Sporterized Krag With Stepped barrel

[Lobo5617]

Has anyone ever heard of rebarrelng a Krag with a stepped barrel? I purchased a sporterized Krag with one. It chambers and ejects a regular 30-40 cartridge. When you put the bullet end of the cartridge into the muzzle, it gauges like a proper 30-40 with a very good muzzle condition. There are wrench marks on the barrel. I intend to shoot it using a Lead Sled and a long rope. What Mauser-type rifle/caliber barrel would interchange with the 30-40? Any assistance would be appreciated. LOBO

[bruce]

It chambers and ejects a standard factory .30-40 round. The barrel gauges .30 as with other .30 barrels. Order some Cerrosafe from Brownells. Following direction make a cast of the bore/muzzle as well as a chamber cast. That will confirm you preliminary findings. Much better than an experiment that ends in boom rather than bang. The Krag is fine with normal SAAMI ammo. The receiver does not have a high margin of strength. Possibly the barrel is from a 03-A3 which typically had a odd sort of profile with a section milled in about the middle of the barrel that might be seen as a step, certainly not as stepped as mauser barrels. These 03-A3 barrels could be and not uncommonly were, set back and rechambered and then fitted to Krag receivers. That was a common fix for .30-40 barrels that were in poor condition. JMHO. Sincerely. bruce.

[sdkrag]

O3-A3 barrels weren't stepped. Not sure about Norwegian Krags.

[Parashooter]

There have been many 7.62 and 7.65mm Mausers imported to the USA over the years. At times they were so common that using only the action to make a custom sporter was a frequent practice, leaving lots of surplus barrels floating around.

The most likely donor for a barrel as described in post #1 here is one of the ex-Israeli 7.62 NATO Mausers that were widely available at moderate cost some 20-30 years ago - but there were many others.

Cartridge dimensions would require any such project to include shortening at the breech enough to remove much of the original chamber - similar to the way US M1903 barrels were often adapted for use on Krags.

[jon_norstog]

Lobo, my money is on a Mauser barrel, probably from a small-ring action like the 91/93/95/96. There used to be a lot of them around, cheap. It is to be hoped that whoever cut the new threads set the bbl back and reamed a 30-40 chamber. I would definitely do the cerrosafe thing before firing a live round. If you don't have cerrosafe, get automotive plastigage and lay a thread lengthwise on a 30-40 round and chamber it it. It should crush way down.

Mauser barrel, chances are good it takes a .311 bullet.

[Lobo5617]

Thank you to everybody who weighed in. I will fire it next week. I expect the case to be normal Krag. Someone went to considerable lengths to modify this: pistol grip added, ramp front sight. Excellent forearm and 1902 rear sight. I forgot to mention that it had a forearm screw that went into a vertical stud on the underside of the barrel. I will take it to the July Missouri Valley show in Kansas City to see if there are any "old Krag hands" there who can shed any additional light.