Veteran at the Range - Part 2

On Monday I took the Krag-Jorgensen Model 1899 Carbine back out to the range.  This time I went to the full-distance rifle range to see what I could learn about how it shoots at a distance, zero the sights, and generally just have some fun with it.  I did learn some things, but the results weren't quite what I was hoping for.

In the week since I'd taken it out to shoot it for the first time, I had read up on the sighting system and how to adjust it.  It was pretty simple once I understood how it was designed to work.  This carbine has a simple blade front sight like all the Krags. The rear sight is the Model 1901, a change from the Model 1896 rear sight that was installed on about the first 10,000 carbines produced. The Model 1901 sight remained standard through the end of production in 1903.

The model 1901 sight has four different sighting apertures on it, and it was the relation between these that I hadn't understood.   The Army manual for the rifle and carbine explains the various parts of the several types of sights, including the apertures and their uses:

The cover of the final U.S. Army Ordnance manual for the Krag-Jorgensen.

The first of four pages covering the Model 1901 rear sight. The rifle and carbine sights were identical except for different range gradations on the carbine version (due to the shorter barrel and corresponding lower muzzle velocity).  

These are the pages with the detailed information about how the sights are calibrated and adjusted.  Keep in mind that this was written for the average soldier.  I think our education system has declined significantly in the last 100 years.   

Paraphrased:  "Oh, by the way, none of what we just told you is reliable.  Go figure it out for yourself."

Actually, that last caption is a bit unfair - the text actually reflects the reality of rifle sights - you have to zero them by actual firing due to the variation in all the parameters listed.  Because the gradations on the rifle sights of the time could not be adjusted, they just had to learn where it would really hit by trial and error in the field, and then remember it for various conditions.   When the M1 Garand was adopted in 1936, it was issued with a new type of rear sight on which the sight aperture could be adjusted relative to the numbers on the adjustment knobs. Once the rifle is zeroed in, the numbers actually do represent the settings for the different ranges in yards.   

In any case, I now knew how to read and adjust the rear sights on my carbine.

The rear sight on my carbine, with the leaf folded down for carrying and close-in or hasty shooting.  The leaf slide has a U-shaped notch aperture for sighting when it is in this position.  The peep aperture is also visible in this photo, but can only be used when the leaf is in the vertical position.

The rear sight with the leaf in the vertical position.  In this photo, the peep aperture (little round hole) is set to 400 yards, and the U-shaped aperture on the top is simultaneously set at 1,000 yards.  The very top of the leaf has the fourth aperture which corresponds to 2,300 yards.  Although the peep aperture has a 100 yard setting, I could not see through it at all, so I didn't use it.

The side of the sight showing the gradations from 100 to 500 yards.  At its lowest setting (slide all the way to the sight base) it is set to 100 yards.  Moving the slide forward raises it on the sloped base, setting it to the ranges marked on the side.   "B" is the Battle Sight Zero, the setting at which the bullet will hit somewhere on a man-size target at any range out to 500 yards.  Also visible are the "C" markings on the base and the leaf, meaning these are carbine sights. Carbine sights are much less common than rifle sights, and are one of the telltale signs of a genuine carbine versus a fake made from a cut-down rifle.  

Now I was ready to go to the range and shoot!  I took full-size Project Appleseed silhouette targets, which are based on the old pre-1975 U.S. Army targets that had been used for practice and competition for decades.   I planned to shoot at 100, 200, and 300 yards, taking notes to remember the actual point of impact relative to the sight settings.  I was pretty sure they would not be exactly as marked, because the commercial ammunition was loaded with a different bullet than the service round of the time.   I also planned to use my nifty new Garmin Xero C1 doppler radar chronograph to record the muzzle velocity of the ammunition, so that I would know how to duplicate the cartridge characteristics when I loaded my own ammunition later on. 

It was kind of a crummy day, rainy and cold, but I loaded up and headed for the range.  It has covered firing positions to keep you dry, and I know how to keep warm.  🙂  Once I got set up and ready, I fired a shot downrange at 100 yards, holding a good sight picture across the base of the target.  A look through the scope showed that there was no hole in the target!  There was a hole in the white plastic backing material right above the edge of my paper, but I was not 100% sure it had not been there before.  So I fired a second shot.  Sure enough, a second hole appeared next to the first one.   Crum!   The rifle was shooting high, and the sights were adjusted as low as they could possibly go.

