Of CourseThey Look Alike

Ravenclaw Eric notes that my Krag resembles his Krag.

There's probably a reason for that.

In the way back...

With the introduction of the Springfield M1903 and after its upgrade to .30-06 all of the Krag-Jørgensens became surplus.

It did not happen instantly in 1906, they were still manufacturing the M1898 rifle until 1904.

I don't have hard numbers, but it probably began in the 1910's.  That we purchased "Enfield" M1917's instead of sending troops with the old guns says that it probably happened before our entry into WW1.

At any rate there were over 320,000 M1898 rifles made which never saw war and some might never have seen troops.

Like trapdoor Springfields they got dumped on the market for bargain prices, as did the ammunition.

.30-40 is more than enough for deer.

A lot of, perhaps most, surplus Krags became huntin' rifles.

A 30" barreled, full stocked, military rifle is a bit much for deer hunting.  The 1903 pattern sights are a bit much period.

Cutting down the stock, lopping off 6" of barrel and putting on new sights sure makes it handier out in the brush!  At least as handy as your huntin' buddy's Winchester, for 1/5th the price!

The ammo was available for nearly free too!

The way to have your M1898 turned into a handy hunting carbine, back in the days before Tapco was to just swing by the local gunsmith and have him do the work.  This was also in the days when there was a local gunsmith just about everywhere and even a mediocre smith back then was a friggin' genius compared to what we tend to find nowadays.

The handy-huntin' Krag made from a full-size rifle falls into the same pattern over and over by various smiths.  Just make it look like the picture of the carbine.  Why?  Because those carbines were surplussed with the rifles, and their new owners were pleased as punch with them.

So we end up with a clone of the original carbine because there's over 320,000 donor rifles and under 50,000 carbines.  Supply and demand.

Krag

I posted about an 1898 Krag the other day, and stumbled across this today.

An article on the Krag from the Spanish American War.

h/t Ace.

Philippine Krag Short Rifle

Also known as the Philippine Constabulary Carbine.

It's an M1898 Krag rifle cut down and reworked to the stylish "short rifle" configuration that took hold at the beginning of the 20th century.  It still takes the normal US Krag bayonet, just shorter and handier.

The pictures are from this GunBroker auction (link will be dead 90 days after posting) where it just sold for $2,900.

Here's a link to something of a history of such carbines.

Things like this will matter in my Sabers and... world.  The US is dealing with the Philippines in much the same manner in my world as they did in the real world, with the added distraction of the spookholes.  My embryonic book is set very close to the transition dates where the M1903 is adopted and mountains of Krags become surplus.  A cut down version might be just the ticket to help the Sioux of Maka Tanka fend off the Googoo.  I suspect they would prefer carbines to short rifles though.

Fakery

Lots of US Krag-Jørgensen rifles have gotten the sportification treatment.

No foul, at one time they were almost cheaper than dirt.  No surplus, general issue, rifle is collectable during its initial massive dump on the civilian market.

Many of the sportified guns were well done.

Lots of US Krag-Jørgensen rifles also got the carbinization treatment too.

Foul.

Because Springfield didn't really mark the receivers of the carbines differently from the rifles, a clever and dishonest gunsmith can create a carbine where a rifle once stood.

Some do better than others at it.

One tell is sling swivels.  Carbines got a sling bar and ring on the left side of the wrist instead of under the butt and forearm.

Stock rings are completely different between the rifles and carbines.

The sights are different too, but harder to tell apart at a distance.

Be careful out there shopping for a Krag carbine!

Not Always A Disaster

As you know, I am not one of Gunsmith Bubba's fans.

Bubba has destroyed a lot of history over the years.

I have to concede that Bubba didn't ruin much of value when he did it.  The guns that Bubba attacked are nearly always the guns that Armies have dumped, all at once onto the commercial market.

A famous example is the .50-70 M1866 Trapdoor.  They were $12 new and dumped on the market for $2 each.  This during a time where a Colt SAA was $10 and a new Winchester '73 was $20.  Hella bargain.

Try finding one in original condition today.  What did it cost?  Just to give some perspective, $2 in 1873 is just a bit more than $38 now.

Perhaps more common in the US is a sporterized version of a Krag.  They were dumped by the Army for pennies on the dollar once sufficient supplies of the M1903 were available.  .30-40 is very close to the .30-30 in performance, so the Krag was considered a good gun for hunting once you lightened it up a bit and improved the sights.

