 1) the bolt guide rib against the receiver and 2) the bolt handle in the receiver mortise slot. A member over on the Krag Collectors Forum purposefully milled off the single locking lug such that the two safety lugs were the only things keeping the bolt locked in place. Then it was tested to destruction. Basically, the bolt held with all reasonable overloads and the receiver ring and rear guide rib broke only after a heavy charge of Bullseye. In the Ackley tests, he found similar results (although with a complete Krag bolt/receiver). When the action finally let go, it was the receiver ring that broke and the bolt held.

Keep in mind too that the US made Krag was manufactured from the identical ordnance grade steel that the early (pre 800K) M1903s were made from - forged and heat treated the same way. The Krag receiver is as likely to be brittle as a low numbered 1903. The difference is that with the rimmed cartridge, the bolt head completely surrounds the base and the case head is fully supported by the chamber. A case head separation and gas leakage is not going to get into the receiver well creating a hand grenade. In a Mauser action, the rear lower part of the cartridge is unsupported by either the bolt or the receiver wall. In that case, a case head separation will cause gas leakage into the receiver where it has a lot more area to work on. I do think the brittleness manifested itself in a different manner in the Krag with the cracked bolt lugs when the 2200 fps .30-40 loading was introduced. I doubt they would have had any of those issues with a more modern steel or circa 1918 heat treat practices.

Thanks!

Oly