A Norwegian Krag, at long last. Pics on

mkrnel

What a great looking rifle! Was that aperture mount requiring a hole drilled in the receiver?
That is the sling I am needing too. :)

Thanks, it is a very nice rifle.

These were made up as their sniper rifles before they had access to scopes!

The rear sight had a base that was D&T to the receiver and a clamped on arm that was easily adjusted and removable. The sling on it is the original and correct issued sling which is very hard to now find!
 
No, I sold it to a dealer on CGN awhile ago! It was a sweet handling unit although, very smooth and fast to operate!
 
Check this clip for a look at the speedcharger. It's an instructional video about the rapid fire excersices in Norway, made by the norwegian shooters association in 1986.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWIi5m9-0S8

The diopter sights were mostly a civilian thing, used for target shooting. The above rifle has a Kongsberg M/30 (model 1930) diopter, and a thicker barrel without bayonettlug, so it's defenately been someones targetrifle. The army got a scoped sniper rifle in 1910. It was the first 1000 Krags made in 1910 who got fitted with scopes. It was Johan Enger, one of the brothers who started NORMA PROJEKTILFABRIK, who initiated the project. He was one of the leaders of the norwegian shooters organization, and he was allways experimenting with ways to shoot more accurate. He had Krags sent to USA to get scopes fitted to them, and in 1905 he held a demonstration for the army. The result was the Krag sniper. The mount was made at Kongsberg, and the scopes were ordered from Voigtlander. It did have problems keeping the POI because of the mount, but never the less an interesting early sniper. and it was used against the germans. At least at the Narvik front.

http://digitaltmuseum.no/011022714744
http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?383181-And-a-little-Christmas-present-of-my-own
 
No, I sold it to a dealer on CGN awhile ago! It was a sweet handling unit although, very smooth and fast to operate!

I believe I ended up with that rifle. And it is beautiful, thank you!

I have not shot it yet but that is mostly because I think I need to start reloading just for it. I would really appreciate any advice you might have on reloading or even factory ammunition for it (my understanding so far is that the American factory ammunition is loaded at safer pressures and should be okay as long as it is not all the time, so was thinking of using that to get a box of brass at a time in the beginning).

 
Nice score Kevin!
Some light reading in my reload manuals is saying their loads are designed for the late model 6,5x55s ie Husqvarna 1600 series, Ruger MKII and Rem 700 I guess, and to stay below the top loads they lost by one grain.

Bernt, what Voightlander scope did they use specifically, and what reticle?
Have to admit I'd love to get a spare side plate for mine and build a pseudo side mount for it. Without doing anything damaging to the gun of course. Challenge there is that plate is held in by the mag cutoff and it is not a rock solid mount without adding a load to the plate via a set screw, which in turn only loads up the cutoff pin.
 
Thanks Noel!

Yes, notwithstanding any expert advice my plan so far was to start with the lowest pressure load I could find listed in a manual and hope that it would be accurate enough.

By the way, that rifle you picked up is a beauty, congrats!
 
I am of the same opinion far a loading goes. Would make a very sedate rifle for my Daughter to plug deer with if she had a rest. That's a ways off yet tho.

Thank you for the congrats. It is for sure a keeper to go with Ivars pictures.


BMF you mentioned the rear sights were modified for the lighter bullet, is it possible some old style ramps snuck through? I was offered a parts gun over the weekend and the side rails (?) for it rise above sight itself, a shame the gun was parkerized, would have been a good sight to salvage.
 
Noel

I don't know what model the Voigtländer scope was, but it had no adjustment possibilities. That had to be done by the mount. The reticle was a very fine crosshair.

As for the sight upgrade. Krags on civillian hands didn't get the upgrade, unless they bought a new base. So you can still find some with the old sight.

As for reloading data. I'm e-mailing you some scans. It's a P.I.T.A to post pics. here. Maybe you can post'em?

I think you should read this link. A Krag blew up in the UK last year. Now the report is public. Too much reduction of a charge can be dangerous too.
http://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=52780
 
I believe I ended up with that rifle. And it is beautiful, thank you!

I have not shot it yet but that is mostly because I think I need to start reloading just for it. I would really appreciate any advice you might have on reloading or even factory ammunition for it (my understanding so far is that the American factory ammunition is loaded at safer pressures and should be okay as long as it is not all the time, so was thinking of using that to get a box of brass at a time in the beginning).


Kevin, that does look just like it is the one I sold. You should be fine shooting American made ammo in it and just so you know these 1894 model Krags are stronger than the earlier designed American .30-40 Model 1892 Krags! they also have an extra locking surface and were built from better steel apparently, the Americans choose to use heat treated plain steel while the Austrian and Norwegian/Danish makers used a higher grade of steel!

It uses a single front lug which, when locked, is in the downward position. A reinforcing guide rib on the right side of the bolt body serves as a second lug, not quite 90° from the first lug. The bolt handle also turns into the receiver and serves as another locking lug, although it is in line with the previous rib. So while this provides three points of contact it is all in the bottom/right quadrant of the bolt and therefore does not provide symmetrical locking like a Mauser but is still way better than the single locking surface of the USA Krags!

and as per Wikipedia -

Contrary to some rumors, the Krag-Jørgensen action can be modified to fire modern, high power cartridges. During World War II, and also in the early 1950s, several were produced in 7.92×57mm, which can hardly be considered a low power cartridge. A number of Krag-Jørgensens have also been converted to .30-06 and 7.62 mm NATO for target shooting and hunting. However, it must be stressed that these were all late-production Norwegian Krag-Jørgensen rifles, made in an era when metallurgy was vastly more advanced than when the American Krag-Jørgensen rifles were made. The American Krag-Jørgensen also has only a single locking lug, whereas the Norwegian and Danish versions effectively had two lugs and a bolt handle safety lug.

But after saying all the above I would tend to load lower than what a Swedish Mauser can take just out of recognition that this example was made in 1897 and is a very hard rifle to replace if something went wrong!
 
Thanks mkrnel, that makes feel better about shooting it. Very interesting that some were modified to actually shoot higher powered cartridges! There seems to be a lot of conflicting information about these rifles, perhaps partly because of the confusion between them and the US. 30-40 Krags. I still intend to start reloading for it nonetheless but at least I can feel safe in shooting a box here and there for brass. I certainly do not to chance something bad happening to this more than a century old rifle!

It was also interesting to learn from the milsurps.com thread that the Steyr actions having rounded corners are considered stronger, generally speaking I assume. Nevertheless, the incident in the U.K. mentioned in the above posts is a good lesson to be careful with reloading, I know I will take that to heart when I start.
 
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