Posted on 04/27/2018 8:40:01 AM PDT by Simon Green
A vintage military rifle carried by a trooper who rode with Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders in 1898 has surfaced.
The Krag up at auction Friday at Skinner is a carbine model meant for horse-mounted cavalry use, and as such has a saddle ring mounted to the rifle — one of the last U.S.-made martial rifles to have such a feature. This particular gun was carried by Trooper Alvin C. Ash who served in the famous but short-lived 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry regiment.
Recruited by a former New York City Police Superintendent and Assistant Secretary of the Navy by the name of Theodore Roosevelt to fight the Spanish Empire over Cuba in 1898, the unit was known as the “Rough Riders” due to its heavy recruitment from adventurers, cowboys, and other like-minded outdoorsmen. Although they didn’t get to take their horses to Cuba due to lack of transport, they did fight their way up San Juan Heights on foot along with the similarly dismounted regulars of the 3rd and 10th U.S. Cavalry regiments and earned a place in the history books.
Ash, of Raton, New Mexico, was noted as Roosevelt as wounded in action in his book on the unit and mentioned as “his favorite horseman.”
I am nowhere near the big time gun historian, but that’s a very interesting piece. I think I read that Krags were fine rifles.
My family has the one my dad used to deer hunt with. It is an interesting rifle to shoot.
Conditions ranged from good to fair for most of the 13. Bores on all of them was good. Finish 0-10%. Cartouches faded but readable in most cases.
I had two of them, years ago.
They were indeed fine bolt actions. Should have kept them.
Look on gunbroker.com for Krag rifles converted to sporting use. Not that expensive.
That's because they aren't Krags anymore.....just like sporterized Arisaka and K98s....
They lose 90% of value once you start adding hillbilly sights on them.
My grandfather went to Cuba with Roosevelt and his outfit did go up San Juan Hill with the Rough Riders, but he was not a Rough Rider. He was with Roosevelt’s Marine Corp Band.
Love the picture of TR and his Rough Riders; very tough looking men.
And the purpose of the ring is precisely what?
I have one, guess I’ll have to take a look at it and see if its an important one. its in very good condition. Years ago I had one and hunted with it, shot some deer with it. They are a fine rifle.
I think with that ring you didn’t need a scabbard you could just hook it into a hook on the saddle.
It wasn’t that way when most of those rifles were made. When i was a kid in the 50s you could go into the ArmyNavy store and there were barrels of Mausers and Enfields to be had for $5. You could get a gunsmith to “sporterize” it for cheap. Now those sporterized rifles are worth less than the originals.
IMO that feature shouldn’t make it worth thousands of dollars more than the generic model. I’m obviously not a collector.
Interesting
Those sporterized rifles put many hunters in the field who could not afford a Winchester or Remington, especially after WWII when milsurps were dirt cheap. Some like the K98 converted better than others.
Speaking of hillbilly, I own a Swiss Vetterli M1878 then read about the battle of Blair Mountain in 1921 where many Vetterlis were carried by striking miners because Bannerman’s sold them for one fourth the price of a Winchester 1873.
The problem with Krag carbines is that many are long rifles cut down to increase collector value.
I believe the provenance is what bumps up the value. I would be shocked if it actually sells for over $15,000. Unless there are two or three people in this world that are willing to pay tens of thousands for that provenance. Who knows, the author may have knowledge that there are, in fact, several wealthy people who want it.
Nazi-marked Mauser Lugers go for more than Erfurt-made ones. Provenance is everything to a lot of collectors.
A cousin of mine has one and allowed me to put a few rounds through it several years ago. Quite a kick! A lot more than a M-14.
Yeah, I know. I got interested in P-08s for a while and got several. The Erfurt stamp is beautiful but much more rare than the Mauser, IIRC there were something like a million P08s made from all sources. About 3/4 were Mauser and only some 30,000 by Erfurt. Off the top of my head. Of course the Nazi marked are much more rare and Erfurt had quit making them long before the war so all Nazi marked are Mausers.
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