Krag-Petersson
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
The Krag-Petersson rifle was the first repeating rifle adopted by the armed forces of Norway, and one of the first repeating arms adopted anywhere in the world. It has been described as "the rifle everybody has heard about, but hardly anybody has ever seen". [1] (http://www.geocities.com/trondwikborg/kragpetersson.html) The rifle is notable for being the first designed by Ole Herman Johannes Krag, a Norwegian gun designer, that was used by a country's armed forces.
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Design
The mechanism was developed by Ole Herman Johannes Krag, with vital help from his friend Axel Petersson on the actuation of the mechanism. The weapon was chambered for the 4 "linjers" rimfire ammunition already in use in the Remington M1867 rifles by Norwegian and Swedish armed forces. It was adopted as a standard armament by the Royal Norwegian Navy in 1876. While the ammunition was nominally 4 Linjer, the caliber of the barrel was 3.88 linjer (12,17 mm / 0.479 in), while the uncoated lead bullet had a diameter of 4.021 Linjer (12.615 mm / 0.497 in).
Operation
The Krag-Petersson repeating rifle has a falling block action, ie the breechblock moves downwards as the mechanism is opened, actuated (operated) by the operation of the exterior hammer. This was a design depature compared to Krag's earlier designs, which used a side mounted lever to operate the breechblock. The tubular magazine, containing a total of 10 rounds of ammunition, was placed under the barrel. Once the mechanism was open, an extractor ejected the spent cartridge. A fresh round of ammunition was pushed into a shaped recess on top of the falling block by the spring in the magazine, whereupon the falling block rose slightly. The round could now be pushed into the chamber by the shooter, and the breechblock would rise completely. This rising of the breechblock (by means of a powerful spring) could catch the shooter off guard, resulting in pinched skin on the thumb. The weapon was now ready to fire.
During development, it was found that the rifle was not only solidly designed and well engineered, but it was also capable of firing 18 to 19 aimed shots a minute when used as a single loader - well superior to the standard Remington M1867's 13 aimed shots a minute. When used as a magazine loader, it was found that 11 shots - ten in the magazine and one in the chamber - could be fired in 25 seconds. Tests carried out during the evalution also indicated that the rifle was more accurant than the Remington M1867, but the avilable sources do not mention how accurate in absolute terms.
Usage
Despite the claimed accuracy and rapid fire, it was decided not to adopt the weapon for either the Norwegian or Swedish army, since the ammunition it was designed around could rightly be considered outdated by the mid 1870's. The Royal Norwegian Navy on the other hand, still using old M1860 'Kammerlader' ('chamber-loader') modified to fire the 4 linjers rimfire round, adopted it in 1876. A total of 975 Krag-Petersson repeating rifles were produced and issued for use. By 1900 they were considered obsolete, replaced with the Krag-Jørgensen rifle, and sold off to civilians. Only a few remain in their original form today.
External links
- A page with a few details and some photos of the M1876 (http://www.geocities.com/trondwikborg/kragpetersson.html)
- More pictures of the rifle (http://www.militaryrifles.com/Norway/KragPetersson.html)
References
- Hanevik, Karl Egil (1998). Norske Militærgeværer etter 1867. Hanevik Våpen. ISBN 82-993143-1-3. Chapter 2 and appendix A
