Krag Collectors Association Forum

Just picked up a sporterized Danish Krag. Apparently it is in 8x58R - which is difficult if not impossible to find. Will try to attach pictures

You are probably going to need to reload for this one but they are a lot of fun to shoot!

I'm not sure what I'm going to do at this point. It may simply get thrown in the back of the safe and let my executors deal with it.

Nice find! That was originally an Ingeniørgevær M1889 (Engineer Rifle). These Engineer rifles (later renamed Ingeniørkarabin since carbine is more appropriate for the rifles size) are all marked with a stylized "I" before its serial number. Roughly 4500 were made.

8x58 is indeed next to impossible to find nowadays. Factory ammo was last produced in the 60s so everything you have now is mostly hand made. Thankfully, since it's a rimmed cartridge, case length isn't too much of a worry. You can make shorter ammunition out of 7.62x54R, 8x56 Mannlicher, and 45-70 brass. Works very well, and ends up only a few mm short. However, if you want the case length to be appropriate, I make mine using 45-90 brass and cutting it down to appropriate length, annealing it, and shaving the rims down very slightly (rim is a tad big). CH4D and RCBS I believe make dies for it. Mines a CH4D die.

Good thing with the 45-90 brass is that it lasts through a lot of reloads, bad news is that 45-90 brass is really expensive. I've been looking for an engineer carbine for a while, even sporterized, but they are basically extinct in Canada.

I've attached an image of an engineer carbine! (Bottom rifle, and ignore the caption, it's translated from a French magazine that also got the model wrong. It isn't a German rifle or anything of the sort).

The Danish rifles are very interesting. They are truly a product of the '1st Generation' of small bore, jacketed bullet, smokeless powder rifles.

(I have no experience with them, but, I may get the 'bug' someday).

Thank you, gentlemen for sharing!

skillest wrote: ↑Mon Dec 13, 2021 8:46 am Nice find! That was originally an Ingeniørgevær M1889 (Engineer Rifle). These Engineer rifles (later renamed Ingeniørkarabin since carbine is more appropriate for the rifles size) are all marked with a stylized "I" before its serial number. Roughly 4500 were made.

8x58 is indeed next to impossible to find nowadays. Factory ammo was last produced in the 60s so everything you have now is mostly hand made. Thankfully, since it's a rimmed cartridge, case length isn't too much of a worry. You can make shorter ammunition out of 7.62x54R, 8x56 Mannlicher, and 45-70 brass. Works very well, and ends up only a few mm short. However, if you want the case length to be appropriate, I make mine using 45-90 brass and cutting it down to appropriate length, annealing it, and shaving the rims down very slightly (rim is a tad big). CH4D and RCBS I believe make dies for it. Mines a CH4D die.

Thanks for the reply! I purchased a few dummy rounds that were made from 45-90 brass. I'm scratching my head however as they wont function properly from the magazine. That aside the bolt will not close on them. I recently read that the headspace is marked on the bottom of the bolt body, but I'll be darned if I see any markings on the bolt body.

Just throwing this out there, would rebarreling to 30/40 be an option for a sporter with no collector value? If a 8X58R would feed from the magazine seems like a 30/40 would be a shoe in if they are not too loose.

I would like to see more pictures before you make changes.
I have a Dane sporter rebarreled to .45/70. had to do a little work on the side plate to make the straight wall cases feed but it wasn't much

Ned, I later thought that if the cartridge is that fat that they can be made from 45/90 cases, then 30/40 cases may just fall through without feeding correctly. Typed faster than I thought about it. 45/70 is a little more expensive to shoot than a 30 caliber but sure is effective on large game.

Jim,

The Danes are wonderful!!! I own quite a few and love shooting them. I do reload for mine.
You mention that part of the barrel jacket is still present. It would be interesting to see a photo
of the barrel showing this.

Best,
Tom