30-40 Krag value?

**Capt Quahog** · January 2nd, 2012, 01:00 PM

Can anyone give me an educated guess on the value of a U.S. Springfield Armory, Model 1898 30-40 Krag rifle? The stock has been customized so not original,

First off . . . I'm a huge U.S. Krag rifle fan but historically, being of overt foreign design, that arm has always been sort of a bastard child of the Springfield Armory.

Sell Value for a well done bubba-rized Krag rifle? . . . If that's the question, then the answer is probably "Not much". Even in good economic times original condition Krags with crisp correctly marked stocks were never a hot commodity. As a sporting rifle round, the 30-40 is pretty much of an oddball. Does anybody still make ammunition?

Do know that a friend recently sold an excellent condition nice collectible grade Model 1896 Springfield Krag rifle with full inspector's cartouche and stock proof marks for $600. Meanwhile the guy across the street has a "sporterized" Model 1898 that he offered me for a couple of hundred bucks. It looks to be one of those old NRA cut down rifles. They did a very good job way back when and it looks much like a geniune Spam-Am war era Krag cavalry carbine.

With all that said, the Springfield Krag has without doubt the sweetest, smoothest bolt action probably ever made.

**Gunners762** · January 3rd, 2012, 07:56 PM

Originally Posted by abner13

Though once very popular , Krag sporters just don't really sell well these days. Seems everyone wants a synthetic-stocked , heavy barreled tactical sniper rifle these days. The Krags split-bridge receiver doesn't make mounting a scope easy , the caliber is seen by many to be underpowered. The action is incredibly smooth , but not very strong with it's single lug bolt. The barrels were of very mild steel. And many if not most of the sporterizing was poorly done. I've seen more hack-jobs than well done examples.

OTOH , new original contour barrels and newly manufactured full-length military style stocks are available. If the receiver hasn't been permanantly butchered , ya could put it back to original style.

Very nice ! I still use and enjoy my 1898 very much.

**wildsofpa** · January 3rd, 2012, 08:57 PM

Nice pic abner13,

I will have one soon, my father is going to give me his, as its been just setting in his cabinet for almost 34 years since last being fired. i shot my first buck with it when 12..then he bought me a 300 savage the following year and the krag has been sitting ever since. soon to be fired again..

Once i have it, Id like to try reloading some of these for it and see how they do on the range..Hornady FTX 160GR
http://www.hornady.com/assets/files/...30-40_krag.pdf

.30-40 Krag (Hornady FTX Data) Reloading Data
http://www.loaddata.com/members/sear...=12&header=.30 Caliber Reloading Data

**abner13** · January 5th, 2012, 06:34 PM

If ya ever notice , Sgt. Shultz always had a Krag on Hogans Heroes.

Even Klink!

Most of the cast who played the Germans were actually Jewish. John Banner/Sgt.Hans Shultz actually refused to carry Nazi weapons after the show took off. Hence , the Krag.

**Ecclectic Collector** · January 5th, 2012, 07:21 PM

Huh? I knew that some of the cast of Hogan's heros were Jewish, but had never caught that Sgt. Schultz actually had a Krag. Ironically, some Krags (Norwegian and Danish) were actually used by the Third Reich. (esp. during the last days of WW2)

Back to "American" Krags.

Another poster pointed out that the Krag was a foreign design. Uhhh, so were several other prominent American Military firearms:

Now I get slightly Off Topic for this thread...

The 1903 Springfield was a plagiarized 1898 Mauser. It was so blatant a copy of the basic design that the US government got a judgement that it was supposed to pay Mauser a settlement and license fee for each rifle made. Not sure our gov't ever paid a penny however since we were on opposite sides of that round of unpleasantness called World War 1.

Our other famous "American" bolt action rifle was designed by Enfield and is actually a British design from start to finish. Due to manufacturing shortages in the early part of WW 1, American arms manufacturers were contracted to build the gun for the British army where they were known as the P-14. The American military was so woefully unprepared for our entry in the war that they quickly retooled the design to .30-06 calling it the P-17 Enfield after our entry into the war in 1917.

Even our M-1 was designed by a Canadian. Yes, he was working for Springfield Armory, but John Garand was from north of the border. The M-14 is simply a modified Garand design, so don't try to go there either.

So if you really want to be fussy about it, the only two designs that are truly designed AND made by American citizens were the Trapdoor Springfield (another plagiarized design-but at least Springfield stole it from an American), and the M-16 series designed by Eugene Stoner.

I'm not trying to pick a fight here, but our military really was always about getting the best design into the hands of our soldiers (well sometimes), not ones that had to be designed by a local boy.