Krag Collectors Association Forum

Found in the archive vault. Sorry about the poor picture quality. You want to guess?

(Answer will be revealed in a couple of days):

I believe that is a Mauser reciever,
Just a shot in the dark but maybe a Mauser self loading conversion?

'Zac' - You have the 'Mauser Part' right.
"Everything works better with some Model 1893 Spanish Mauser parts"

Hmmm. A modified Mauser. Remember many years ago there was one photo of a Krag modified to work as a pump or lever action. Maybe the Mauser has a similar home shop modification or was this something that was produced as a finished Mauser for a while?



Of all the highly modified Krags I have seen the pistols were the best looking so far.

Well, I thought of another possibility for the Mauser, perhaps an attempt to convert it to straight pull. No clue who would have done that if this is right.

You are correct Fred. It is a 7mm cal. model 93 Mauser, likely Spanish American War capture rifle.
It has been altered to use a diagonal forward & back motion of the bolt-handle to rotate the bolt and feed live cartridges and eject fired cases.

It appears a bronze 'saddle' with three notches has been attached to the receiver bridge, with screws.
The straight Mauser bolt-handle has been replaced with a 'pivoting' handle that has three lobes.
The 'lobes' engage the saddle's three notches.
I imagine, if a slight diagonal hand-motion is used, the lobes and notches interact like gear-teeth and impart a rotary motion to the Mauser-bolt.

This peculiar rifle is in the Springfield Armory Museum, catalog number SPAR 4361.
The conversion mechanism is attributed to Colonel Andrew H. Russell of the Ordnance Department.
The conversion must date from after 1898.

(I recently have posted material about this officer, because of his playing a role in the Ordnance Department displays at expositions held in 1888 and in 1893. He also, unsuccessfully, sued the U.S. Government in 1901 and Winchester Firearms Co. in 1895 for alleged patent infringements by the Krag-Jorgensen and Winchester-Lee 'straight-pull' rifles).

Andrew H. Russell had at least four U.S. patents, (No. 230,823 / No. 295,285 / No. 295,286 / and No. 501,367), for improvements in magazine guns. He teamed-up with brother officer, William Livermore to submit rifles for Ordnance Tests by Boards in 1882 and 1892.

Wild guess.

That William Livermore is he connected/related to the Lawrance Livermore Labs we hear about sometimes?

That is really interesting, I actually have been quite interested in straight pulls as of late and had no idea of conversions involving the mauser action.

FredC - I don't think there is a 'Livermore Relationship' between 'Billy' and 'Larry'.
(Actually the laboratory is in Livermore, California, and one of the founders was a Mr. Lawrence. The town of Livermore and the Livermore Valley were named after an English sailor, turned early California Rancher, named "Don Roberto" Livermore. I don't think there was a person named 'Lawrence Livermore', involved)?

William Roscoe Livermore was from an established Massachusetts family. He started at Harvard, but, during the Civil War entered West Point and graduated 6th in the 1865 West Point Class. He had a long distinguished Army service career as an engineer and appears to have been very talented with multiple interests and authored many publications.

Fred, if possible, could you check to see if there are any past articles in "American Machinist" related to Andrew Howland Russell or William Roscoe Livermore?

'Zac952' - Here is the Springfield Armory page on this odd Mauser conversion/proto-type.
I ran across it last week, on the internet, when I was looking for something else.
It sure deserves better pictures.

FWIW - It looks to me that Captain Andrew H. Russell turned a good rifle into a bad one!