The Krag-Jorgensen Model 1912 carbine featured an elegantly curved pistol-grip stock and SMLE-like muzzle band.

Since the introduction of the first bolt-action rifle in the days after the American Civil War and continuing to the present day, one design in particular has been universally acknowledged as being the smoothest operating of them all: the Krag-Jorgensen. Among knowledgeable riflemen, the highest praise one can bestow upon a bolt-action repeater is that, "It's almost as smooth as a Krag!"

The Krag-Jorgensen rifle was developed in the late 1880s by Ole H. Krag, the director of the Norwegian state arsenal in Kongsberg, and Erik Jorgensen, the arsenal's chief designer. The pair had begun work on a bolt-action, repeating rifle in the mid-1800s, and when the French announced the adoption of the Fusil d'Infanterie Mle. 1886, the first smallbore smokeless-powder rifle, their efforts went into high gear.

Because French secrecy kept the formula for smokeless powder from other countries, Krag and Jorgensen's early designs used an 8mm cartridge with a fully jacketed bullet backed by a 70-grain charge of compressed blackpowder. As finalized in 1888, the design's most distinctive feature was a machined, case-like receiver that was located horizontally beneath the bolt. It contained a magazine that was loaded by means of a hinged gate. One swung the gate open towards the muzzle, which compressed the magazine follower and spring, and then manually loaded rounds into the magazine. The cover was closed, which released the follower to force the cartridges sideways up a ramp into the action from the lower left-hand side. As on most early military repeating rifles, a magazine cutoff, operated by a pivoting lever on the left rear of the receiver, was fitted to permit the rifle to be used as a single-loader with the magazine's contents held in reserve.

The Krag's bolt was a one-piece unit with an extractor that ran along its top. A single, front lug locked into a matching mortise in the front of the receiver, and when the bolt was drawn all the way to the rear, the lug also served as the boltstop. To provide additional locking, the bolt handle turned down into a notch at the rear of the receiver, and the bolt's guide rib bore on the front of the receiver bridge. The Krag's bolt and magazine system allowed cartridges to be chambered smoothly and permitted very rapid manipulation of the bolt.

As the Norwegian army had recently adopted a tubular-magazine, repeating rifle--the Model 1884 Jarmann--the kroner-pinching bureaucrats in Oslo displayed little enthusiasm for this new development. So the Krag was entered in trials being held by a number of armies, and in 1889, the Danish army adopted the rifle as the Gevaer m/89. A Danish-pattern Krag was entered in the 1892 U.S. Army trials, but it was rejected.

Krag and Jorgensen redesigned their rifle to meet the American prerequisites. It was chambered for a .30-caliber smokeless cartridge; it had a Mauser-type wing safety; and it featured a new loading-gate cover that opened out to the right side to make reloading faster and fumble-free. Suitably impressed, the U.S. Army adopted the improved rifle in 1893 as the U.S. Magazine Rifle, .30 Caliber, Model 1892.

In 1892, the Norwegian army began trials to find a replacement for the Jarmann rifle. After extensive field trials, the Krag-Jorgensen rifle was officially adopted as the Krag-Jorgensengevaer M/1894.