Krag magazine cutoff lever purpose

je25ff

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I was going through my safe lovelies recently and was doing a regular cleaning and oiling and pulled my Krag Jorgensen out (no, not a sporterized abomination). I seem to remember that the magazine cutoff was due to some sort of military doctrine at the time where officers would order soldiers to enable this so they didn't, 'fire 5 rounds inaccurately' or something to that effect. That's my recollection, but I also hear that it is linked to just the easy nature of loading loose rounds, as is the slide out magazine. Which one is the case or is both true? Anyone know?
 
“Inspection Arms” close order drill command.


View: https://youtu.be/TI3EIGgJ84o

It applies to all standard issue arms since then with the only exception being the Model 1917 because there is no magazine cutoff.

It allows the soldier/Marine to create/inspect an empty chamber when transferring possession of a long gun without the bolt hanging up on the magazine follower that catches the bolt after the last round is fired.

And yes, it was also thought to have been used to ‘conserve ammo’ in some situations, but I’m not 100% on when that would have EVER been a good idea.
 
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Same doctrine as the Brits. Cutoff used to make the rifle a single shot for long range fire to conserve ammunition with the rest of the rounds reserved in the magazine for when the enemy got closer. Also to unload the chamber while keeping the magazine loaded. (safety device essentially)
 
I know that the device on the '03 prevents the bolt from travelling rearward enough to pick up a round from the magazine. Essentially making you short stroke the bolt. It allows for single round feeding without engaging any rounds from the magazine well.
 
Same doctrine as the Brits. Cutoff used to make the rifle a single shot for long range fire to conserve ammunition with the rest of the rounds reserved in the magazine for when the enemy got closer. Also to unload the chamber while keeping the magazine loaded. (safety device essentially)

I think you hit the nail on the head here. I watched Hickok and he made the comment that it was because it would be optimal to have 5 rounds in the internal magazine and have loose ammo to chamber, fire long distance, and then be ready to charge with a full magazine. I have never heard that before, but I suppose it makes a bit of sense.

I could have sworn I either heard or read that it was doctrine at the time to order riflemen to engage the selector and the reason was to not 'fire rapid, inaccurate shots' I think that's where I might be wrong because I didn't figure in a full magazine.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdL_PROUKlE
 
I could have sworn I either heard or read that it was doctrine at the time to order riflemen to engage the selector and the reason was to not 'fire rapid, inaccurate shots' I think that's where I might be wrong because I didn't figure in a full magazine.
At long range, especially with volley sights, in the 1880s-90s each shot fired by an infantryman required a verbal command from an officer. "Fire at will" or "engage targets as they appear" wasn't a thing until an officer told you.
 
I think you hit the nail on the head here. I watched Hickok and he made the comment that it was because it would be optimal to have 5 rounds in the internal magazine and have loose ammo to chamber, fire long distance, and then be ready to charge with a full magazine. I have never heard that before, but I suppose it makes a bit of sense.

I could have sworn I either heard or read that it was doctrine at the time to order riflemen to engage the selector and the reason was to not 'fire rapid, inaccurate shots' I think that's where I might be wrong because I didn't figure in a full magazine.

In British service, it didn't quite work like that: inaccurate fire or ammo wastage were secondary concerns. Doctrinally, the idea was to keep an "ammo reserve" for when the enemy got close.

It was part of a larger body of training, involving volley sights and range estimation in an age when machine guns were poorly understood and/or in short supply. Imagine you're in a trench with the enemy charging toward you. They're 1200 meters away: even double-timing it, they'll still take around six minutes to arrive, loaded down with all their stuff. Your officers' and NCOs' job in that case was to know how to estimate the range, call it out, and order you to fire. Your job was to keep adjusting your volley sight before patiently responding to their orders. All of this was indirect fire.

There was plenty of time to load individual rounds. In fact, the drill was such that you'd probably know how many rounds you'd expect to have to load before the close fight began; you'd know that Sergeant Smith or Lieutenant Jones preferred to engage the enemy at 1000 yards or so, then hit them again every 150 yards until 550, then every 100 until 250, then directly from your magazines, "firing at will."

So you'd load your ten rounds in your SMLE, engage the mag cutoff, then take six or seven loose rounds and lay them on your sandbag or put them in your pocket. Then? You'd just open your ears, look at the blurred mass of Huns 1200 meters off, and wait patiently. When told to fire at will, you'd disengage the mag cutoff, flip the volley sights back down, move your sight picture to the actual sights, and let fly.
 
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In British service, it didn't quite work like that: inaccurate fire or ammo wastage were secondary concerns. Doctrinally, the idea was to keep an "ammo reserve" for when the enemy got close.

