Picked up a Springfield 1896 Krag Jorgensen carbine the other day and it's bothering me. The serial number is 86xxx and the metal's fine, got a good bore and good finish with very slight pitting on the front reciever ring. The stock's obviously has been sporterized with checkering, which is obnoxious but hey, what can you do? Anyways besides that everything is normal and fine on the stock, but one thing. It has a dovetailed conversion from a straight wrist to a pistol grip stock.
Now I've been looking all over the websites and I see all of the Krags have staight wrists, but a majority of the Norwegian Krags have a pistol grip that seems to be inletted in the same manner as such. Is it a possibility that this rifle was fitted with a Norwegian stock? I was assume not and it's probably a sporterized stock, however I'm not too educated on the Krags and it's driving me nuts. Please help!

I don't know how easily a Norwegian stock could be fitted to a U.S. Krag barreled action. But I suppose it is POSSIBLE. I do know that at one time, Fajen or Bishop, or both, made semi-inletted replacement stocks for the U.S. Krag. These were of pistol-grip configuration.

I once had a Norwegian, and it had some of the prettiest tiger-striped European walnut on it that I've ever seen on a military rifle. The thing was accurate too-I put a K4 on it in a Pachmayr Lo-Swing sidemount. You can mount scopes centered over the bore on the norwegian, as their ejectors are cut with a bevel to cause the empties to be tossed out to the side, rather than straight up.