Norwegian Krag Carbine Mystery

Drachenblut

Drachenblut

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Hello All,

I recently purchased this Norwegian Krag rifle/carbine sporter. I have no idea what model it is. It is nearly completely mismatched, though the bolt matches to itself. The barrel does not look cut down, so I am assuming this is a carbine. It is dated 1906 and has a 3 number serial code on the barrel and reciever which match. Does anyone know exactly what model this could be? I think it only has 1 forward locking lug.

Here are some pictures, see if you can take a crack at it.

Thanks!

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Drachenblut
 
All KRAGS have one lug, Norski or not. Danish '89 has 1 lug, also. EVEN the American ones have just one lug, despite all the guff about nothing less than three being safe at all.

This one looks a LOT prettier than mine. Mine still has the military rear sight and is nothing like as pretty.

There were a fair number of Krags floating about in rural Newfoundland when I lived out there. Norwegian ships would come over for the seal hunt and hire locals to do the "gunners and dogs" part of the job (the actual hunting, out on the ice), but the ships were stocked to the gunwales with rebuilt Krags and Norma-Oslo ammo in big boxes of 50 rounds, yellow-and-red labels announcing that it was loaded with new cases, lead-tipped bullets and was 'spesielt fabrikert for Selfangst': 'specially made for the Seal-Hunt'. Nice ammo, worked fine in Krags but port pressure was 'WAY too high for the AG-42B and it would wing the brass 40 yards, hard enough to do damage!

End result was that a lot of Krags tended to stick to the laundry when it came time to leave the ships.... and that was pretty much the end of the last military Krags.

A few were sold off in the early '60s and most were made into sporters by the time-honoured Bubba & Co., with the better ones being converted more-or-less properly, as yours has been. As Norwegian Krags go, you have a nice ones.

Don't bash the old girl around too much: that stock breaks REALLY easily!

Taking the bolt out of one of these for the first time is positively scary! Don't do it more often than you have to: extractors for these are SUPER hard to find!

Have fun!
 
Hmmmmmm........

I suppose you COULD try some of that Norwegian seal-hunting ammo if you knew anybody who still had a few rounds. Or you MIGHT try to handload a bit if you knew anyone who still had a box of the Norwegian 156-grain steel-jacketed RNFMJ slugs.

Are you going to Olds any time soon?

Looking at the rear sight, I think I would call yours a commercially-sporterised rifle built from a Norwegian 1896 Krag-Jorgenson rifle. Don't let guys razz you about the single lug: that bolt-handle locks into the frame VERY nicely on those.
 
The Norwegian Krags used 160 gr ammo or close to that bullet weight. RNFMJ is made by Hornady and worked well in my Krag. Smellie is right, parts are very hard to find and will cost you a fortune, the are not compatible with the US krag. In the US market, Norwegian Krag parts sell for allot more here.
 
cyclone said:
I was under the impression that all Norwegian Krags had one single-lug? :confused:
Click to expand...

All Krags have only one bolt "lug" (as we commonly describe them), but Norwegian Krags have two other bolt bearing surfaces - the "rib" along the bolt, and the bolt handle, both of which engage with the receiver and support the bolt on firing. The American Krag has the bolt handle lug as well, but not the "rib". You can see those two additional bearing surfaces (they really aren't bolt "lugs") in this pic of a Norwegian Krag receiver from your link:

800px-Norwegian_K-


All this talk of how dangerous those Krags are! Consider the mighty Lee Enfield, even our own beloved Longbranch. How does its bolt system stack up against the Krag, and how many of those are tagged as "inherently unsafe, only use greatly reduced loads - at your peril"?
 
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Thank you for the extra information. I will be handloading for pressures around 36-39,000, that should be sufficient? I am using the minimum loads for IMR 4350 and Winchester 760 as listed for my bullet weights on the Hogdon Reloading Data Center. Sound good? Smellie - I will be there August 28th. Thanks for the information again folks.
 
In 1904 Norway adopted a 6.5x55 load with a 139gr bt bullet. The original load used a rn 156 gr bt which was adopted by Norway and Sweden in 1894. The Swedes did not adopt the 139 gr load until 1941. The N and S loads are ballistically the same.
 
I use published data for the 6.5X55 in my Norwegian and stay below 45K CUP (as per the Hodgdon site as I use mostly Hodgdon powders). It is probably safe to go higher, but why would I?

H4350 is a wonderful powder for the 6.5X55 with a 140gr bullet - find the most accurate load in the 40.0 - 44.0 gr range and stick with it.
 
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