It was part of a larger body of training, involving volley sights and range estimation in an age when machine guns were poorly understood and/or in short supply. Imagine you're in a trench with the enemy charging toward you. They're 1200 meters away: even double-timing it, they'll still take around six minutes to arrive, loaded down with all their stuff. Your officers' and NCOs' job in that case was to know how to estimate the range, call it out, and order you to fire. Your job was to keep adjusting your volley sight before patiently responding to their orders. All of this was indirect fire.

There was plenty of time to load individual rounds. In fact, the drill was such that you'd probably know how many rounds you'd expect to have to load before the close fight began; you'd know that Sergeant Smith or Lieutenant Jones preferred to engage the enemy at 1000 yards or so, then hit them again every 150 yards until 550, then every 100 until 250, then directly from your magazines, "firing at will."

So you'd load your ten rounds in your SMLE, engage the mag cutoff, then take six or seven loose rounds and lay them on your sandbag or put them in your pocket. Then? You'd just open your ears, look at the blurred mass of Huns 1200 meters off, and wait patiently. When told to fire at will, you'd disengage the mag cutoff, flip the volley sights back down, move your sight picture to the actual sights, and let fly.

I might have heard this from particular US doctrine, sans San Juan Hill era, not British service. The rifle I have has provenance, and for the life of me I can't recall where I heard or read the bit about 'if you have 5 rounds you will panic fire or be less accurate, so switch the selector so you are more accurate' bit.

Excellent explanation, Picton.
 
I might have heard this from particular US doctrine, sans San Juan Hill era, not British service. The rifle I have has provenance, and for the life of me I can't recall where I heard or read the bit about 'if you have 5 rounds you will panic fire or be less accurate, so switch the selector so you are more accurate' bit.

Excellent explanation, Picton.

I apologize; I speak what I know, and I don't know US weapons very well. Do Krags have volley sights? I just don't know enough to comment, but I know volley fire was a major part of what modern infantry doctrine would call "machine gun range." I can only assume the Americans had the same concept? That's the only reason I've ever seen for having mag cutoffs.
 
The military always had the mind set that rapid fire wasted ammo,and ammo cost money.So the cut off was used to keep the troops from wasting ammo.
They were trained not to work off the magazine until the fighting started to get heavy.That mind set started to come back after Vietnam when some off
the troops in the heat of battle would load up a mag put the 16 in full auto,and spray & pray.Wasting a shit load of ammo, and very few kills.So thy went
to the three shot burst for a while.
 
I apologize; I speak what I know, and I don't know US weapons very well. Do Krags have volley sights? I just don't know enough to comment, but I know volley fire was a major part of what modern infantry doctrine would call "machine gun range." I can only assume the Americans had the same concept? That's the only reason I've ever seen for having mag cutoffs.
I have to admit I had to google volley sights. Very interesting. Basically the British would line up, say 10+ men in a line, and set their range to up to 2,000 yards and set the magazine cut off and hold (I think 10 rounds in the Enfield) for close combat use. Early in WW1, they would use this and the Germans would mistakenly think they were being attacked by hidden machine gun fire sighting them in. The Krag I have doesn't have volley sights like this, but does have what looks like an extreme long range foldable sight system. I found this picture of an Enfield

dialsights.JPG
 
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I have to admit I had to google volley sights. Very interesting. Basically the British would line up, say 10+ men in a line, and set their range to up to 2,000 yards and set the magazine cut off and hold (I think 10 rounds in the Enfield) for close combat use. Early in WW1, they would use this and the Germans would mistakenly think they were being attacked by hidden machine gun fire sighting them in. The Krag I have doesn't have volley sights like this, but does have what looks like an extreme long range foldable sight system. I found this picture of an Enfield

dialsights.JPG
Yes, and they’re impossible to use for precision fire. Area fire only. My Pattern 14 still had its volley sights intact, which is rare in itself, and when you use them there‘s literally no front post. It’s more of a bar, going crosswise.

Volley sights on both SMLEs and Pattern 14s were done away with early in the war, and later omitted entirely during production. You can still find rifles with the dial installed, but the front arm and rear peep have almost always been ground off.
 
Volley fire was replaced with long range machinegun fire (firing in an arc like artillery to rain on an area). It was effective against marching columns of troops and in colonial wars where people with melee weapons were moving long distances towards a static line. Once trench warfare, machineguns, and later fire and maneuver warfare with the mobile cover of armored vehicles became a thing, this tactic (dependent on line/column fighting at long range in the open) became obsolete.
 
I apologize; I speak what I know, and I don't know US weapons very well. Do Krags have volley sights? I just don't know enough to comment, but I know volley fire was a major part of what modern infantry doctrine would call "machine gun range." I can only assume the Americans had the same concept? That's the only reason I've ever seen for having mag cutoffs.

the sights on a Krag are calibrated out to 2000 yards, that's volley fire. Same with 03 sights that are like 2700 yards.
 
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