OK, I give up...........

[5MadFarmers]

The Remington may have received more preferences, but, it wasn't ever built in quantity for the US, so did not garner the income/local glory expected. "US Model 1870" was bestowed upon the TD, whether it "won" or not. The deck was always stacked in favor of (pick the) TD entry, because of the musket part availability/interchangability

Horse hockey on a number of counts.

Dick, I'm going to start off by stating that I have tremendous respect for you and your efforts in the field. When faced with uncomfortable truths people typically go two routes - fingers in ears with "I'm not listening" or grudging acceptance. "Grudging" as it takes time to "un-accept" previous accepted truths. You've never been an ear plugger. We're all hard headed so the grudging is pretty universal for group two and I'll include myself.

It's a fabrication of data to support a position - a position that Poyer clearly takes. He's attempting to make the case that the O.D. wasn't playing funny games in favor of the trapdoor and he states that pretty clearly. We know that to not be the case but his books were written from that view. He then poisons the well by claiming that "serious researchers" are on that side. Poyer and "serious researcher" shouldn't be included in the same sentence. Poyer and "researcher" shouldn't be included in the same sentence. Altering data to support a case is the height of research fraud. There is no reason to reorder the guns and every reason not to. Especially given the context. Misappropriation of funds is a crime. Not as bad as outright theft of governement funds (check the G.O. about 2 before the one announcing Dyer's death for the ending of that strange saga) but not insignificant. When asked by who's authority those trapdoors were made Dyer was pinned to the wall. Congress let him off. Why? Congress can't enforce laws - that's the other branches.

The Remington didn't "win" as it wasn't a "contest." It was a legal mandate. Congress allocated that money and only the gun the board selected could be made. Dyer made trapdoors anyway. Congress then further tightened the text, and a huge irony was created, but the point is that the list isn't just "the" order - the gun in the top spot is the only one which could be made with the arms allocation for that year. So reordering the guns isn't a small mistake - especially given he didn't re-order the other four. That's not a low grade mistake. That's big. Especially given the context.

The deck was always stacked in favor of (pick the) TD entry, because of the musket part availability/interchangability

That's bunk too. I have the parts price list and I'm sure you do to. Take the trapdoor (.45/70) and add up the cost of the parts unique to it. Then total up the potential musket bits. That's always been nonsense - the trapdoor isn't an altered musket. There is no interchangeability with the muskets. The muskets were already sold (illegally) to the French and Germans in any event. It had nothing to do with saving muskets. It had everything to do with not paying for patents.

The order in that list matters at a level that only serious research really points out. It shouldn't have been reordered under normal circumstances but, given the congressional text, there is a bigger reason ordering it was not right.

Poyer doesn't have any understanding of the O.D. or the state of affairs of the time. Zero. I know this as I've done my research. I do understand it forwards and backwards.

Notice Poyer's "selected for field testing?" Notice Schofield's text in red? Schofield knew the game. Poyer isn't even aware of it. Shoddy. No research.

His forensics are no better than his research. His types are bunk for reasons he's not even aware of.

[5MadFarmers]

Dick, I'm on a roll. I'll hammer on another bit one more time. Research and why it's important. It's my observation that the O.D. reports are easy to find and therein lies a big problem. 100 years of "knowledge" is built on that. It's a house of cards. Let's take the Spencers as they're germain to that period. For the longest time "the Spencers were worn out" was bandied about as the reason for dropping them from service and using Sharps. Our mutual cavalry friend fell into that hole. Let's apply logic first and then research.

How many, total, trapdoors were made from say 1873 to 1890? About half a million? What percentage were carbines? Let's be generous and say 1/5th. 20 years with 100,000 guns. Now lets take those Spencers. Total made: 90,000. The next bit is the key. When were they made? The bulk were made in 1864 and 1865. Most, and I do mean the great majority, were made after the unpleasantness of 1861-1865 ended. I have the delivery receipts...

