.22 Krag Barrel Data and Targets

[Cat Man]

While Dick Hosmer is getting his .22 Krag running in another post and Waterman asked about Krag .22 barrel specs I thought I would do a little research.
I'm very fortunate to have three different .22 Krags in our collection. And today was inspection and range test day.
They include an 1898 Gallery Practice rifle, an 1896 with a Stevens Pope Barrel and a Norwegian Boys .22 training carbine.
It only took about 40 years to acquire them and each rifle has quite a story, but that's another post.
Measured the barrel twist, slugged the bores and confirmed the twist and number of grooves. Then fired a few target groups at 25 and 50 yards.
I'll post the targets and notes here and will answer questions as you guys pick at the notes. Overwise this will be a very long post.

Jeff the Caterpillar man

[waterman]

The GPR I tried out some years ago had a .226" groove diameter, 18" twist, and was chambered for .22 Extra Long. I read someplace that the first 50 made had barrels like that. The rest had .223" (+/-) groove diameters. The one I tried would have been able to hit the target paper with 6 or 7 out of 10 shots at 50 yards. You apparently have one of the later ones.

Was the GPR bolt "Krag smooth"? The early one I tried certainly was not. I thought the "trip pin" messed up the smooth bolt function.

[butlersrangers]

IMO - The drag and side-pressure, that the 'trip pin' places on the Krag extractor, defeats the normal smoothness of the U.S. Krag action.