Krag Collectors Association Forum

Hi everybody,
First post here - also new member.

Today I got my dream rifle. A Danish Krag Jørgensen m89. The reason I wanted it, was because my grandpa was a soldier from 1939-1941. Less than 1 month prior to ww2 starting in Denmark he won "Company shooter Award" for being the best shooter in the whole company. We do have his shooting book from when he won that as well as the award itself. After grandpas soldier time ended, he became a freedom fighter here in Denmark. His group did 196 railroad sabotages + printed illegal papers + picked up weapons dropped by the british for them. He was VERY active as a freedom fighter.
One detail about this, is that their respect for life, was so great, that if there was a chance of anybody getting hurt, they would phone in a threat prior to the sabotage itself. Because of that, only 7 germans were wounded in total and nobody was killed.

So much for the reason why I wanted this m89. Now to the main thing. What on earth do I have here? All the m89s I can find, have a side door for loading 5-6 rounds into the rifle. This one doesnt. Its a single shot only. I know its all original because its numbers matching in all the parts. I also know its built in 1910.

I googled it, and found 1 reference that said it was either a target rifle for the Danish Nations Shooting Club, or it was a training rifle. But the same reference says that they made these between 1883-1903 + 1929. Mine is from 1910 so that doesnt match...

More pictures

Last picture

That is a strange one. I have not seen one without the magazine before.

Tom Butts wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 2:14 am That is a strange one. I have not seen one without the magazine before.

Me neither. I found 1 reference that talked about these but they couldnt figure out what it was. The Crown 10 is also weird. Thats military, so if this was a civilian target rifle, it wouldnt have that. So this was a military target rifle... from 1910... 18 years prior to them making the first sniper rifle (m28). So thats the weird part.

Tom Butts wrote: ↑Wed Apr 07, 2021 2:14 am That is a strange one. I have not seen one without the magazine before.

It was not too uncommon in Denmark, several single-shot versions of the Krag were made and sold during the rifles lifetime. Most notibly, "P" marked civilian sale Danish Krags often were ordered without a magazine for sports shooting. This example is pretty neat because it seems to have been custom ordered in 1910, as the stock is indeed an arsenal stock without the stock cut for the magazine. Also, it doesn't have the 1910 push safety, which I'm assuming is because it was seen as unnessessary on a single shot rifle.

Schultz and Larsen also developed a model called the m/1928/31 which was a single shot krag in a new 6.5x58mmR cartridge (essentially a necked down 8x58 that took a 6.5mm projectile). They did this for both civilian shooters and the militaries shooting team, as they had previously been involved with the development of the armys m/1928 danish krag.

Also, although there were few, a couple of krag rifles were developed in the 1950s for sale to Inuits in Greenland called the "Greenland Rifles". These were Danish Krags chmabered in 11.4x51mm, and were often single shot. They were used for defense and hunting against polar bears in greenland. The reason for them being chambered in 11.4x51 is because there was a stockpile of old remington rolling block ammo in greenland at the time, and the inuit needed new rifles that could take advantage of the ammunition stockpile (as their rolling blocks had deteriorated from years of use). Later, the Royal Greenland Trade Department also brought in 8x58 krags for the inuit and danish workers to use for hunting, which were very popular, until they slowly faded into obscurity around the early 1970s.

That being said, examples of all of these models exist with magazines too, as the customer could order these rifles with a magazine. Although, surprisingly, the default configuration of the m/1928/31 rifles was to exclude the capsule magazine.


Here's some links to Greenland rifles and Single Shot commercial rifles.
https://www.gunboards.com/threads/henst ... s.1022562/
https://www.gunboards.com/threads/comme ... ag.405766/