Looking at the Stevens Little Krag rifle

The little Krag rifle made by Stevens gun company is a 22 caliber boys rifle. The Krag name was chosen because the Spanish American war was still in the recent memory  of most Americans.  It is a simply design single shot rifle that came out in March of 1904. The rifle came with a standard 20″ round barrel and oil walnut stock. For a short time there was a scope that was available, it however was dropped after being made for only one year. By 191o the rifle has run it’s course and was discontinued.

Close up of the receiver in the stock.

Out of the stock.

The barrel is a slip fit that is held in with a screw on the bottom of the receiver with a screw.

As you can see from the pictures this is a very basic receiver.

Even the trigger and extractor are of a very simple design.

The bolt as well is very simple in design and function. The bolt handle is what keeps the action closed when the rifle is fired.

There is an  interesting design  with this rifle. It is the design of the extractor. It is a spring loaded design. Here are a few pictures of the spring and extractor set up.

As you extract the cartridge out of the chamber the extractor springs forward to all another cartridge to be fed into the rifle.

This is a video of its operation.

Quite often I am e-mailed about I am interested in making my own rifle but I don’t have the experience or the tools. This rifle can be made with a very little experience and tooling. There is no or minimal heat treating involved with this design and steel selection could be basic scrap steel.