Want To Put An Unusual Barrel On A Krag

[Starmetal]

Fellows, glad to be part of the forum. What I want to do is going to sound crazy, but your memebers know your stuff very well. I have a Krag that's not a collector. Barrel had been shorten and the buttstock had about five or six inches cut of off it and someone very professionally added a piece back, but the grain doesn't match. Here's what I want to do. I have a Model 94 Winchester 32 Special barrel in mint shape. I want to know if I can use this barrel with a "bushing" to thread into a Krag. I know the Winchester shank thread is smaller and a different pitch V thread. Believe it's .809x20. I thought about turning the threads off it so it would give me a thicker bushing. It has the front and rear sights on it and it's top eject so the extractor notch is in the breech face. Think that worries me is I want it to be threaded in and tighten up with the sights at 12 o'clock. I've tried cycling dummy 32 Special cartridges through the rifle and it works very well. I know I'm crazy, but please tell me if this can be done especially without having to get a finish chamber reamer, which may have to be done to get it clock up at 12 o'clock if I have to trim some off the breech face. Tell me what to do. Thanks

[Culpeper]

Sounds like a whole lot of work for near zero gain. I'm not an engineer or machinist but it seems like there could be a problem with bolt/bore longitunal alignment if it ain't close to being right or exact.

Just spit balling. I'm probably way off.

Maybe you should let the Krag be a Krag and call it good.

As said many times, here, it's your gun. Use the money saved for ammo.

[butlersrangers]

I would advise selling the .32 Winchester barrel and applying the money to getting and installing a new 'Criterion' barrel in .30-40.

There is no advantage to having a Krag in .32 Winchester Special. The .30-40 Krag can be reloaded to duplicate .30-30 or .32 Winchester performance.

The Krag action's 'feed-path' does require re-working in order to feed the shorter cartridges smoothly and successfully.

[Whig]

The SAAMI Max chamber pressure associated with .32 Winchester is listed as 42,000 CUP. When you start going over 40,000 CUP, you run the risk of damaging or cracking the single bolt lug on the .30-40 Krag action, which is designed for max 40,000 CUP.

Interesting in theory but just stick with .30-40 Krag ammunition for these great historic rifles as suggested.

[waterman]

Back in the days of $2 Krags, the Krag cartridge was considered by some to be "too powerful" for deer hunting. The issue bullet was apt to go completely through the deer and keep on going. When I started messing with Krags in the 1950s, I saw several rebarreled to .30/30. I never saw one rebarreled to .32 Special, but why not?

Today, a Criterion barrel makes more sense. If the Winchester barrel is in decent shape, someone will buy it.

[Whig]

I think rebarreling on a larger scale was due to availability of surplus ammunition. .30-40 Krag and .303 British went through periods of easy availability and cheap pricing more than .32 caliber ammunition.

[butlersrangers]

I imagine it is unusual to see a box of .32 Winchester Special, on gun store shelves, these days?

It always struck me as being a 'redundant' cartridge, almost identical to the .30-30.

FWIW - I noticed on Graf & Son's web-site, .32 Winchester Special ammunition is "out-of-stock", and it was priced at around $2.30 per round, (when available).
Sportsman's Warehouse and Midway are also Out-of-Stock.
.30-30 Winchester ammunition, by contrast, is $1.10 per round and readily available.

It surprised me that a once common 'blue collar' Deer cartridge is priced at over $50 a box, when available!
(Of course a reloader would have no problem making .32 W.S. ammo, using .30-30 WCF brass).

The OP's contemplated project looks to be an inconvenient money pit in all aspects.

I also imagine a competent gunsmith would be averse to using a 'threaded-sleeve' to adapt a barrel to the action of a high-power rifle.

Just my 2 Centavos

[Starmetal]

The SAAMI Max chamber pressure associated with .32 Winchester is listed as 42,000 CUP. When you start going over 40,000 CUP, you run the risk of damaging or cracking the single bolt lug on the .30-40 Krag action, which is designed for max 40,000 CUP.

Interesting in theory but just stick with .30-40 Krag ammunition for these great historic rifles as suggested.

Case type Rimmed, bottleneck
Bullet diameter .308 in (7.8 mm)
Land diameter .301 in (7.6 mm)
Neck diameter .338 in (8.6 mm)
Shoulder diameter .423 in (10.7 mm)
Base diameter .457 in (11.6 mm)
Rim diameter .545 in (13.8 mm)
Rim thickness .064 in (1.6 mm)
Case length 2.314 in (58.8 mm)
Overall length 3.089 in (78.5 mm)
Case capacity 58.0 gr H2O (3.76 cm3)
Maximum pressure (C.I.P.) 47,137 psi (325.00 MPa)
Maximum CUP 40,000[1] CUP

I don't believe you are correct on the 32 Special being too much for the Krag action.

[Starmetal]

Okay I've been rethinking this. The best way to do this is buy a new barrel and thread/chamber it for the Krag action. I have a bunch of Krags and this is is a junker. I have many in original 30-40 that shoot better then just excellent. As far as 32 Special availability that is of zero concern for me as I reload and I'd be shooting cast bullets anyways. I just wanted an easy way to make a 32 Special out of it, or for that matter a 30-30. Now some people have converted them to 303 British and that I do consider a little bit much for the Krag action.

Do you fellows know that when the U.S. first came up with the 30-40 cartridge that they barreled up a Springfield Trapdoor for it? Then they dropped it figuring it was a tad too much for the Trapdoor.

[Culpeper]

[quote=Starmetal post_id=47918 time=1707079180 user_id=4205
Do you fellows know that when the U.S. first came up with the 30-40 cartridge that they barreled up a Springfield Trapdoor for it? Then they dropped it figuring it was a tad too much for the Trapdoor.
[/quote]

That and a host of the other reasons like the future of warfare changing with bolt action repeaters coming on line in Europe.