1898 Springfield Krag carbine

[Music] the kingdom of Norway birthplace of one of America's most unusual service rifles Kongsberg munitions factory was Norway's premier arms manufacturer its director Ulla Krug partnered with gunsmith Erik Johansson to develop one of the most innovative magazine systems ever made Kruger guns and rifles come in many iterations here we'll be looking at one of the less common ones you only 5001 1898 Springfield carbines were ever made many of them remain unaccounted for and there are thousands of fakes the genuine 1898 s fall within a specific serial number range this one checks out and appears to have been made in September 1898 another indicator is barrel length which should be exactly 22 inches there should be no signs of re crowning and the front sight should be dovetailed and braised in place this example has a non-standard front blade by Marble the front band should be held in place by a spring like this one and not a screw many of the 1898 carbines this one included were Armory upgraded to the 1899 pattern of woodwork and had their rear sights replaced the full story behind crank science is very complicated with much back and forth between types suffice to say that although the rear sight on this example does have the crucial CE Marking this type incorporating the windage adjustment is the 1901 buffington pattern and was another standard armory upgrade it seems then that what we have here is a genuine 1898 carbine action but with standard Arsenal rebuilds of furniture and sights here it is on its maiden trip to the range at a hundred yards we were getting them on the paper but not much better than that here you can see why very vague and 120 year old rifling it looked even worse when I first had the gun but a thorough clean got rid of some of the buildup popping the camera down the barrel we pass in horrifying close-up through the chamber and onto the boar years of corrosive primers and general wear have definitely left their mark mind you if I look this good at 120 I'll be content [Music] when it came to cleaning up the action I took a conservative approach removing only ground in dirt and any corrosion I wanted this lovely carbine to where it's aged and patina with dignity it was quite a time and resource consuming job but badly needed all the gun would have eventually succumbed to the creeping advances of rust the stock had old layers of linseed oil on it that were pretty much flaking off it was therefore quite simple to strip it back and treat it with a few fresh coats of boiled linseed [Music] the American crowds were chambered in 30 US better known as 3040 Krag 3040 Krag was the first smokeless centerfire cartridge to be adopted by the US military these 10 dummy rounds have sierra 220 grain LED tipped projectiles the original rounds would have had the same weight bullet but with full metal jackets despite its name this ammunition never used black powder the 40 stood for 40 grains of smokeless the Krag yogin sand rifles are renowned for their very smooth bolt action and also for this unusual side box or capsule magazine sticking up at the back of the action is the ejector this is raised by the rearward motion of the bolt the magazine has this ingenious hinged arm which maintains pressure on the cartridges forcing them to progress one of the time around the breech ready to be chambered thus the magazine is effectively wrapped around the action rather than protruding like a modern box magazine there are two manually operated levers on the exterior of the action first of which is the safety catch at the rear of the bolt with the safety on bolt trigger and cocking piece are disabled the other lever is of course the magazine cut off the crime's went through a lengthy procurement process including nearly a year's delay when competing manufacturers objected to his selection the five round magazine was regarded as a standby with troops expected to load single rounds and only use the repeating capability when battle conditions dictated in the upright position the lever allows the magazine feed to be used the rifleman could also open up the side box and top up the magazine as needed flip the lever downwards and the magazine cut off is engaged the contents of the mag are held in reserve loading singly you can see that the action is quite forgiving I'm not placing these rounds especially carefully but the bolt is still picking them up and chambering them as normal with the lever back up again the rounds in the magazine are released and ready to be chambered and fired in fairly quick succession if we take a quick look from the other side we can see how the magazine feeds the five rounds in a circular pattern around the breech operating the magazine cutoff raises and lowers the base of the first cartridge so that it's either in position to be chambered or out of reach of the bolt as it passes by the crags apparent ease of loading and topping up was regarded as a major bonus but unfortunately in battle conditions it was to prove an impediment when the Roughriders with their 1896 Krug carbines advanced up kettle Hill there were reports of hundreds of live rounds being accidentally dropped this little notch is designed to hold the bulk back open when the gun is pointing downwards making it easier to load single rounds it's a little bit worn on this particular example but at over a century old I think we can forgive that the extractor is fitted to the bolt like an elongated spring with a hook on the end replacing the bolt is very simple you just put it in and twist it to the right and everything falls into place the single bolt lug on the kragg's is often mentioned as a weak point for all their charms the crog's are only suited for muzzle velocities of 2,000 feet per second or lower there is this additional place where the bolt snugs tightly against the receiver but it's not really a second lug more of a modest failsafe now there's no denying that the Krag bolt although ingeniously conceived can be something of a pig to figure out during disassembly and reassembly it may be helpful to keep your eye on this recess here it's the key to the whole thing turning the bolt through 180 degrees we first of all remove it from the katas ition then going around full circle we again see the recess watch it very closely as I pull the cocking piece rearward and separate the bolt thumb on the bolt handle and pull the cocking piece rearward again we'll freeze the picture once more because a full speed this goes so quickly you could blink and miss it you now have the firing pin and extractor assembly in one hand and the remainder of the bolt in the other the tip of the firing pin is held in place by the bolt spring we've been wrestling with so far but thankfully it's not too hard to release kind of like a keyhole fitting getting it back in requires some strength the spring may be 120 years old but it's still very powerful never the difficult bit fit the two halves together again and rotate them around until the aperture lines up with the bolt handle you now you need to press very firmly with your thumb on the safety catch whilst pulling the cocking piece rearward and twisting the whole thing back together again another way of doing it might be to press the bolt handle down on the edge of a bench once you've got that far all that's needed is a bit more tugging and you've got the bolt cocked and ready to go back into the rifle again at some point during its life this rifle sustained some stock damage and was repaired you can just see the crack on this side but turning the rifle over it's more obvious with two dowel pins through the bottom I didn't know much about the crog's when I got this one so I was briefly carried away by notions of the spanish-american war one of Theodore Roosevelt's riders bravely smacking a Spaniard about the head with my rifle breaking the stock this idea quickly evaporated when I discovered it was actually the 1896 Krag that was used in that war still this one may have seen action in the Philippines my first shots with this gun were actually taken using cast led projectiles I was proceeding with extreme caution due to the advanced age of the gun but my loads were far too light as witnessed a light puff of smoke seen coming from the breech on my final shot in this sequence we went ahead with copper jacketed bullets after that and all was well [Applause] [Applause] genuine 1898 Springfield Krag carbines are rare this particular one has been examined by American Krag experts and in their opinion is probably the real deal I'd love to have been a fly on the wall during the lifetime of this gun to know whose horse may have stood on the stock and broken it whether the gun saw any action and not least of all how it ended up in the UK whatever its provenance it's a great little rifle and I hope that in another hundred and twenty years when I'm long gone one of my descendants may take it to the range and crack a smile as they fire it for the first time [Music] you

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Keywords: krag jorgensen, krag carbine, 1898 springfield krag carbine, 30 40 krag, 3040 krag, krag rifle, american krag, norwegian krag rifles, rare rifles, classic rifle, classic guns, rare guns, guns uk, uk shooting, uk target shooting, american classic rifles, krag jørgensen, ole krag, erik jørgensen, 1898 krag carbine, 1898 carbine, norsk krag, norske rifler, norske klassikere

Id: cjzOFh8-Rlw

Length: 14min 10sec (850 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 02 2018