Krag not battleworth?

[ranger66]

I can visualize a modification of the Krag lunchbox that would allow loading from a stripper clip, especially if a rimless cartridge was developed. If the Kraq had been otherwise an overwhelmingly superior battle rifle, that might have been done. What was done was just to start over, and with a simpler, stronger design requiring far fewer machining operations.

jn

You don't have to visualize Jon. Here is a picture of a norwegian test rifle modified for clip loading. It worked well and only a minor modification was needed. http://digitaltmuseum.no/things/prve...ount=33&pos=16
I have heard that a similar device was tested on the US krag.

[kragluver]

Springfield modified a number of US Krags to adapt the Parkhurst clip loading device. By that time however, it was ~1900 and the M1903 was already in development.

The other major shortcoming little discussed regarding the Krag was its cost to manufacture. I think this had as much to do with its replacemnt than anything although you will never find it explicitly mentioned. The M1903 had fewer machining operations and when compared in common dollars, was cheaper to produce. So was the M1917 - another Mauser based design.

Overall, I think the Krag was a good rifle for the time period it was adopted, but it was a dead end design. The Mauser was more robust, and had sufficient design margin to handle more modern cartridges - plus cheaper to produce. I don't think the loading system was so much the reason for the demise of the Krag (even though that was the stated reason). Documented interviews of officers and men returning from Cuba indicate otherwise.

Rifle types don't win wars. They certainly play in the outcome but logistics and artillery (and eventually air power) were king.

What's the old quote... "Novices argue tactics. Experts argue logistics". Something like that.

[5MadFarmers]

Matter of personal taste, I guess.

Single loading rifles gave way to clip fed rifles. Clip fed bolts gave way to magazine fed automatic weapons. Time marches on.

There were other systems.

Mauser, Mannlicher, and Lee were all in contention with the rest being also rans. Mauser won in the end.

The GEW88 had nothing to do with Mauser....or more succinctly Mauser had nothing to do with it.

You know better. You're just playing a contraire here and we both know it. The '88 is a Mauser with a Manlicher magazine. Really no other way to describe it. The bolt is pure Mauser.

Yet the German Empire bought millions of GEW88 Mannlicher style rifles, though they ultimately regretted it.

It wasn't due to technology - it was politics. The "Jewish rifle" was condemned due to not having "positive feed" for the cartridges. By that measurement the '88 is no worse off than the Krag in that the Krag doesn't either. Yet the bolt design of the '88 permits the swapping of the bolt head and it does prevent firing out of battery - the Krag and M-1903 are both susceptible to that as was noticed before the 1896 Krag even entered production. By that measure the '88 wins. The Mauser magazine loading system, stripper clips, is inferior to clip packs. Mauser was working around Lee's and Mannlicher's patents. The M1 Garand is much faster loading than the Mauser - as is the '88. The rifle does the work stripping the cartridges. Everybody has likely had a problem "stripping" a Mauser style clip at some time. That doesn't happen with an enbloc. "Topping up" is also nonsense but we're drifting.

The fact that the Spanish, Serbs, Turks, Boers and South Americans bought Mausers was not a crashing endorsement of Mauser, though I agree it is the better rifle considering the choices.

Sweden then....

Two of the countries that actually fought wars (generally small colonial ones) in that period, were Britain and France. Their rifles at that time were not Mausers. I don't believe the Long Lee Enfield or the M1886 were better than the Krag, but they were probably in actual use more than any Mauser.

The Lee is superior on many counts. The box magazine was poorly used yet is superior to the charger clips and enblocs. M16 and AK47 right?

In fact, I cannot think of a better salesman for the Mauser than the French M1886/93., yet there were lots of Lebels in use.

The French would have adopted a Siamese made sharp stick before a German rifle.

None of them were terrible. Yet the Mauser was about the best of the lot. Wedding the Mauser bolt and Lee magazine, although logical, didn't seem to happen.

I really do need to get that book out. I have a big surprise in there for you all.

[psteinmayer]

I read the article, and I had to chuckle... Especially when the writer stated "With lessons learned from the Civil War, the US military needed to replace their aging stock of muzzle-loaders with a modern metallic cartridge-feeding long-arm. The solution came in the form of the Norwegian Krag-Jørgensen, reclassified by the US military as the M1892-99." Apparently, the writer forgot about the Trapdoor (unless he thinks they are loaded from the muzzle too)!

I also like how he described the loading of the Krag: " If you’re familiar with the way modern paint-ball guns are fed, you have a rough idea of the hopper concept used by the Krag. Free floating rounds were placed in a magazine well on the side of the rifle at a slight incline. As the user worked the bolt, it extracted the spent round and a fresh round rolled into the chamber." I didn't know that Krags were gravity fed, with loose rounds rolling UP into the bolt!

[blackhawknj]

The Krag was a First Generation design, like so many others, it looked great at the time-compare the Colt M1889 and M1894 with the Army Special-but like so many other First Generation designs, it was overtaken by superior designs and proved to be a dead end. Another was the tubular magazine-the Kropatschek and the Lebel.
The Krag was also the last US longarm produced as an infantry rifle and cavalry carbine.

[kragluver]

I'm looking forward to the book 5mad

[11mm]

Responding to FMF on the GEW88:
The Mausers we are touting here as superior to the Krag (and other rifles of the time) did not have a detachable (opposed lug) bolt head. Yes, the M71 and M71/84 Mauser had a detachable bolt head, but so did the Lebel and the Portugese Kropatscheck, or for that matter the Berthier. Those were not inspired by Mauser, as far as I know. The detachable bolt head is not a good idea in a combat rifle that has to be cleaned in the trenches. It gets lost, and it is also another part that needs to be made and stocked as spares. The advanced Mausers, the ones with which the Krag had to compete, had one piece bolts. The fact that the Germans saw fit to create the GEW88/05 for the first world war gives us an idea of the respect with which the packet clip was held by them.
The "judenflinte" indictment of the the GEW88 was just an example of traditional anti-semite behavior on the part of the usual suspects and had no technical basis in fact. However, the GEW88 was considered sufficiently expendable by the pre-WW1 German Army that they were surplussed all over the world. In fact, the surviving GWE88 rifles are available only because they were sold to Ecuador and such like and never modernized. The rest were converted to the 88/S and 88/05.
That said, I have about ten of the damned things...but they still don't hold a candle to the Krag.
And yes, you should get the book finished.

[5MadFarmers]

The fact that the Germans saw fit to create the GEW88/05 for the first world war gives us an idea of the respect with which the packet clip was held by them.

Where they gave the Brits hell at Gallipoli....

In fact, the surviving GWE88 rifles are available only because they were sold to Ecuador and such like and never modernized.

Missing sight slides and bolt heads or some such.

The rest were converted to the 88/S and 88/05.

Let's not forget the "Z" marked guns. The Equadorian guns received a lot of replacement Czech barrels not bored to the standard.

That said, I have about ten of the damned things...but they still don't hold a candle to the Krag.

The carbines are simply cuter than the Krag carbine to boot.



Oddly enough two of those guns are marked for the Kaiser Alexander Guard Regiment. What are the odds?

We've drifted

And yes, you should get the book finished.

Need sunlight. The book. The book. Lots of books. 11mm. A book.



Gotta have accessories.

[jon_norstog]

Ranger,

That was an interesting rifle. I can see how that addition to the magazine works. It would be nice if the museum had shown some of the "patronklips" in use. And, add another 20 machine operations to producing the Krag!

jn

[kragluver]

There are pictures of the Parkhurst clip loading system in both Brophy and Mallory. It looks to me like an add-on piece to the loading gate that could have been fairly easily manufactured. I suspect it would have worked just fine. But as I stated above, it was already about 1900 and the winds were blowing towards a new rifle in the 1903. We had a long discussion on this same point on gunboards a couple years ago - here:

http://forums.gunboards.com/showthre...m-War-Refought