1898 Krag problem, need sugestions.

2

219don

Guest
I recently acquired a "sporterised" 1898 Krag in 30-40 Govt caliber. Put a round in the chamber, close the bolt and she fires fine. It looks like the barrel was shortened at both ends and rechambered, I'm not a smith so just an amateur opinion. Problem is nothing will feed from the magazine ! Factory rounds, dummy spitzer round, dummy round nose, base first dummy round, etc. nothing. Front of bullet seems to hit on back edge of barrel at about 7 or 8 o'clock. Everything else inside looks OK. (Again, amateur opinion.) Other Krags I've looked at seem to look the same inside. Should this back edge be smoothed down ? or is something else amiss. Anyone. Thanks.
 
Is the magazine cutoff on the rifle enabled or disabled? When enabled, the rifle does not feed from the mag. This was the preferred way to operate the rifle, rounds in the mag were there for emergency use.

See http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/edu129.htm at the bottom of the page to see the location (and settings) of the cutoff. FWIW, the M1903 Springfield rifle also has this feature.

Hope this helps.

Asa
 
The root of the problem...

is most likely the overall round length. The rifle was designed to feed properly with the original 220 gr RN bullet, which results in a longer loaded round than with most modern bullets of lesser weight (and length), of whatever shape.
I've never been able to get fully reliable feeding with other types of bullet in my Krags, though heavier bullets (180 - 190 grains) seated to near the original maximum length work better. 220 Gr. RN bullets are available, though not cheap, and there are some recommendations for improving feeding with pointed bullets by modifying the follower, available on forums which specialize in Krags.
Good Luck!
mhb - Mike
 
The magazine cut off works fine. When enabled the bolt doesn't even touch anything in the magazine. Original 220 gr Rem UMC factory rounds will not feed either. I will check out the Krag forum's. Thank's for the responses.
 
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