And the improvements are real!  The quality of the work is superb in many cases.  Literally professional quality work.  Real money was spent upgrading these guns and that means that they are worth about 25% of what they'd be worth if they'd been left alone.  At the time they were converted, though, their value was enhanced greatly because they were more useful to the ends of the owner.

There's another category of the milsurp market that deserves at least a grudging respect.  A good sized hunk of the guns that are surplus are also wrecks.  You can use terms like patina, but in your honest heart you know the gun is effectively worthless even if it shoots and will never have any value because there's an abundance of pristine or very nice examples.

These are the "fuck it, I'm going to see if I can fix it" guns.

Sometimes it comes out very well indeed.

Bubba Doesn't Always Ruin Them

Willard dropped this off today, declaring that we were celebrating my birthday.  I got kudos for not making the rookie mistake of saying, "but it's not my birthday."

This "carbine" started life in 1903 as an M1898 rifle.  This is, bar none, the most common version of the Krag-Jørgenson made.

Whomever did the work did a great job.

Maybe Erin can hook me up with Oleg to get a shot of this that actually shows how well polished it was before they blued it.

Part of the sportification process was removal of the rear sight...

...and filling in the mounting holes with plug screws.  The camera makes them more obvious than they are naked-eye.

A new front sight was fitted to the 6" shorter barrel.

A far simpler rear sight was added as well.

The bore is shiny and new looking.

There will be a shooting report in about seven months when the seasonal run of .30-40 Krag happens.

Whims Of The Marketplace

Something that's interesting about doing historical research for gaming is what's popular as opposed to what's available.

Also, what's available versus what exists.

The fact that three players could take all three guns which appeared in single numbers in one SEAL team in Vietnam says a lot about what happens when the list makes no distinction between there being a con-ex full of M16's and a special order R607 carbine.

The .30-30 and .30-40 are very similar and were introduced at almost the same time.

But the .30-30 was far more popular and available for a long spell.

I think two things contributed to .30-30 getting ahead.

First the customer base was familiar with lever actions with tube magazines, the second was the price of a Krag.

The Winchester was cheaper and readily available.  Guns in .30-40 just weren't.

.30-40 really only becomes popular when the US Government dumps all those Krags on the surplus market.  Nearly free guns and ammo hit the market.

But, still, the .30-30 maintained the lead.  Americans loved their lever guns!

Hardly anyone made new guns for the Krag cartridge.  Because of that, you can't hardly find .30-40 ammo regularly.

Even .300 Savage is available more often (itself being the second most popular hunting round in the US until .308 Winchester knocked it under .30-06).

Civilize Them With A Krag

Come next hurricane, Willard and I need to take a picture of ourselves in "looter defense" stance.

Armed with our Krags!

Damn, damn, damn the Looters!
Cut throat local ladrones!
Underneath our starry flag,
Civilize ’em with a Krag,
And protect our own beloved homes.

Oddly related...

Of course, I'll need a Cavalry belt.
Willard will need an Infantry belt.

I've not a clue, one about where we'd scrape together 200 rounds of .30-40 to fill them!

Be we can dream!

Counter Bubba

While being all down on Bubba, I need to admit there's a light side to the slaughter.  (And you can't spell slaughter without laughter!)

If you hit Gunbroker and search for "Krag Sporter" you'll get hits for some very nicely modified guns.

In the way back when these guns were literally dirt cheap some very skilled folks did the work.

There're some impressive rifles out there made on all the various Mauser actions, some you can't tell didn't leave the factory like that until you notice it's got Waffenampts.  Or a Chilean crest, or whatnot.

The burr on my saddle is from the rest of the hits.  There are some guns where you WISH a chimpanzee with a dremel tool had done the work instead of what was done.

Related is the whole supply issue.  The price on milsurps tends to drag a bit behind the actual supply.  By the time the market notices they've all dried up and been bubba'd it's too late to save many in their original condition.  The less than scrap value that many of these guns carry when they're plentiful also leads to a shocking level of neglectful treatment.  After all, why take care of something that didn't cost anything?

I tell you what, potential Bubbas, search for some of these old warhorses at gunbroker.  Look at the prices they sell for intact and compare that to the prices of even a masterfully done sporterizing.  That Krag carbine I mentioned?  $1,500 or so for an original; $500 for a sporter.

Don't make mods you can't reverse, save those parts you took off!

Today's market for Mosins provides all manner of drop in parts that don't hurt anything and can be reversed should originals ever be worth anything.  To me that's great!

