Krag Collectors Association Forum

I thought I would share a neat rifle with the forum. It is a Remington keene 45-70 bolt action rifle. Along with the Winchester Hocthkiss and Remington Lee it was rejected for U.S. military use. I can only guess why. Probably the fear of our troops wasting ammo (only a guess). It was used by some govt. Agency's Indian reservation police for one. It ended up being sold to the public. With 9 of rounds of 45-70 on tap not too bad for 1880. It makes you wonder if one of these rifles had been adapted how it would have affected the Krags use by our troops. Would it have stalled its adaption long enough to have ushered in the Springfield 03 instead?

The Remington-Keene and the Winchester-Hotchkiss with their tube-feed magazines were at least a technological generation behind the Remington-Lee as a military weapon. I have an 1886 Kropatschek in functioning condition that I've shot a bit. Mine is a Portuguese Naval or Marine rifle, with sights that go out to 2800 somethings, probably meters. It probably worked OK as a naval small-arm, fired off a ship's rail at smugglers, etc. They stayed in that service into the 1920s, maybe later. It's a pretty clumsy single shot, muzzle-heavy when fully loaded. It is slow to load, and slower with each succeeding round. Just looking at it, you can tell that it would clog full of dirt or sand in a dry and windy environment. The magazine spring is really pretty flimsy, yet it has to push 8 loaded cartridges up to the lifter mechanism. The magazine tube might get dented & become non-functional the first time you slammed that fore-end down on a rock or a log.

That's the same era technology as the Hotchkiss or the Keene. As an infantry rifle in the American west of the 1880s, where you'd be supported by the rest of your squad, I think the later versions of the Trapdoor might be a better choice. With any of those, I can see how the first smokeless rifle might be a Krag.

But the Remington-Lee is another matter. If a lad carried 4 more loaded magazines and if they were really quickly interchangeable, looking at a Krag as a replacement might be seen as a step backward. That you would be giving up firepower should be obvious.

sweet!!!!!!

The Remington Lee was probably the better of the three. In its defence the Remington Keene military model had a full length stock to protect the tube magazine.

My Kropatschek also has a full-length military stock, but when I got it, the magazine tube was dented in 2 places and the magazine spring was stuck behind the dents. A very dirt & dent susceptible design. How did the French 1886 Lebel stay in service so long?

Maybe the Lebel had thicker steel used for the Magazine tube? The Winchester Hotchkiss had a tube magazine but it was located in the buttstock. This created it's own problems when reloading under the stress of battle conditions. It was very easy to stick the barrel in the ground and plug the barrel while loading. Without a dought the box magazine was the way to go for service use.

A lot, if not most, good 'gun' ideas are failed by "execution".

Trials & field tests, with resulting remedies and improvements to overcome faults and failures, bring amazing evolutions in a gun's original form.

Most firearms do not get very far in this process.

The "Krag-Jorgensen" evolved quite far from its design roots.