I decided to experiment with "Kentucky windage" (perhaps I should call it "Kentucky elevation", lol).  First, I fired three shots with the rear sight base in the same position on the target, but lowering the barrel so that the front sight was just barely visible as a little hint of a bump at the bottom.   This produced OK results (I scored three 5's) but they were widely dispersed vertically - one was almost off at the top and another almost off at the bottom.  So that was not an optimal technique.

Next I decided to hold as close to perfect sight alignment as possible (front sight blade centered in the U-shaped notch, with the top of the blade the same height as the top of the rear sight), and then hold low on the target by the distance I needed to bring the point of impact down.  It was difficult for me to do this consistently, but I did the best I could, and fired five shots.   This was much more successful - one 4, two 5's, and two V's (center of the 5-ring).  The group was much better, so this would need to be my technique at 100 yards.

My 100-yard target.  The first two shots are visible just off the paper at the top.  The next three shots are 5's - one on the line at 1:00, one at 2:30, and one at the bottom at 6:30.  The next five were better, although I did pull one up and left into the 4 ring.

This was all well and good, but I haven't mentioned that even seeing the rear sight at all was a huge challenge for me.  I just can't bring the sights into clear focus, which is essential.  Ideally you focus on the front sight blade and the rear sight and target are a bit blurry, but for me *everything* was a complete blur.  The only way I could even come close to seeing the sights well enough to achieve proper alignment was to wear my pistol-shooting glasses, which allow my eyes to focus at arm's length.  The target was a complete blur, but I at least could align the sights.  Given all that, I was very happy with the above results.  I don't think it is possible for me to do better with this rifle.

I will also note that at this point I took the velocity readings off the chronograph.  My commercial ammunition (Remington 180 grain Cor-Lokt PSP) clocked an average velocity of 2187 fps, significantly faster than the specified service round velocity of 1920 fps (for the carbine).

The .30 Government was the Army's first smokeless powder round.  The French had invented smokeless powder in the 1870s, and it was a well-guarded secret.  Every other major country raced to develop their own formulas, as it provided a huge technical advantage.

Next, I set up to fire a shot at 200 yards, but left the sights set at 100 yards to see how much it would drop in that distance.  It took me a long time, because I just could *not* get any kind of sight picture.  The pistol glasses made the target all but disappear at 200 yards.  I finally fired a shot, and decided to go downrange and check it before firing any more.  (In good weather, my scope can pick up .30-caliber holes in the targets, but it was a cloudy, rainy day and also starting to get dark).  

The target was completely unscathed.   I felt a bit like John Cleese in the Month Python cheese shop sketch  ("Predictable really, I suppose.  It was an act of pure optimism to have fired the shot in the first place.")  😂   I knew right then that I had fired this rifle for the last time.   It is an interesting historic artifact that I am happy to have in my collection, and will enjoy learning more about and examining from time to time.  But it is hopeless for me to try to shoot it.   Perhaps I'll bring it out to some public shoot someday and let the kids take a shot as a learning experience.  But I'm afraid I'm done shooting it myself.  

During the process of preparing to write this range report, I ran across some additional interesting information.  So for anyone out there who reads this (and gets this far without closing the browser tab!), here are a few additional technical and historical tidbits.  

First, some additional information about how the mechanism of the rifle works.  The Krag is unique among U.S. military rifles in that it is a repeating rifle that can only be loaded with loose rounds - there are no clips or detachable magazines.  The photos and diagrams explain:

On the right side of the receiver is a hinged loading gate with a large flange on it for use in opening it.

To load the rifle, you drop up to five loose cartridges into the open magazine well.  It has a spring-loaded follower arm that pushes them into position when you close the gate. 

The cartridges are now visible, ready to be loaded into the chamber when the bolt is pushed forward.

This diagram from the Army manual shows how the cartridges are fed in and around to be in position for loading into the chamber by cycling the bolt.  It also refers to the operation of the magazine cutoff, which I explain below. 

The Krag-Jorgensen, like the Model 1903 that replaced it, has a "magazine cut-off", a lever that when activated prevents cartridges from being stripped out of the magazine by the action of the bolt and permits single loading while holding the cartridges in the magazine in reserve.  Senior officers of the U.S. Army had strongly resisted adopting a repeating rifle out of concern that soldiers would "waste ammunition" by firing too quickly.  Even after the repeating rifle had been adopted, Army combat doctrine still stated that soldiers would load and fire single shots, using the magazine only in an "emergency".   The realities of modern warfare finally overcame this doctrine sometime around WWI.

