Krag-Petersson
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.
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" (12.17 mm / 0.48") 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.
Operation
The Krag-Petersson repeating rifle has a falling block action actuated by the operation of the exterior hammer, as opposed to Krag's earlier designs, which used a side mounted lever to operate the breachblock. The tubular magazine, containing a total of 10 rounds, was placed under the barrel. Once the mechanism was open, an extractor ejected the spent cartridge. A fresh round was pushed into a shaped recess on top of the falling block, whereupon the falling block rose slightly. The round could now be pushed into the chamber by the shooter, and the breachblock rise completely by This rising of the breachblock (by means of a powerful spring) could catch the shooter offguard, 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. Accurancy was also claimed to be very good with the Krag-Petersson, although no statistical proof has been found.
Use
Despite the claimed accuracy, 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for either the Norwegian or Swedish army, since the ammunition it was designed around could rightly be considered outdated by the mid 1870's. The Royal Norwegian Navy on the other hand, still using old M1860 'Kammerlader' ('chamber-loader') modified to fire the 12.17 mm rimfire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.
