Custom 1898 Krag Target Rifle

[Keith Herrington]

I bought this online several years ago and almost immediately sold it to a close friend. Well, I just got it back today and I'm very happy I did. Don't know the name of the gunsmith or when it was built.

[Keith Herrington]

The quality of the build is first rate. Even the butt plate is hand forged and checkered. VERY accurate due to the Douglas XX barrel and glass bedded action.

[psteinmayer]

Beautiful rifle! Should be an awesome rig for benchrest shooting!

[FredC]

You said it was accurate, well it should be with all that work. Even if you did not shoot it, that one would be worth having to look at and handle every day!
That forward hold down screw probably contributes a lot to the accuracy since it has no barrel bands. How is it attached to the barrel? Is it threaded in to the barrel itself or is there a lug welded or soldered on?
The barrel just in front of the receiver appears oversize, did the builder make it shoulder there also?

[Keith Herrington]

I've disassembled it to see how it is put together. The screw goes into the bottom of the receiver just like it does on a Norwegian Krag. The barrel shoulders both on the inside of the action near the recoil shoulder and on the front of the receiver. the action is pad bedded under the receiver where the screw engages forward all the way under the chamber area. The fit is very tight to the stock everywhere except forward of the chamber bedding, where the barrel is very slightly free floated. A sheet of paper will fit but not much more. The trigger is very light, crisp and single stage. The bolt is so well polished that cycling the bolt in the action feels like it is on ball bearings. The stock is odd to me in that the cheek piece slopes sharply down as it approaches the wrist of the stock. It seems to be designed for prone shooting with the iron sights but bench shooting with a scope. When you sit at the bench and your head is further back towards the butt, your sight line comes up to where a scope would be. Interesting design.
Keith

[FredC]

An exceptional amount of work went into sporterizing that rifle. On mine the front of the action was not square to the threads. I made a threaded stub to spin the receiver and faced off the front to make it square. I do not have a spare action laying around to look where the builder threaded if for that forward screw. If I remember right there is a lightening cut made there that could be filled by soldering or welding, then drilled and tapped. While we are on the subject does anyone have a cracked or otherwise scrap action they could ship to me, sometimes I want to look at an action without taking one of mine apart.
Anyway with the distance from the top to the bottom of a Krag action and that kind of attachment to the stock there is great potential for an accurate set up.
You do not want to sell that one to me because I would not sell it back to you! (Insert Smiley here)

[Keith Herrington]

You said it was accurate, well it should be with all that work. Even if you did not shoot it, that one would be worth having to look at and handle every day!
That forward hold down screw probably contributes a lot to the accuracy since it has no barrel bands. How is it attached to the barrel? Is it threaded in to the barrel itself or is there a lug welded or soldered on?
The barrel just in front of the receiver appears oversize, did the builder make it shoulder there also?

When I got the rifle back I tested it at 200 yards shooting on a 200 yard Small Bore target. Three shots, two 10s and 1 X. Not a definitive test I know, but confirmed my zero and that the target load I'd made using a 190 grain Sierra MK over 40.5 grains of IMR4350, Remington case and CCI 200 primer, was still working well. I'm going to do a lot of experimenting, mostly to take full advantage of the Redfield 3200 scope I'm getting for it (courtesy of Mo Defina). The gun has a cool modification to the action (a blob of brass weld shaped to fit) to kick the nose of a spritzer style bullet to the center of the chamber for smoother feeding. My intent is to work backwards from 190 SMKs down to 155 SMK Palmas. I want to flatten the trajectory for better accuracy between 200 and 600 yards.
Keith

[Parashooter]

. . . spritzer style bullet

Here we go again with the fizzy-drink projectiles!!! ::)

[psteinmayer]

Haha... For once, it ain't me! :D

[Keith Herrington]

I finally had a chance to remove the stock, and found the name W.L. Armitage stamped on the bottom of the barrel near the receiver. The gun was bedded, and the gunsmith added an extra action screw, in a fashion similar to Norwegian Krags. I Googled W.L. Armitage but came up with absolutely nothing. My next step is to write American Rifleman (with pics) to see if they can help me with identifying the name. Next to the name was an "H", but its significance is beyond me. Here are pictures of the bedding, barrel and trigger. The trigger was the most interesting. A Dayton Traister Mk II, it obviously was not made to fit a Krag and had to be heavily modified to fit. But it works to perfection with about a 2# pull with no creep and a crisp letoff. I contacted Dayton Traister and was told they were bought out in 1985, but my contact at DT stated that they made a few Mark II triggers for Krags, mostly in the 50's and 60's, but sold them as late as in the 70's. So this trigger (if not modified by Armitage) doesn't help me date the gun's build.




Keith