¡Viva Cuba! ¡Cuba Libre!

Just for Technomad! 

Lee M1895 (6mm Lee) rifle: TL 6, Dmg 5d+2 pi, Acc 4, Range 800/5,600, Weight 8.6, RoF 1, Shots 5(3), ST 9, Bulk -5, Rcl 3, Cost $900, LC 3.

Krag-Jørgensen M1892 (.30-40) rifle: TL 6, Dmg 6d pi, Acc 5, Range 1,070/4,500, Weight 9.2/0.3, RoF 1, Shots 5+1(3i), ST 10, Bulk -6, Rcl 3, Cost $650, LC 3.

Krag-Jørgensen M1896 (.30-40) carbine: TL 6, Dmg 6d pi, Acc 5, Range 1,030/4,300, Weight 7.8/0.3, RoF 1, Shots 5+1(3i), ST 10, Bulk -5, Rcl 4, Cost $650, LC 3. 

And for fun, the Spanish Hornet!

Mauser Model 1893 (7x57mm) rifle: TL 6, Dmg 6d+1 pi, Acc 4, Range 1,150/4,800, Weight 9/0.3, Rof 1, Shots 5+1(3), ST 9, Bulk -5, Rcl 3, Cost $900, LC 3.

He's on his own to determine which is "worth it." 

GURPS will not show any of the numerous real-world foibles these three actions had.

Given the choice, I'm arming my men with Mausers; but remember that the troops with the Krags won in Cuba. 

Krag Disassembly

Willard says that I'll have to chop off his hands to get to his Krag.

Never let it be said that I'm not willing to pay what the owner wants to rent an interesting gun!

Rifle, .30 Caliber Model of 1898

Pictured with the near contemporary Mosin-Nagant

Proofed!

Accepted!

The Krag-Jorgenson!

The strength of the action is often questioned because of the single locking lug.

There is, of course, a safety lug.

The ejector is activated by the bolt going to the rear.  It sits flush into its slot otherwise.

It's a quantum leap ahead of the trap-door it replaced and is nearly "obsolete" at the time of its issue.

I say obsolete, but unfashionable is a better term for what happened.  It had adequate range and power.  It's not overly long or heavy.  It's sights are bit too fine for combat, but they work.

They are also fiddly.

Your choice, notch or peep!

What you can't do is load from stripper clips.  If you're going to call yourself an army in the 20th century, your service rifle has to load from clips!  The rimmed .30-40 and the side gate design do not lend themselves to that.

Speaking of ammunition...  Lot SIX of 1914.

The magazine is the source of much mystery, and has been from the first trials.

The way the magazine works is elegant.  There's a leaf spring parallel to the door.  The tip of the spring works on a grove in the base of the follower arm.  Simple stuff so far.  The neat part of the follower arm is the swinging tip.

Shown with side-plate removed.

It keeps the rounds marshalled and has an open base around the hinge point that lets the arm push on the last round to get it around the corner to be presented for the bolt.

The Krag was also the first American rifle to have a magazine cut off, to keep the slovenly grunts from "wasting" all of their ammunition.

Cut-Off "ON" meaning no feed.

Cut-Off "OFF" meaning the magazine is free to do what it's supposed to do.

When you open the magazine loading door, a protrusion works on the follower arm and retracts it into the door.

This would be an epic fight against that spring, but elegance shows again.  The base of the door has a cammed surface that pushes down on the bow of the leaf spring, removing tension on the arm and letting it easily flop down into the door's recess.  The protrusion also holds the arm down so that it doesn't get in the way of loading.

I learned more than I planned about the magazine because I decided to do Willard a solid and put some oil on the hinge pin so that the dust cover on the bottom would stop moving with the magazine.  As I was moving the cover (which is part of the hinge pin) back and forth I accidentally moved it down past the first loop of the door.  PING!  Now the hinge pin is partially out and the door is at an angle!  The door pressed readily back into its home but didn't feel right, so I took the pin the rest of the way out and made sure that I had not broken anything.

I hadn't.

There's no way to put this together wrong!  The "felt wrong" was just some dried up cosmoline or oil that had escaped where it had lain for over 100 years.

Since I had it apart, I cleaned and lubricated it.

And took some pictures.  Evidence for the defense in the matter of the Murder of one Angus McThag; idiot: by one Willard F Angrygunowner.  Justifiable homicide if there ever was...

I most certainly made sure it was back together and working correctly before making this post and posting the pics.