So 90,000 carbine were worn out from 1865 to 1870 yet 100,000 (less) trapdoor carbines lasted 20 years? Sound fishy? Was the Spencer that bad? I have a trapdoor carbine. I know what the weakness is. I also have a Spencer and know what the weak points are. Those Spencer's could not have been worn out. Now let's go to that Franco-Prussian War sell off. What do we find? Tens of thousands of Spencers sold new in the crate. Then Dyer claims the Spencers were "worn out." No they weren't - he sold them. Why? Because Spencer (the company) and then Winchester owned the patent. The Spencer company, not SA, supplied the parts. Dyer wasn't willing to pay the royalty to have them made at SA.

Instead he wanted Sharps. Why? "They must be superior." Bunkus. Patents were good for 17 years. Check the Sharps patents (we both know I indexed them right?) and do the math.

Dyer was death on patents. They picked their victim (a certain gentleman who threw his lot in with the South) and played fast and loose on his patent. Didn't stop them from getting sued, successfully, on others but it did get them past the initial one....

You're aware that the trapdoor was going to get rammed in by Dyer if he could. If he had to break laws he was ok with that and did so, repeatedly. That they favored the trapdoor to reuse musket parts is horse hockey. I'll undo that from another angle:

Board #1. Gun selected? Peabody. Claimed reason to not follow that? "We have too many muskets on hand. We should use them instead."
Board #2. Gun selected? Berdan. An altered musket. Reason to not use that? Patent fees.
Board #3. Gun selected? Remington R.B.. Claiming that the desire to use muskets at this point is bogus as board #2 already wore that one out...

Let's not claim I didn't do my research. I did. In great detail. On the research front Poyer is a fail. That's a given. Reordering the gun order is wrong in ways he didn't even begin to understand. Claiming it was a fair trial simply tells us he didn't do any research at all.

Then we get to types. That is, frankly, even more bogus than his research. The forensics paint a picture greatly at odds with types. The '03 groups sees it in that area. It's even more so in the Krag arena.

Types. Really?

[jon_norstog]

Thanks, 5MF.

jn

[Dick Hosmer]

Joe, with all due credit to your truly excellent and most persuasive arguments - how, when writing a simple "carry-in-your-pocket guidebook" to avoid getting screwed at gun shows, do you not resort to something like "types"?

The problem, as I now see it, is in depending too heavily on sequence and absoluteness, but you do have to have some way to succinctly describe the variances.

I also think that to some degree, we are letting the tail wag the dog a bit. While some really weird assembly may be technically "correct", it shouldn't be taken as the norm (read 1879 sights on 1888RRBs) for the model. In this same connection, you can go on all you want about the legitimacy of 1899 Carbines with sling swivels, but I will still take mine without, thank you very much.

And, I still say, that for all his faults, Poyer does NOT say that the arms finished in the order he gave, at least not in that paragraph.

[Rick the Librarian]

I hope I'm not getting off the original off-topic discussion (remember, this started out as a discussion on an early Krag upper band, way back when? ), but I think Dick makes a good point. There are only three major works out there on the Krag -- two of them (Brophy and Mallory) are out of print and extremely expensive in used editions. That leaves Poyer (and it makes me grind my teeth to say this!). For someone new to the Krag, only Poyer's book is available. It has long been my contention that one or more of you gentlemen should write a "Krag primer". I'd be willing to bet you could almost do it off the top of your head.

Yes, I realize if you are going to spend several hundred dollars (at the least) on a military Krag, you should be willing to pick up a decent book (Mallory?) or spend a lot of time asking questions on this or other Krag forums, but the guy on the street that is married with a couple of kids may not be able to do that. What is needed, I believe, is an "introduction". Not all the "one off" types but just the "major" Krags one is liable to run into at the gunshow and/or gunshop. I know what scared me off for a few years was all the rear sight and handguard variations.

Yes, I wish there was also a "primer" on the M1903 - you have much the same situation - no good "starter" book.

My .02.

[5MadFarmers]

Dick, that was research fraud to support a point. The numbers are the determinate. Consider the following:

"Amongst the guns selected were: the Remington, the Ward-Burton, and the Sharps."
and
The guns which finished the trial were:
1) The Remington
2) The Ward-Burton
3) The Sharps.

