Looking for Opinions and or Options Krag 22 Steven

[Mark21]

Ok I have a Stevens Pope Krag. I finally got it into a gunsmith. Bad, bad and more bad news. The barrel is trash. He showed me the move of the bore scope and the bore and chamber are gone. So, based on my research a Stevens Pope Krag goes in the neighborhood of $2600 or so.

If I have the barrel sleeved with a new 22 caliber how much will the sleeving of the barrel take away from the value. I found a company that will do the sleeving for about $450. Or do I just put a nice 30-40 barrel on the action and go that route.

[Mark_Daiute]

I vote for the barrel sleeve or simply leaving it as it is, but I vote sleeve.

[Rcat7147]

Id reline it myself.
Its much less daunting than it sounds and about half the cost to DIY.

Check out a couple YouTube videos, I think youd agree.

[Whig]

If I was interested in buying (investing) in this uncommon rifle, I would probably pass it up at a higher price because I like rifles with a good bore. I would be more interested in it if it had a better bore, even if it had been relined well with a new bore. It might drop the collector's value some but it would raise its marketability with a re-lined bore.

Just my opinion. Good luck making the right choice. You are a temporary owner of this and improving it in the right way might be a good thing!

[Knute1]

If you have a strong desire to shoot it yourself, I'd reline it.

If you don't plan on shooting it much, but still keep it, I'd leave it alone.

If you plan on not keeping it for long, I'd leave it alone.

If you think I'm an expert, I'm not. :)

[butlersrangers]

Due to its rarity, I'd be inclined to leave it alone.

Have you fired it and with what results?

Some photos of your 'Pope Barreled Krag' would be enjoyed by many.

[butlersrangers]

Brophy gave interesting information on the Pope/Krag barrels and ammunition in his book, "The Krag Rifle", pages 204-206.

The barrels could fire .22 Long Rifle ammunition, but, gave optimal performance with a special production 'Peters' cartridge.

Boy, it would be fun if a quality barrel maker did a run of 30 inch .22 cal. Krag replacement barrels!

[Mark21]

I contacted John Taylor and awaiting his response to see if he can insert a liner. If any here knows of any other gunsmith that can insert a liner please let me know.

[FredC]

Curious on how it was done by Pope. On the muzzle end was the bore in the center?
If so is the bore in a straight line?
Boggles my little mind trying to figure out how I he did it. Right now I am leaning towards using a standard undrilled blank then doing the bore and rifling in a machine with an offset bushing.
If the barrel is not bent any GOOD gunsmith that regularly relines barrels could do it. Want someone with experience so as not to mess it up. If the bore is purposely "bent" I would think someone who specializes in Pope barrels is needed.

[butlersrangers]

The Pope barrels had the bore centered at the muzzle and off-set at the breech end. The bore is straight, not curved. The bore is simply not concentric with the exterior of barrel.

A fancy piece of machine work!

I believe the boring and rifling was done with everything concentric.

Then, the barrel blank's exterior was machined on a lathe with the bore-end centered and the breech-end held off-set. This resulted in a finished barrel with the bore slightly angling from the breech, but,appearing centered at the muzzle.

A number of German makers (Mauser, Walther, and others) and European makers produced such barrels for Sporting and Training .22 cal. rifles in the pre and post WW2 era.