1895 SRC

[butlersrangers]

Those National Match Medals and photos are awesome. That Rifle brass muzzle cap/front sight protector must have been stretched (reformed) to fit. The rear 'peep' sight is a 'no-drill' Pacific and fortunately caused no permanent alteration to the carbine. You should obtain a correct cut-off just to have one. A picture of the muzzle with the cover off, would be nice to see. (photo of Pacific sights attached).

[butlersrangers]

Florida Native: Welcome to the KCA and thanks for sharing some wonderful things. What was your Grandfather's name? I've cropped a detail from one of your pictures. Is he the one on the right with the shooting medal? (I would guess the picture is 1902-07).

[butlersrangers]

Seagirt, New Jersey, early 1900s.

[Florida Native]

You are correct he's the one on the right in that photo. His name is Fred G. Yerkes. I have relatively strong circumstantial evidence he may have been involved in running guns to Cuba. I was going through a box of old photos while my father was still living and discovered an albumen of the Commodore tied up at what appeared to be docks in Jacksonville. I found three more photos which turned out to be the Dauntless, the Three Friends and one of William Randolph Heart's steam yacht Vamoose. My family was in the hardware distributing business and owned large warehouses built over the St. Johns River. To thicken the plot my great grandfather was the founding partner of Yerkes & Plumb which later after he sold his portion became Fayette Plumb company. Plumb axes and hammers are still made. My great grandfather Jonathan Yerkes was a member of the same Masonic lodge in Pennsylvania where the plots to run guns to Cuba were hatched. Henry Disston another hardware manufacturer was also a member of the same lodge. Both retired and moved to Florida. Henry Disston was a known supporter of Filibustering the term used for running guns to Cuba. Who knows?

I"m posting additional photos of my grandfather's Medals and will post a few more photos of the Krag later today. BTW the muzzle cap does not appear to have been stretched or if it was there are no stress marks on the metal.

[Florida Native]

More Medals.

[Florida Native]

That should be all of them.

[Florida Native]

Photos of the sights, muzzle and cap and figuring in stock.

[butlersrangers]

'Florida Native': Usually when I see a Krag stock with 'tiger stripe', it proves to be Italian Walnut. The U.S. did buy some Italian blanks in 1899-1900, due to a shortage of seasoned stock wood. This is not the case with your carbine. The 1897 'cartouche' predates the U.S. purchase of Italian stocks. I think the unusual 'tiger striped' American Walnut stock may explain the apparent mismatch of an 1895 dated receiver and 1897 dated stock. "Somebody liked an attractive & unusual stock and put it on their carbine". (My hunch).
I see nothing altered with your carbine's muzzle. It does appear someone substituted a much higher than usual front sight blade.
Dick Hosmer is quite right in pointing out that the brass muzzle cap is a Rifle item and will not fit on a correct Carbine. If it is Springfield made, someone skillfully altered it to fit. I measured the muzzle of a Krag Carbine today and it averaged .645". I measured two Krag Rifle muzzles and they averaged .615 to .617". I measured the inside diameter of one of my Rifle muzzle caps and it averaged .623". Thanks for the additional pictures and fascinating history on your ancestors!