Looking for advice for Krag rifle

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mikesiggy

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I've recently acquired a Krag that somewhere down the line has been re barreled to 6.5x54 MS. The rifle is in fantastic shape but I'm having some issues.
I've got 2 new boxes of ammo, I went out yesterday to see how they cycled and they were extremely tough to chamber. So I gave it a good clean and scrubbed the chamber. I decided to pull the trigger to test everything. then the fired casing failed to extract and had to be pushed out.

I checked over the brass from that round, plus the brass that came with the rifle. they all have the same wear mark above the rim from what I assume is just an overly tight chamber.
The brass showed no other deformations or anything odd other than this wear mark.

So the big question now is what should I do? Does anyone have any recommendations for any gunsmiths that would be able to work on this rifle and possibly ream the chamber? or would it be possible to have this barrel further tooled to make it 6.5x55?

I'm located in Manitoba and i'd be ok mailing it away to have the work done.
 
I had the same problem with mine, I took it to a gunsmith and he opened it up for me, gtg now haven’t had an issue since, it’s a fairly light rifle with a fool proof sight on it I usually bush carry it for deer, good luck
 
A few decades back, several Norwegian Krags were offered up for sale, that had been converted to 6.5x54ms with a reamed chamber sleeve.

I had one of these rifles and IMHO, they were worth about what I paid for it. The cartridges were sloppy in the rotary magazine but fed OK. My rifle also had a tight chamber, which may have been caused by sweating the insert into the existing barrel. This was fixed by reaming the chamber with a 6.5x54ms reamer, which I borrowed from a LGS owner.

The give away is the bolt face. They didn't bother to make any changes to the bolt face. The diameter of the face is cut for the 6.5x55 swede round. It's a bit larger than the 6.5x54ms, but the extractor worked OK, once I cleaned up the chamber.

Before cleaning up the chamber, the extractor wouldn't hold onto the rim properly.

OP, I don't know how well you've checked out that rifle, from what you wrote. Many of them had very badly pitted bores.

This lead to several people looking at replacing the barrels. This proved difficult because the tenon/receiver have "left hand threads" It's not difficult but at the time many smiths wouldn't attempt it.

Now, if your Krag is Danish, it was originally chambered for the 8x58R round, which had a large rim and corresponding bolt face. If that wasn't addressed when the rifle was converted, which would have required a new barrel, then you will have extraction issues. I haven't seen any commercial rebuilds of the Danish Krags to 6.5x54ms. That doesn't mean someone didn't attempt a few one offs though.
 
Sounds like a Wildcat is the answer if it's got an 8 x 58 R bolt face. 6.5 x 58 anyone? I've an acquired 'Cartridge collection' with some 22-40 wildcats in it.
C & H is a good start for dies if this is the route you want to take...and why not a 6.5 x 58 R?
 
I doubt it is Danish so no point in confusing him. It is likely Norwegian and the chamber is likely too tight. Recommend getting a chamber casting done, and a verification of dimensions on it.
 
Mine was a commercial conversion with a stamp saying the chambering down the length of the barrel, I've seen a couple which are very similar, it just had to have the bore opened up like bear hunter said

I should have been more specific
 
rempel429 said:
Mine was a commercial conversion with a stamp saying the chambering down the length of the barrel, I've seen a couple which are very similar, it just had to have the bore opened up like bear hunter said

I should have been more specific
Click to expand...

I think you mean the chamber??

My rifle was difficult to close the bolt on and that was a giveaway.
 
Before you decide to hunt down a reamer, try polishing the chamber with a Scotch-brite pad and smoothing any contact surfaces in the chambering stroke. Secondly, have a look at the extractor and its claw. You might just be able to move the contact surface of the claw deeper onto the rim by cleaning or deburring its recess on the bolt.
 
I'll try and figure this picture thing out for you guys. I'm taking the rifle in to a local gunsmith tomorrow, although he didn't seem to excited to work on a Krag lol. Perhaps the wpns techs at work. Regardless, you've all given me some good ideas to work through. I like the idea of doing a cast of the bore, but i'll see what i can do to about polishing it first. More to follow!
 
Yes that is what I mean I’m not to good at moving what I think In my head to what I type, my bolt would only close about till about a an 1/8th from being able to lock it, they reamed the chamber and now it works like it should
 
Your rifle has the same script as mine down the barrel, does it happen to have a red rubber recoil pad with slots In it? And have the rear sling mount filled? I heard rumour from and older gentleman that they were assembled by globe firearms but I can’t confirm
 
maple_leaf_eh said:
Photobucket comes up with tiny images and 80% spam popup ads when I hit the links. Garbage platform!! I use IMGUR and have much better luck.
Click to expand...

Just put your cursor onto them and click. They will expand to full screen.

mikesiggy, your rifle is definitely Norwegian and the chamber insert is quite visible in your photos, which are nice and sharp IMHO.

You don't show the bolt face but I'm willing to bet it's been cut for the 6.5x55 and the extractor, like the rifle I had, hasn't been altered for a smaller rim diameter.

Your chamber is fine. Nice and shiny without any ring markings from a dull or worn reamer.

Your rifle's chamber area looked exactly like the area on the rifle I had.

The issue you have with your rifle isn't a one off. Lots of people complained about exactly the same problem.

I can't prove it but I believe the inserts were chambered before they were sweated into the the barrel. When the outer ring of metal was heated and the insert was likely frozen before inserting, things changed dramatically with dimensions. The insert, should have expanded enough to make chambering/ejecting easy. What actually happened is there is more barrel metal than insert metal and when the barrel metal cooled, it clamped down hard, almost welding itself to the insert, causing the dimensions to shrink a bit and creating the problem you're experiencing.

If you decide to get that chamber cleaned up, make sure the smith doesn't run the reamer to deep.

When I did mine, I only had to run the reamer far enough in to move the shoulder ahead .005 inches.

If the bore in that lovely little Norwegian Krag is VG to EXC, IMHO it's definitely worth fixing that chamber.

As for the extractor, if it needs reprofiling, there are a couple of ways to do this, without having to replace it or try adding metal to it. We're only talking about dropping the claw .015 in. and that should be able to be removed from the pad on the underside, where it rides on the bolt body. I didn't have to touch the extractor on my rifle after re cutting the chamber.
 
HuskyDude said:
To find a Norwegian Krag with a VG to Exc bore would be a rare thing.
So if you got one....it should be a keeper!
Click to expand...

I hear you.

When the first couple of batches of those rifles came in, they had excellent bores, both in their original chambering and even some of the re chambered rifles.

I've never seen one with a bright shiny bore. The barrels appear to be cut rifled with a broach and usually have the tracks or striations to prove it. I don't know if any of the bores on these little carbines were polished/lapped.
 
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