By the way, the rubber footed carpenter's clamps make holding the door aligned with the holes in the receiver a piece of cake!  Without damaging the gun no less!

The protrusion on the magazine door/cover.

How it interacts with the follower arm.  The curved part of the protrusion bears against the arm on the left side here.  That retracts the arm into the door for loading.

The magazine spring presses against this hook.

The magazine spring to show how they relate.  If they were in the gun, the muzzle would be to the left and the right side of the rifle would be facing down.

The door, follower and spring as they interact.  The spring holds the door closed too!  When you open the door, the surface the arc of the bow is touching flattens it, taking the load off the follower and making it easier to open.

To Be Fair

If we're going to count all the variations of the M1816 musket as a single service weapon, then we really should count all the variations of the AR-15 as a single weapon.

The M16 series (including the M4 series) is the king of service life, 1966 to 2022 or 56 years.

56 and counting since the M7 roll-out has not been smooth by any measure and many units, INFANTRY battalions, not support units, are still rocking the M4A1.

If we count each variation as its own weapon the M1865 is still the shortest in service, but the average number of years we stick to a specific design drops precipitously.

Even within some very short lived designs, like the Krag, there's several sub-versions.

Sometimes it's hard to tell how long a weapon was the primary infantry arm because they didn't replace the old ones, just stopped issuing them in favor of the new one.

This is true of the M1816 series and the Krag.  Units might have all the same gun, they might have a few of each.

Different Kind Of Mag Dump

In theory you can just dump a handful of five cartridges into the open magazine of a Krag-Jørgensen and be golden.

In reality, you increase the risk of getting rimlock on the first two rounds.

Let's GURPS it!

Reload time is 3i for loading rounds individually.  This reflects opening the action, grabbing each round individually and inserting them into the magazine.

Loading a clip into a Mauser is 3, and takes care of all five rounds.  The Krag ain't no Mauser.

So I figure, open the gate, grab the rounds, drop, close.  5 or 6.  Let's say 6.

6 is faster than the 15 loading carefully will take, but you incur a penalty!  The Malf will be 16 from dump loading.

Krag On The Brain

I love this channel.

Also here's a search for every mention of Krag here.

Carbine Krag

According to No. 1920; Description and Rules for US Magazine Rifle 1898 and Magazine Carbine 1899 published in 1917:

Muzzle velocity of .30-40 fired from the 30" barrel of the rifle should be 1,960 feet per second at 53 feet from the muzzle.  This corresponds to 2,000 fps at the muzzle.

The carbine's 22" barrel produces "80 feet per second less than in the rifle."

That calculates to 5.87 dice ± 10% or 5.28 to 6.46 which is 6d pi with a fudge from 5d+1 pi to 6d+2 pi.

Range should be 790/4,200 according to Vehicles.

Recall that the rifle calculates out to:

6.12 ± 10% or 5.51 to 6.74; 6d pi or 5d+2 pi to 7d-1 pi.  Range of 940/4,600.

Modern ammo in a 24" sportified gun calculates to:

6.76 ± 10% or 6.08 to 7.43; 7d-1 pi or 6d pi to 7d+2 pi.  Range of 790/4,200.

The stats from Adventure Guns gives:

6d+1 pi, range 1,000/3,900.

Ravenclaw Eric generously shared a letter he'd received from Steve Jackson Games when he asked after 3e stats for the Krag.

They gave the rifle 6d+1 with a range of 1,000/3,000 and the carbine 6d-1 with a range of 800/2,600.

Nope, there's no clear pattern to this...

Modern ammo behaves like the +P stats given in High Tech, but given the momentum numbers I'd leave the ST stat alone at 10†.

Carbine length barrels, either 22 or 24 inches long give about 84% the 1/2D range and 91% Max. according to Vehicles.  That compares to the correspondence from SJG for 80% and 87%...

84% of 1000 is 840.  91% of 3,900 is (rounding to nearest 100's) 3,600.

Damage for the carbine with period ammo seems to run about a point lower than the rifle, so 6d pi.

Ravenclaw Eric, your carbine is in blue!

Damn You Maths

GURPS: High Tech Adventure Guns gives stats for the M1892 rifle.  This is the 30" barreled standard rifle.

The 220 gr bullet zooming along at 2,000 feet per second from Wikipedia gives...

6d+1 pi and 1,000/3,900.

Plugging the numbers into Douglas Cole's formula gives...