Here the bolt has pushed a cartridge partway into the chamber. In the photo above, a single cartridge is being loaded into the chamber, with the cutoff switch in the down position (magazine off).

The bolt is fully closed and the firing pin cocked.  The safety lever at the back of the bolt has been rotated from left (fire) to right (safe).  The magazine cutoff switch has been rotated from down (magazine "off") to up (magazine "on").  The rifle is now prepared to fire six shots as fast as the operator can flip off the safety and work the bolt.

The concerns about "wasting ammunition" and requiring soldiers to fire single-shot-only in combat seems very strange to modern sensibilities.  During the Indian Wars, soldiers armed with the single-shot Springfield Trapdoor would try to increase their rate of fire by carrying cartridges in horse feeding bags around their necks, and by placing cartridges in readiness between the fingers of their support-side hand for quick reloads when under fire. This video shows that technique at about 2:00:  Firing the Springfield Trapdoor

I have always attributed the reluctance to adopt repeating rifles as well as the insistence on a magazine cutoff to hidebound, obstinate, overly-conservative Army Ordnance bureaucracy, but I recently read something that put the issue in a different light.  As noted in the ammunition description from the manual, a case of 1,000 .30-40 Krag cartridges weighed 78 to 79 pounds.  The actual size of an Army Regiment at that time was around 400 soldiers, maybe a little more (they were severely undermanned).  The basic ammunition load to fill the cartridge belt was 100 rounds.  400 soldiers x 100 rounds = 40,000 rounds just to arm the regiment with a basic load (not to mention resupply of expended ammunition). Forty 1,000-round cases x 78 pounds = 3,128 lb. of ammunition.  

When the Krag-Jorgensen was first issued, almost the entire Regular Army was stationed on the frontier, west of the Mississippi River. Most frontier forts were far from any railroads, and required resupply by horse-drawn wagons over very bad roads.  These facts make it easier to understand why senior Army officers were concerned about ammunition consumption - they wanted to encourage careful, aimed rifle fire.

There were a few other interesting historical gems in the manual and in another of my reference books.    Because the bullet flies in a parabolic trajectory, at any given range it will either be rising, be at its maximum ordinate (highest point), or falling back down due to gravity.  The farther away the sights are set, the higher the parabolic arc, and the shorter the areas at each end of the arc where the bullet would strike a target (vs. going over their heads).

The following tables and charts show the so-called "dangerous areas" for cavalry and infantry with the rifle set for various ranges. The way these would be used at the longer ranges was that the officer or sergeant would call out the range (say, 1500 yards), and everyone would set their sights to that range.  They would then wait for the enemy to be in the "dangerous area", and commence "volley fire", simply putting a volume fire into that area.  As the advancing enemy came close, different sight settings would be called out.  Within 500 yards or so, the sights would be set to the Battle Sight setting "B", and they could expect to hit any target within that range.

500, 1000, 1500, and 2000-yard trajectories and dangerous spaces.  The data were also presented in tables giving yardages, and stated the assumption that the rifle was 56 inches off the ground, Infantry was 68 inches high, and cavalry was 8 feet high, and that shots were aimed at the middle of the target.

500-yard trajectories depicted at a different scale.

My other Krag-Jorgensen reference is "The Krag Rifle" by Lt. Col William Brophy.  It is a really excellent reference with hundreds of photographs and detailed information about variations.  It has some interesting photos of shooting positions recommended at the time.  I found it interesting that *none* of them uses a sling as a shooting aid.  That must have come in with the M1903 rifle and the M1907 sling.

This book is out of print now, but well worth finding for a Krag collector or aficionado.

Very interesting sitting position!

No use of the sling for support.  It's also interesting to note that in prone, the trigger-side knee is not bent to raise the hips and free the diaphragm the way teach now. My dad was taught to shoot like this, and I had a heck of a time getting him to change it for our rifle league matches in the 1980s and 1990s.

This has been fun, but now it's time to clean my "War College Carbine" and put it back up on the wall.  Next time I take a historic rifle to the range, it will be one on which I can see the sights!

Mood:  Happy

Music:  "Damn, Damn, Damn the Filipinos (Civilize 'Em with a Krag)"