They are a truly beautiful rifle,I like the side loading magazine but that was the rifles downfall.During the spanish American war the cubans had mauser rifles which were reloaded almost instantly with stripper clips our guys had to hand load each cartridge into the magazine but even with their superior German rifle we still kicked those spics asses.  After that war we adopted the 1903 springfield which is only a variant of the 98 mauser we faced on san juan hill.  The Krag is a Norwegian design that was adopted by 6 nations,as for pricing find one that has been sporterized and expect to pay $250-300.