I would be keen to know the rifling rate of twist in this rifle. Noodling around on the Krag collector's forum turns up some controversy over the ROT in the Stevens-Pope barreled Krags. One guy claims a 1-28 twist and obviously gets much better accuracy with .22 shorts. I have no clue what the bullet weight is for the Armory cartridges. Since at the time serious indoor target shooters favored the .22 short cartridge over the long rifle, perhaps Stevens made a few so chambered? .22 long rifle ammo didn't hit its stride until the immediate post-WWI period. Word amongst some is that the bores varied in diameter also, with some being .226-.227 (sound familiar?), and that cartridges weren't crimped making extraction of unfired rounds dicey.
Rick- how about cutting that box open so we can see if the cartridges were crimped or not and what the bullet diameter is. Kidding!!
Evidently these guns were made at the behest of National Guard units of several states and wasn't an idea cooked up by Army Ordnance. The chief of Ordnance at the time (1904-1908 time period) balked at the idea of them and ordered all extant rifles to be re-barreled back to the .30-40 cartridge. No one knows the extent to which that order was obeyed. Plus, the barrels could be purchased from Stevens privately so some were undoubtedly converted to .22 by private individuals.
It is said that the dovetail front sight slot was done that way to accommodate a "target" front sight. (Arsenal barrels have a shallow mortise into which the issue front sight base is soldered.) Again, who knows for sure. If intended for a target front sight (I'm assuming globe sight, but maybe they considered the Beech front sight to be a target sight too) then why no provision for a target rear sight? The M1901 rear sight, while being probably the best of the issue Krag sights, would be a poor choice to mate with a "target" front sight.
Pretty murky territory, but fascinating nonetheless. I'm glad it's Gene who has the rifle- he is best equipped to suss out the details of it IMO!!
