Krag Collectors Association Forum

Regarding the Pope manufactured Krag Palma barrel...

Does anyone have one?

Has anyone ever seen one in person?
- If so how does the outer dimensions compare to a standard issue USGI barrel?

Has anyone ever shot a rifle barreled with one?

Any details are appreciated.

My interest stems from a desire to rebuild one of my Krags for use in Mid Range matches. I have a local barrel manufacturer that at one time was working on a project that replicated the Pope Palma barrel. He shelved it because he had other irons in the fire, and because he didn't have anyone to blue the barrels. It became a topic of conversation a few weeks ago at the state mid range match, and he said he thought he could get the bluing done locally and that he had the correct broach to rifle the barrels. With 50 plus year old eyes, there is an advantage to the sight radius on a Krag. There would also be a real satisfaction to turning back the clock to when the Krag ruled the range.

'oney' - Welcome to the KCA Forum. You pose an interesting question on the Pope .30-40 barrels, used at the 1903 Palma Match at Bisley.

I would suggest getting in contact with KCA Member - 'Catman'.
He has a stack of NRA - "Shooting & Fishing" magazines, from the 1903 era.

Amazingly, the magazines were addressed to H.M. Pope, and Harry apparently made copious margin notes regarding the 1903 controversy and his barrels.

Worth a try, communicating with 'Catman', who is quite knowledgeable.

Welcome to the KCA Oney.

The 2004 issue of Gun Digest had an article mostly dealing with the controversy of the 1903 competition at Palma. I am not sure if I ever read the complete article. But it does have an explanation from Mr. Pope on what was different about those barrels. If one ever sees a Pope Palma barrel, it will be easy to verify. 8 grooves instead of 4, shallower grooves .00275 instead of .004 deep, as well as 1:8 twist instead of 1:10. A year before there were 2 specials, one with 2 grooves and one with 4 grooves. Both of these had 1:8 twist.

I had read an article about a young man that had apprenticed with a famous barrel maker, maybe Pope or another one. After a year or 2 the young man asked "What was the secret to his barrels?" The old master told him you learned it all, just take care to do everything right.
When I glanced at the 1903 Palma article, I did not catch the fact that Pope had made the barrels non standard, I thought they were just carefully made.

Target shooters being who they are may have shot the Palma Krags till those barrels were worn out and discarded, or not. It would be interesting to know if they were marked in a special way. Maybe they were stamped just like regular Krags so the competitors did not know they were special?

That article had a comment from Pope about worn rifling cutters. The rifling with cutters near the end of their lives will have noticeable rounding in the corners of the grooves. Pope commented that those barrels were easier to clean and had less fouling in use. And we all thought the star gauged barrels that were thoroughly inspected after new cutters were installed in the rifling machine were best. Who knew?

IIRC, cartridges specially loaded for the Palma match had higher velocity and higher chamber pressures than normal. The 8" twist implies a heavier bullet. Do you really want to shoot such loads in your Krag?

I forgot the previous discussion of Palma 1903.
This link has photos of the Pope barrels. The fact that they were Pope barrels was not hidden.

http://kragcollectorsassociation.com/vi ... 508#p46508

Looking back over Oney's original post he may be trying to get more info to have his friend's barrels finished. Does not mean he will be hot rodding his loads especially if he will be shooting mid range.

If his friend making barrels finishes some maybe some of the KCA friends doing target shooting might be interested in a copy?

The NRA - National Firearms Museum in Fairfax, Va., has a .30 caliber model 1898 Krag rifle (serial number 236122) with a Stevens-Pope barrel.
This rifle resides in display case #24, which houses an array of competition arms.
(The museum collection number, for this Pope-Krag, may be #21841).

The museum speculates this rifle may have been used in the Palma match of 1903 at Bisley, when the U.S. Team victory was disqualified.
(The Museum's rifle description card may incorrectly give the Bisley match date as 1907).

This rifle bears New Jersey State markings. The stock also is stamped with the name "J. Caswell".
It is attributed to Colonel John Caswell, a noted Massachusetts militia officer, international hunter, competitor, and NRA participant & benefactor.

Possibly the o.p. could get further details and specifications of this Pope barrel from the NRA museum?

Added Bonus - Colonel John Caswell's model 1905 Colt:

Colonel John Caswell wrote a book in 1920, "Sporting Rifles and Rifle Shooting". Original and reprint copies can be purchased online.
Caswell must have been quite a Pope fan and the book has content written by H. Pope.
I purchased a 'used' reprint on eBay, today, for a reasonable price.

Some online pages from the Library of Congress:

More Caswell pages: