Krag Carbine Serial Numbers

[1mark]

As 11mm said, I am going to print this out and keep with 5mad notes.
I do enjoy learning more. Cannot not wait until I get another oddity.

[5MadFarmers]

300 M-1898 carbines are shipped from RIA to a unit. Two weeks later a trooper is firing one and the receiver, that square cut is a bummer, cracks. Stress from the barrel against that square cut receiver (there is a reason they change things). What nobody had noticed is screwing in the barrel when it was made had started the fracture. It survived some firing but cracked when the trooper fired the 9th round. The gun was sent back to RIA. In almost pristine shape minus that crack. They ordered a spare receiver from SA. SA took one from production, serial 178467, and sent it along. RIA re-assembled the gun on that receiver. In February of 1899. When the unit was due to exchange their M-1898s for M-1899s the Company Commander decided to keep that one for his own use. It was in the best condition. He duly mailed in a check and it became his property. Better than a century later that gun shows up on a board. "I have what appears to be an M-1898 carbine but the serial number is out of range. All the parts seem right. What's up?" To which he's told that Bubba did it or the surplus dealer did it. Thus an M-1898 carbine, which had not been sent in for rebuild, disappears never to be seen again. Amusing bit is, not having gone through rebuild, it's far more "correct" than the bulk of the M-1898 carbines out there which everyone and his brother has had a whack at "restoring." "Your gun is wrong, that receiver dates to 1899. Much too late to be made that way. It's also out of range. It's garbage."

There is a "Where's Waldo" in there. "In February of 1899" isn't possible as the first batch was made the summer of that year....

I'm going to add some more random bits. Some directly Krag but some just more for environment lighting.

Series production of the Krags ended in, off the top of my head, November of 1903. In 1904 they banged some more out. Why? "Because they were told to." Beyond that I don't know. Those guns have lower serial numbers than the serial number on the last Krag assembled in 1903. "Your gun was made in" runs right into a wall there. It took about 6 months, start to finish, to make the parts. By this I mean if metal and lumber were delivered in January you could expect the first guns to pop out in July. Taken from M-1917 information when they were a bit more efficient. So "made" and "assembled" aren't the same. If I took an unissued M-1898 from stock and altered it to a G.P. in 1908 what year is it made? If you answer "1903" you might be correct. When was it assembled? "1903 and 1908." I'd also note that a dude filing parts at a station and dropping them into a wheeled cart, which is then wheeled to the next station, isn't going to be a FIFO affair. Wouldn't be wrong to say the guns "assembled" in the first three months of 1898 were made in 1897. With some parts from 1896 maybe.

Markings on stocks. I don't remember covering that in the book. The army had a restriction on that. The Militia bought the guns from the O.D.. Sometimes using Federal money and sometimes State. The attention they paid to army restrictions was haphazard at best. If you find a marking on a stock it's most likely????

In attempting to assemble a "serial/range" for M-1905 bayonets I gave up on those marked RIA from 1917-1919. Why? Because I hit too many 1919 ones with numbers earlier than 1918 and 1917 marked ones. Seriously. Head shaker. Serialized in 1917 and finished in 1917-1919 with it being kind of all over the place. Same Ordnance Department. The overlap in M-1898 rifle receivers and M-1899 carbine receivers is pretty much the same thing.

When the "school guns" were being supplied to wee kids in the 1910s, the schools were given the option of ordering the parts and having the work done or having the armory/arsenal do it. Thus the level of work will vary.

"Painting the environment." I use that term. "Sew all the random bits together in odd patterns that point to new patterns." That too. I'm going to do it. Right now. I'm going to sew bits of all the previous bits together in a new way and get a useful result.

In 1909, having Krags in their armory, a Militia unit might find that they now have 30 broken rifles. They own the guns. Figuring that sending them to the O.D. for repairs might be pricey what's to stop them from ordering new parts and then contracting the repair out to the William "Bubba" Jones's gun emporium?

So under government control and a Bubba? What if they bought the parts from Bannerman?

[Dick Hosmer]

One of the points you made several years ago still governs everything:

Nobody KNOWS everything, for 100% sure, about the components of ANY given gun. Your hypotheses about the 1898 Carbine is clever, entertaining, AND quite plausible. Sorta like your truly masterful 1,000 word reply to the guy who wanted to know when his gun was made.

But, I think most of us try to follow some sort of "hierarchy of probability" which means that MOST out-of-range M1898Cs are that way because they actually are FUBAR, the good company commander, and his friends in similar circumstances, notwithstanding.

I love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[5MadFarmers]

But, I think most of us try to follow some sort of "hierarchy of probability" which means that MOST out-of-range M1898Cs are that way because they actually are FUBAR, the good company commander, and his friends in similar circumstances, notwithstanding.

I love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good. Because I'm going to continue it.

Laugh Dick, it's always disturbing but it is amusing and gets people thinking.

MOST out-of-range M1898Cs are that way because they actually are FUBAR,

Accurate.

And MOST in range M-1898Cs are that way because they actually are FUBAR

Also accurate.

"How can he claim that?" See the guns, detect the pattern. Where are all the 1898Cs in long stocks? I have the sale paper on those short stocks! Ergo the guns removed from those stocks and altered to M-1899C format were placed in long bar-less stocks. Where are they? They seem strangely absent don't they? This pattern repeated when I looked at them: "checks stock, it's the M-1898C short stock, checks the cut-off, it's the later edition." Mismatch. The gun would have been restocked and that cut-off would be finished bright like the 1899s. "Reworked parts?" They were stripped and refinished. Thus the underside should glow bright like a 1957 Chevy front bumper. I mentioned that in the book. People restocked them but didn't typically get the cut-off bit. Hint: while you're at it you might want to check the trigger parts....

Sometimes it's the absence of something that catches the eye. Where are the long stock ones? It would appear that somebody ate them.

A new guide. The three types of guns:

1) Strange ones. Most likely to be complete.
2) The "common" yet in demand ones. Most likely to be mucked up.
3) The common and not in demand ones. Likely to not be mucked up.

Group one example: the BoOaF rifles. "Make them, test them, toss them into a corner as they're non-standard." They hit the surplus market intact.
Group two example: the M-1898 carbines. They get rebuilds and then peddled. They're in demand so they get "restored to original" wholesale.
Group three example: the late M-1898 rifles. Not much use and nobody bothers spending the time in attempts to get every bloody piece right.

Kind of strange isn't it? Most of what we "know" came from group one. The least typical of the lot.

Want to play it safe? Buy a late M-1898 rifle. That or a beat to tar M-1896 rifle.

Stay away from M-1896 rifles which started as M-1892 rifles. Why? Because half the people want to replace the M-1892 parts that remained with M-1896 parts while the other have is trying to maximize the M-1892 parts on the gun. One would suspect the two groups would get along famously.

[5MadFarmers]

Good. Because I'm going to continue it.

Laugh Dick, it's always disturbing but it is amusing and gets people thinking.

MOST out-of-range M1898Cs are that way because they actually are FUBAR, the good company commander, and his friends in similar circumstances, notwithstanding.

Accurate.

And MOST in range M-1898Cs are that way because they actually are FUBAR

Also accurate.

"How can he claim that?" See the guns, detect the pattern. Where are all the 1898Cs in long stocks? I have the sale paper on those short stocks! Ergo the guns removed from those stocks and altered to M-1899C format were placed in long bar-less stocks. Where are they? They seem strangely absent don't they? This pattern repeated when I looked at them: "checks stock, it's the M-1898C short stock, checks the cut-off, it's the later edition." Mismatch. The gun would have been restocked and that cut-off would be finished bright like the 1899s. "Reworked parts?" They were stripped and refinished. Thus the underside should glow bright like a 1957 Chevy front bumper. Which on most it does. Ergo rebuilt later when the stocks would be swapped. I mentioned that in the book. People restocked them but didn't typically get the cut-off bit. Hint: while you're at it you might want to check the trigger parts....

Sometimes it's the absence of something that catches the eye. Where are the long stock ones? It would appear that somebody ate them.

A new guide. The three types of guns:

1) Strange ones. Most likely to be complete.
2) The "common" yet in demand ones. Most likely to be mucked up.
3) The common and not in demand ones. Likely to not be mucked up.

Group one example: the BoOaF rifles. "Make them, test them, toss them into a corner as they're non-standard." They hit the surplus market intact.
Group two example: the M-1898 carbines. They get rebuilds and then peddled. They're in demand so they get "restored to original" wholesale.
Group three example: the late M-1898 rifles. Not much use and nobody bothers spending the time in attempts to get every bloody piece right.

Kind of strange isn't it? Most of what we "know" came from group one. The least typical of the lot.

Want to play it safe? Buy a late M-1898 rifle. That or a beat to tar M-1896 rifle.

Stay away from M-1896 rifles which started as M-1892 rifles. Why? Because half the people want to replace the M-1892 parts that remained with M-1896 parts while the other have is trying to maximize the M-1892 parts on the gun. One would suspect the two groups would get along famously.

Note: Corrected cut-off bit. Parts Dyslexia at work