My parked Krag

[madsenshooter]

Well, my parkerized Krag (I know the collector types are just cringing) is finally finished. Don't blame me, I didn't parkerize it, it was done by a veterans org in the Carolinas. Someone has had their hands on the rifle that knew what he was doing. It has the tightest action of any Krag I've handled, also the best trigger. The bolt body is uncut and has been lapped so that the guide rib contacts the receiver. It's not my best shooting Krag though, the groove diameter tapers from .308 at the throat to .310 at the muzzle. It was free, in a way. The P.O. delivered it broken at the wrist and I made a claim for the full purchase price, I refused to give up the metal, the govt surplussed it once, danged if I was going to let them have it again. I found a stock with a wrist that was just cracked and a whittled off forearm. Fixed the cracked wrist and grafted the forearm from the broken stock onto it. Pics show the 1901 sight, but I have a parked 1902 sight that originally came on it. I like it, and I'm sure it'll look just as it does now when it goes to my grandson, and perhaps when he passes it on.

[5MadFarmers]

Parkerizing was adopted as they couldn't keep the blued guns to keep their finish. So that just made me smile a little as somebody in the Carolinas rediscovered the reason perhaps.

There are collectors and then there are shooters. Sometimes people are both. It doesn't bother me when somebody spends time returning them to shooting. In fact I think that's why they were made in the first place.

Then again I'm really not a collector - more of an accumulator and researcher.

[madsenshooter]

I've seen a parked carbine on gunbroker, but the guy wants collector value price for something that has no collector value. The seller of this rifle had several from the veterans org that he sold. The bad thing about the purchase, other than it arriving broken in two, was that this was the rifle that I bought in lieu of the one with the modified cadet stock. At that time I didn't realize that it was a cadet stock. Still don't believe it was a cadet rifle, but I'm awaiting some researcher's verdict on that. Just can't see the academy having some marked 1894, some 1895. I'll bet if that researcher looked in the blocks of 1895 marked model 96 carbine receivers, he'd find a big hole of around 400, or several smaller holes that total 400. Probably doesn't have enough total numbers to see the holes though.

[Griff Murphey]

One of our guys who shoots vintage military here in the Fort Worth area has a parked '98 and I think he had it done as he was restoring it. I followed my usual custom of just being real admiring with it, but it's kind of like seeing an M-1 with a JAE/Sage type stock... just because you CAN do it doesn't make it right!