best place to get a new barrel and get it installed???

[savagebrother]

best place to get a new barrel and get it installed properly. think my barrel needs replaced.
thanks
SB

[FredC]

For a sporter that does not need a "correct" front sight any COMPETENT gunsmith should be able to do it. If the gunsmith has already done Krags he will already have a reamer and bushings for the barrel vice and could potentially charge less. There is nothing particularly difficult about working on Krags. A new gun plumber that mainly works on AR rifles and just replaces parts may have less skill on threading and chambering. I would stay away from him.

Before you start down this road is your barrel really trash or less than "perfect"? If your present barrel is just less than perfect you may want to try it out with various combinations of bullets and loads. Many less than perfect barrels have much life in them and can give very good results with the right load and bullet.

[savagebrother]

well the barrel doesn't look bad to look at it but a hornady 180gr rn bullet drops about 2 to 2,5" into the muzzle.
i used a very tight cleaning patch down the barrel and felt 3 light spots from breech
to muzzle not including the muzzle. other than that the action looks close to new, and well there's nothing else like krag - right
barrel length is 23" and not much of a crown. so new barrel time wouldn't you say ????
criterion makes new barrels in 30" and 22" finished timed threads predrilled front and rear sights and crowned and short chambered.
$285.00
SB

[Texas10]

One question you have can be answered by slugging the barrel. I did this by taking a 00 buck shot and tapping it into the muzzle and the pushing out with a dowel. Then measure across the lands of the slug, which corresponds with the grooves of the barrel.

By the sound of it, your barrel is probably out of spec. and may need replacement, but at least you'll have a quantifiable dimension to provide should you need to.

[butlersrangers]

'Savagebrother': FWIW - I think it would be very interesting to try 'counter-boring' & re-crowning your spent Krag barrel.

If done in a workman-like manner, this could inexpensively add thousands of rounds of life to your worn barrel.

A good machinist with a lathe could perform this operation, beautifully.

[savagebrother]

well guys i took your advice and started by doing a super clean on the barrel. i think the guy i bought it from was shooting lead bullets in it.
i scrubbed it royally and the barrels pretty smooth and uniform now, took 3 hours to scrub it clean.
when i got this rifle i had to many projects going on and didnt pay close attention to what i was using. the bullet i used was one i had resized to ride the lands
of another rifle, muzzleloader actually, you cant even begin to start a .308 bullet either end oh the barrel is 23.5 inches long .
now what i don't know is where the shoulder of the case is in conjunction to the shoulder in the chamber???? ordered a 30-40 krag shell casing for my OAL Gage and then some some putty to see where the shoulders are from one another. then load up some and hope she shoots great!!!!
SB

[butlersrangers]

I am not totally sure where you are going with all this .... sounds kind of 'Bench-Rest-ish". (A 'fired' .30-40 case is usually a pretty good indicator of where the chamber's shoulder is).

An original Krag chamber/barrel has a very long LEAD or throat, before the rifling starts. This was the early 'Smokeless Age'. They were just discovering and inventing stuff.
Things had to evolve.

IMHO - You may as well, make your Krag cartridges as long as you can, and still have them fit through the magazine. There will still be a distance of 'bullet jump' before rifling is met.

Don't seat a bullet out so far that the case-neck loses its grip. That gets messy!

[FredC]

If the 3 "light" spots were not fixed with the thorough cleaning I would be concerned that the internal bore is swollen in those spots. That would usually be the result of stuck bullets and someone trying to shoot them out. If the resistance to a tight cleaning wad is uniform and there are no swollen spots corresponding to the felt loose spots you are probably good to go. A straight edge applied to the outside of the barrel would show them up if they existed.

[savagebrother]

hey fredc
yes it cleaned up with much effort. some guys like messing around with cast bullets but around 2000 FPS you done.
but some guys think they can make go faster. any way this is what i was talking about. oh i have been reloading 7.62X54R for ten years, its very similar to the krag
SB

[FredC]

Hopefully the loose spots were just areas without as much leading. On your head space concerns, the real head space is in the rim area. The bolt receiver lugs can be worn or displaced with over loads. New old stock bolts can fix half of the issue at a modest cost.
Not too long before the site went down there was some discussion of a change in the distance from the shoulder to the rim. The change is not well documented and some of the data just does not look right. Since you are hand loading, just do neck sizing or minimal shoulder set back and you will get the best possible feeding and accuracy.
Butlersrangers did a thread on making a home made head space gauge. I do not remember all the details but it was not hard to do, and would give reasonably accurate results. On my sporter project I wanted .001 inch over minimum headspace and got his by measuring a bunch of brass to find the largest rim thickness in a batch of new cases. Once I had found one with .001 under max thickness I put in the chamber and adjusted the free play in the bolt till I got .002 play. This was done before the extractor groove was milled in by facing a shoulder on the back of the barrel that allowed the rim face to extend into the receiver. This particular receiver and bolt had .010 excessive head space and fired 30/40 brass OK before the conversion. All this being said shows that Krags can work with headspace past the original no/go and field gauge limits.
If you are pushing for best accuracy, members have shown on old threads how to hold cases back against the bolt when fire forming. The best ideas were put out there by Parashooter involving a loop of what looked like fishing line.