1894 Krag Close

musthaave

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CountryGunsmith

It used to be a Model 1892 Krag Rifle, Second Type. It originally had a 30" barrel with nearly a full stock and a wooden handguard.

Your description as 'carbine' leads me to believe somebody has chopped it. Most 1892's were converted by arsenals to the 1896 style, but they retained the 30" barrel.


Scrappy Doo sleeps with the fishes.

Iroquois Scout

Musthaave,
The good Gunsmith is correct. Your carbine started life as a Model 1892 Krag-Jorgensen Infantry rifle (yes, I know that it is marked 1894 on the receiver), 1892 was the model year and 1894 was the year of production. The first rifles were issued to the 4th. Infantry on October 30, 1894. What Gunsmith means by "second type" is this: The first type were made with a solid top band and a cleaning rod with a brass tip. Only around 1500 of this type were made. I happen to own rifle number 245. The second type had an open top band with an integral guide for a cleaning rod rod with a steel tip. There were about 24,500 model 1892 rifles produced all told, most were of the second type.
Why is my rifle now a carbine? There are three possibilities: 1.) There were no model 1892 carbines ever made. The first carbines started with the model 1896. When we entered the Spanish-American war and after that the Philippine Insurrection there were not nearly enough carbines to go around and carbine production lagged far behind rifle production,so, the quickest way to get carbines into the hands of troops was to take those model 1892 rifles that had not yet been altered to the model 1896 and some that had, and cut them down to carbine length, restock them with 1896 carbine stocks and issue them to troops. 2.) After the Krag rifle was replaced by the model 1903 Springfield in caliber .30-03 and in 1906, by the caliber .30-06, the government sold off the Krag rifles as surplus, starting with the oldest rifles first. Many of these rifles were bought by surplus murchants like Francis Bannerman and W. Stokes Kirk. These dealers cut down the rifles and stocks to make carbines so that they would be easier to sell rather then the 30 inch barreled rifles. You can usually tell these conversions by there poor workmanship and mixed parts. 3.) The goverment also disposed of these rifles to the general public and many gunsmiths built sporting rifles with the barreled actions. Some of these sporters are pretty bad while others are of excellent quality.
You don't tell us much about your carbine, so I can't tell you which of the three types of carbine you have.

Hope that this has been of some help to you.

Scout