6.12 dice or 6d pi.  A bit short of the 6.15 needed to get 6d+1, but since there's a 10% fudge factor... you can say 6.12 is anything between 5.51 and 6.74.

Rifles of the World 2e agrees with this bullet weight and velocity for the M1892 rifle.

A "factory load" for 220 gr is shown at 2,200 feet per second in Cartridges of the World 11th Edition under "current American rifle cartridges".  This is the spec for the .30 Army (.30-40 Krag) in Cartridges of the World 11th Edition under military cartridges as well.

6.76 dice or 6d+3 pi aka 7d-1 pi.  The fudge factor ranges between 6.08 and 7.43 or 6d and 7d+2.

Rifles of the World 2e says this matches "high velocity" ball ammunition introduced with the M1898 rifle.

Hmmmmm.

High Tech 4e p. 165 has Extra-Powerful (+P) Ammunition.  It's simply a 10% boost to damage, range and ST.

6d+1 plus 10% is 7d!  1,000/3,900 plus 10% is 1,100/4,290.  ST 10† plus 10% is 11†.  We're courting .30-06 stats here (7d+1 pi; 1,100/4,500; ST 9†).

Vehicles gives a range of 940/4,600 for either round because it's based on a bore/barrel length ratio.

Now the problem.

Remington says their ammunition specs are with a 24" barrel, same as my Krag.

180 gr bullet zinging out the muzzle at 2,430 feet per second.

Cole's formula gives 6.76 dice, just like the 220@2,200 round in a 30" barrel.

The vehicles range formula gives 790/4,200.  At least the shorter barrel has less range...

Nothing matches!

Douglas Cole's formula adhere well to the conventions of 3rd edition GURPS (revised).  I use the GURPS: Vehicles range formulas because Mr Cole wrote a completely new range system for his GURPS games.  GURPS: Vehicles is a 3e book, and the range numbers often did not match published numbers of other guns.

A huge hunk of the problem is along with the 4th edition GURPS gun stats were handed off to Hans Christian-Vortisch.  OK, that's not a problem, it's a new edition, new methods of figuring out the guns.

Maddeningly, many of the numbers match between 3e and 4e for lots of guns.  The only change being piercing replacing crushing for damage type.

So you end up fudging, a lot.

Since the modern ammo in a 24" gives the same damage as period "+P" ammo out of a 30" barrel... I think my stats for Sportified Krags is going to be 7d pi and say the shorter barrel gives the same range stats as the normal powered ammo.  I'm not sure about the ST requirements yet, going to get subjective on that after a trip to the range.

You Can Get The Revolver

But you will be hard pressed to get a proper Krag carbine for 1899.

Beat up examples without rear sights are running $1,500.

Rifles, as usual, are easier to get than carbines.

That's true of Trapdoors as well.

But you can buy a replica of a Trapdoor carbine, you cannot, as of yet, buy a replica Krag-Jørgensen.

There's a strong temptation to try making a clone from the sportified rifle I have.

A temptation that fades as the realization of the skills required being non-existent on my personal character sheet and expensive when hired out.

'Tis A Silly Place

Decided to hang the Krag, because it was getting in the way.  That got me to hang up the cartridge belt, altered M1873 revolver and M1860 saber.

The first shot captures a lot of the silliness and geekery which I surround myself with.

It's a lot better than focusing on the shit that gives me nightmares.

Free Riders

It has been noticed before that there's like 50 to 150 million gun owners in the US of A.

There's something short of 6 million NRA members.

Since there's not 44-144 million members in any other gun organization this isn't some moral rejection of the NRA for another group, like the GOA or JPFO.

Why aren't you member?

I am, and I complain about their lack of help a lot.

I don't figure I have a right to bitch about their lack of support if I'm not a member.

But why aren't YOU?

It's right up there with people refusing to vote and then bitching the wrong guy won.  You didn't even try to stop them, so shut up.

Joining the NRA is a pittance.  Yes, you can afford it.  It's less than the price of a box of .30-40 Krag.

Less than a pair of 5.11 pants.

Barely shows up as a percentage of a weekend training class.

Besides, I hear that if the NRA breaks 15 million members Charles Schumer will have a debilitating stroke.  20 million and Satan will take Diane Feinstein back.

By the way.

If you can't be bothered to email or call your congress creatures when these idiotic bills are presented, you didn't even try to stop the bill, so shut up when they pass.

Also don't brag that "we" won when they're defeated, you didn't help did you?