Fred C. Ness & Krag sporters

[reincarnated]

Ness was one of the technical guys at the NRA in the late 1940s. He wrote 2 books; "Practical Dope on the Big Bores" and a similar one on .22 cal. rifles, concentrating mostly on centerfires. The guy was a terrible writer and an even worse proof-reader, but he mentions several of the semi-wildcats turned out on Krag actions. How many of these have you seen?

.405 WCF and .35 Winchester: I have seen one each of these, "foul weather" bear rifles made locally (Ferndale, CA) for a guy who hunted in Alaska and the Canadian west. The forward part of the magazine was milled away to let the longer cartridges feed properly. Are these the only ones?

.35 Krag; just the Krag case expanded to take .35 bullets. I have never seen one, but there is no reason why it would not work, as long as the reloader did not get carried away with velocity.

Krag-Hornets: These were apparently made in .22 Hornet, some by Sedgely, others by J.B. Sweany. Usually, the barrel of a 1922 Springfield was rechambered and fitted. Sometimes other .22 rimfire barrels were used. All were single shots. Sometimes the magazine was completely removed. Other remodels used the magazine for fired cases. Undoubtedly, some were made for the K-Hornet, another poor idea. I know that some were made in the wildcat .25 Hornet, a low-pressure squirrel hunting & target load.

Griffin & Howe Krag-Hornets; also made in .22 Savage High Power and .25-35 Winchester calibers. These were high-$ single shot conversions. Still high-$ today.

Krag-Lovell: These were done the same way as the Hornet sporters, but with much more dubious results. The R-2 and the Maximum Lovell can be pushed to .222 & maybe to .223 pressure levels. Best left alone.

Sedgely and others rebarreled the Krag action with .22 Savage High Power and .219 Zipper barrels. A few writers reported good accuracy but most were unhappy with the conversions. The cartridges may feed through the magazine, but that is all that can be said. More anon.

[reincarnated]

More about Krags in other calibers: The .25-35 Winchester was a rather common choice for rebarreling an old Krag. I think I have seen 3 over the years. If one came along and was decent, I might be tempted.

Ness reported on one in .25 Remington Rimless, with a 3-shot magazine. Was that a one-off?

Rifles were and are still made for the .25 Krag case, but no Krag action should ever be considered. The old timers knew that. The same thing would apply to a 7 mm Krag.

That brings me to thinking about other heavy-bullet hunting cartridges. Have you ever seen a Krag in .38-55 or its latter day variant, the .375 Winchester? Would the Krag action work with a .45-70 cartridge?

[Tom Butts]

I have a nice Krag sporter that was done in .22 R2 Lovell. It has a nice bull barrel on it and a big scope and is a fantastic shooter. Very accurate!! I don't shoot it much, though. Even reloading for it is pretty expensive. Nice one to have though.

[reincarnated]

The basic cases for the R2 are back in production by Jamison. IIRC they are also called Captech International. Cost is about $2 each in small quantities.

[madsenshooter]

The 38-55 and 375 would be deer legal here in Ohio. I imagine blunt noses made for tubular magazines would require some receiver modification, but handloads with spitzers might work ok. Frank DeHaas in his Bolt Action Rifles book said his son and a friend got a Krag to feed the .444 Marlin with some help from Mr Dremel.

[FredC]

There was an old thread at double gun that had several pictures of 35 Krags but only one is still there. Boring to 35 Krags were a fairly popular way of dealing with shot out barrels back in the day. It is funny that so few show up today. http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=215394&page=all

I did have a little trouble getting mine to feed, but found the regular 30s were not feeding either. Attention to a few details fixed that, when the regular Krag ammo would feed then the 35/40 fed also.

[reincarnated]

Thanks for posting that old thread. I recall many of the now-deceased correspondents as truly decent gentlemen. I still have the scans on cutting up a Krag stock from the Ellis Lenz book. Will post them if anyone has not seen them. I can hear the purists groan now. I was "waterman" on those posts. I used to be "waterman" here, but I got disappeared and could no longer log in, so I became Reincarnated.

[butlersrangers]

'reincarnated'-(formerly known as waterman) - Would you please post the scans for 'modifying Krag stocks'.

This would be helpful in identifying origin of stocks on some modified Krags.

Thanks

[gnoahhh]

I have a Krag that was converted to single shot and barreled to .22 Maximum Lovell, by old Hervey Lovell himself. With its heavy barrel and Pacific double-set triggers it is a bug hole shooter. While I don't hot rod it (because of expensive brass) I do run warm loads in it.






(That's five shots, 100 yards.)

[reincarnated]

Thanks for that post, Gnoahhh.

I have not heard of the DST before. Was the maker the same Pacific from San Francisco that made the old loading tools, dies, etc?

And what sort of barrel does your Maximum Lovell have? Have you slugged it?