My 96 has the same stock markings ( or lack thereof) as yours. Ive read that feild replacement stocks did not have the full inspectors cartous, but mearly throw "P" indicating it had been proof fire by the armoror making the repair.

Ronn

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The opposite of art is not ugliness, it's indifference.
The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference.

Elie Wiesel

So I hit the range today with a set of rounds loaded up with 16 gr Alliant 2400 and a 311299 bullet, and a set wit h16 gr Alliant 2400 and a 314284 bullet.

Both sets of rounds were loaded to the 3.089 COL.

I had an interesting mystery on my hands. First off, the rifle didn't blow up. Always a victory. However, both sets shot extremely high at 100 yards... perhaps 2 feet high or so. Even odder, I had trouble closing the bolt on the 314284's and sometimes even the 311299's.

On the second 314284, I managed to get the bolt closed, but then opened up the bolt to examine the bullet. It was riding into the lands! oops! I even saw evidence of this on the 311299's. In the case of the -299's, the forward portion of the bullet has an OD of 0.301" (it steps down from .309 to .301 halfway up the bullet). Apparently the lands are .300 ID even back at the throat.

So I went ahead and fired off the rest of the sets, got some practice missing the paper entirely with my Beretta Model 1934, and headed home.

Here at home I took one of the fired cases and used it to determine OAL for both bullets.

for the 311284, which measures about .302-.303 at the forward portion, I determined that an OAL of 2.889 would work (0.020 back from where the lands are).

For the slightly smaller diameter 311299's, with a forward end OD of 0.301", I can load to an OAL of 3.025" (0.020" short of the lands).

These loads were so far off the paper that I was hitting at the very top edge of the target bore, unfortunately tearing big gashes out of the frame. However, I was able to see that 311299's were grouping at about 3" diameter or so at 100 yds without me really trying.

Shooting very high still has me puzzled, although maybe (??) butting up to the lands was creating higher muzzle velocities. I'm not sure yet..I'll adjust my COL to where my rifle wants it and then head back to the range next weekend. Of course, if it still shoots high then I need to figure out how to adjust the sights..there's no real elevation adjust (except for range), so I'd have to swap the front post for a taller one??

Real pleasant day at the range.. the rain earlier today had kept people away so I had the place to myself for most of time I was there.

-Jason

Jason:

That load should not shoot high @ 100 yards. Make certain that your elevation slide is all the way "down". "The Book" says that's 100 yards. I suspect that your rifle may still have the shorter M1896 front sight instead of the higher front sight that was used with the 1898, 1901 and 1902 sights. This might be expected if the 1902 rear sight and handguard were put on the rifle after it left government ownership. I have gotten a few in that configuration. The picture below was taken from Bill Brophy's great book on the Krag, and shows the difference between the front sights. There are two 03A3 front sights also in the scan, just to show that you can make a high front sight for the Krag from one of the more readily available 03A3 front sights. There are also now good reproduction front sights available for the Krag, including a high "blank" so you can make one higher than the issue sight for any reason. These were not available when I made this scan several years ago for guy that had the same problem you have.



Resp'y,
Bob S.

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It's REAL, it's wood and steel!

Three shots isn't a "group". At best, it's a fortuitous accident.

Thanks for the pic, Bob.
I've been following this thread with interest. I'm expecting my first Krag this week.

I load 311284 at 2.975" for my Krag, that put's it touching the lands with just a slight crunch. You sound like you're right in the ballpark.
Bob S. is right, that load shoots low in my Krag, and Unique loads even lower. You sound like you'll need to experiment a bit with your front sight height.

Bob you nailed it exactly (give or take 0.001").



And my daughter (my assistant reloader) is very happy. She says thanks!



I see that e-gunparts has the repro, and eBay currently has an original front sight blade that would work as well. So looks like a relatively easy fix.


Oh! I didn't even mention that when I figured out I was shooting way high, I did hold low and was (unfortunately) blowing out the top of the frame.. I'll have to replace that 2x4 next time I go out to the range. But the good news was that the 311299 grouping was ~3"! Not bad for first time shooting a Krag ever and holding a POA at some arbitrary distance below my paper target.


edit: oh I see I did mention it was grouping pretty well. Well, it's worth mentioning twice!

Cool.. good to know that my OAL measurements are making sense. If I still had access to a milling machine (they won't let engineers use them at work..bunch of malarkey if you ask me), then I'd mill my own and soot it up.

Short update: New Front Post is on. It's an original, and the height is correct for the 1902 sight.

Looks good. Now, back to the range!

Ok I was back to the range! Shooting to 100 yards.



20 shots of 16 gr Alliant 2400 with Lyman 311284 gas checked:



My hand is straddling the group for score. The surrounding holes were sighting in shots. So that's about a 3" group.

Here's similar load, but with Lyman 311299 gas checked:



So the three outer shots were off-hand. The group in the 9-10 rings are off the bench. Ever so slightly tighter than the other bullet.

I'm pretty happy with this load. I'll go +/- 1 grain or so to see if I get an improvement but I'd be happy with this.

Another fellow at the range suggested I bring it to the military shoot next weekend.

Great job, nice shooting with your Krag!
I don't have 311299, might have to get me one of those
I've been using 311284, with Unique in my Krag. I did experiment a bit last year with 2400, but was still better w/ Unique, so went back to that.
I bet you'll do fine in that match

Nice shooting

Good job so far. I use 23gr of IMR4198 for around 1800fps. That should work real well at the 200yd line for the military shoot. That is using 314299 sized to .312 as the grooves are .310. Enjoy that rifle they are a classic.

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