Krag Collectors Association Forum

I am hoping someone here will be knowledgeable? I tried emailing records archive and they basically told me to get bent. Serial is 259XX, Roll mark is US 1895 Springfield Armory (no "model" designation). Just trying to get some info since grandpa had some pretty interesting guns

https://imgur.com/Is44ytD
https://imgur.com/ng8Sm2l

Pictures are going to be necessary for any vauable information.
Full length both sides, close up of the receiver and front and rear sights are a good start.
And welcome here and to the complicated interesting and enjoyable world of Krags!!

I'll try mate, they are saying too large so working on that... will try to snap more pics tomorrow those are the only ones I have handy

'mrcheeze' - Welcome to the KCA Forum. It is neat that you have inherited a Krag that was valued by your Grandfather!

Your Krag, serial number 259XX, would have been assembled around December 1895 or January 1896.
Although, the carbine is dated "1895", officially, it is considered a model 1896 carbine.
The serial number places it in a known group of carbines with the "1895" marking.

Some carbines were also made with just an "1896" marking.
On early U.S. Krags 1894, 1895, and 1896 indicated the year the receiver was made.

The 'Model' word was introduced in 1896. Thereafter, Krags were marked model 1896, model 1898, and model 1899. The 'date' numbers were no longer related to the year of manufacture, but indicated the model.

The 1895 dated model 1896 carbines are a known and correct 'contradiction'.

We are all looking forward to seeing pictures of your Krag.

What was the "records archive" that snubbed you?

"twas the Boston Archives. It was less of a "get bent" and more of a "we cant help you" of course. What little bit of google-fu I have been able to scrape together indicates that the 1895 marked carbines are fairly rare though?

I am going through and trying to clean it up without harming any of the metal or wood... it was rode hard and put away wet like most of his guns. Even had to clean some mild mildewing off the stock, but it was only surface level.

One oddity about it (again, google-fu) is that there is no trap door on the butt at all. Even took off the metal plate and the wood is solid underneath. No saddle ring either

-edit- Also, nice to meet a fellow Michigander lurking around. Native to the west coast of the mitten here

Welcome! The reason there is no trap or sling swivel bar is that that is not a military stock! While it should have been a carbine, there is a slight possibility that it could be a cut-down rifle. Will need good pics of the muzzle and front and rear sights.

I see that you have added a couple of pictures to your first post.

It appears your Grandfather 'sportered' this Krag for hunting. The stock is either a commercial replacement or a pistol-grip has been fitted to an altered military stock.

If your rear-sight 'leaf' has numbers that go to 20 and there are small "C"s on the leaf and sight-base, you may have a valuable carbine sight. ($500-$600)

If the 'leaf' numbers only go to 18, the sight is a rifle sight.

Closeup photos of the front-sight and muzzle crown would allow identifying if you have a carbine barrel.

Try this link to go to KCA Main Pages, then "Click" on 'Photo Tab' to look at a lot of Krag pics. (Some samples are attached).

http://kragcollectorsassociation.org/

In your second post you mentioned difficulty resizing the photos. If you are using a windows computer, I can tell you how I do it. I right click on the photo and choose open with "Paint". When the photo opens in paint, in the upper left is a resize button. Choose that and enter a percentage less than 100%. I enter a number like 80 in the horizontal and it will automatically enter the same in vertical. Save it with a new name (XXX.JPG) so you do not alter the original. After you get out check the size, if not correct delete the new one and edit the old one again till you get it acceptably small.

If you have an apple machine maybe some one else can help you, as I never touched one of them.

Phones and tablets, I have touched but always want to take a hammer to them as I can not make them do what I want. Maybe there is a magician around who could help you with them.

We are looking forward to seeing more photos. There is a history to each Krag and it is a lot fun trying to figure out the details.

For Mac, make a copy of the file and work with it, saving your original as is. Open the copy in "Preview". Select "Adjust Size" from the "Tools" menu, and reduce as much as required. Change one dimension and the other is computed automatically to maintain proportionality. The dialog box also calculates the new size, so you just have to get the file size below whatever your limit is.

Dick Hosmer wrote: ↑Fri Oct 01, 2021 5:05 pm Change one dimension and the other is computed automatically to maintain proportionality. The dialog box also calculates the new size, so you just have to get the file size below whatever your limit is.

That certainly sounds easier than "windows". Trial and error and remembering to save it with a name change so you save the original unmolested is important in windows. After a while you can look at the number of bytes involved and guess the percentage, but it is still a guess, which means sometimes you are wrong. I do have some software that came with the Pentax camera, but I have never noticed size reduction in the menu, mainly use it for cropping.