In the original report the numbers were ranking. To retain them means you retain the ranking. If you don't want to do that you use commas and lose the numbers. Which also doesn't cover the point that he only reordered the top two and he did it while attempting to make the point that there wasn't O.D. funnyness in favor of the Springfield. He did it and did it for a reason. Otherwise he wouldn't have reordered them at all. That's the key. There is no reason to reorder them, unless one is playing funny to support a point, and every reason not too.

[Dick Hosmer]

I think you are allowing your prejudices (to which you are entitled, and with which I frequently agree) to color your judgment on this one little item. Maybe he intentionally juggled the list but maybe he didn't.

A far more egregious mistake, IMHO, is the attribution of "Model 1870" to the Allin guns, prior to the test. The Allin trials arms, 1000 rifles and 340 carbines, while clearly of "Model 1870" configuration do not bear the word "Model", and the sights are located differently. While very similar, they are not the "same" guns as the production version (carbine was not adopted).

[5MadFarmers]

I think you are allowing your prejudices

Prejudice? I think you're after the second definition thereof:

2
a (1) : preconceived judgement or opinion (2) : an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge

No Dick, I had to go through it before I discovered the fraud. In fact it hit me in stages. At first I was willing to chalk most of it up as just sloppy. Then that reordering hit me. That's when I moved from sloppy to dodgy. So not prejudice. More disgust.

Maybe he intentionally juggled the list but maybe he didn't.

Maybe Bellesiles was sloppy in "Arming America" and maybe he was dodgy.

A far more egregious mistake, IMHO, is the attribution of "Model 1870" to the Allin guns, prior to the test. The Allin trials arms, 1000 rifles and 340 carbines, while clearly of "Model 1870" configuration do not bear the word "Model", and the sights are located differently. While very similar, they are not the "same" guns as the production version (carbine was not adopted).

That's sloppy rather than dodgy.

[5MadFarmers]

Joe, with all due credit to your truly excellent and most persuasive arguments - how, when writing a simple "carry-in-your-pocket guidebook" to avoid getting screwed at gun shows, do you not resort to something like "types"?

There are only three major works out there on the Krag -- two of them (Brophy and Mallory) are out of print and extremely expensive in used editions. That leaves Poyer (and it makes me grind my teeth to say this!). For someone new to the Krag, only Poyer's book is available.

Really the same theme. First, with all due respect to Brophy and Mallory, and I do really respect them, their books suffer from a massive case of bunkus too. Sad to say that but true. For reasons you're just not getting.

A pocket book for buyers cannot be written easily. To really appreciate it you'd need about 500 pages of information before reading the pocket book. The pocket book would contain one sentence:
"None of them are original. Don't delude yourself."

Before you get into a tither over that as there are some original guns let's be honest: less than 5% of the guns thought to be original are. Thus in 95% of the cases that statement stands whereas it's inaccurate in 5%. I'm being generous as it's more likely less than 1%.

A pocket book intended to help a novice buy a Krag is no different from a book of strategies on how to leverage $1,000,000 into $5,000,000 at the Vegas tables. The entire premise is false.

It goes so much deeper but that's the 500 pages. Most of the guns most "gun experts" consider to be original aren't and that's what's missed. I'm not going to detail it. I'm just going to say that the current collector crowd just isn't getting it. They're not original. Say this to yourself: "most of the guns I think are original aren't" and you'll get it. Only if you start to understand that's accurate.

Yes, eventually I'll push the book out. I'll take the 500 pages to explain that from all angles so it's unmistakeably driven home. People just aren't getting it. I can pretty well prove that. It's inescapable. Duff and Canfield recently gave us an example that they don't get it. For whatever reason nobody is getting it. So I'll explain it but it's a lot of work. A lot of vectors need to be covered.

Brophy didn't get it.
Mallory didn't get it.
Poyer didn't even try.

[Mark Daiute]

I'm going to the basement, where it's safe and load some ammo.

OK! Less than 5% of the Krags are "Original" but there exists the 5MF "collector's gradient".

Given that fact, establish the gradient and then give us a cheat sheet by which we can evaluate Krag specimens in the wild, please and thank you.

[Rick the Librarian]

OK! Less than 5% of the Krags are "Original" but there exists the 5MF "collector's gradient".

Given that fact, establish the gradient and then give us a cheat sheet by which we can evaluate Krag specimens in the wild, please and thank you.

Just what I was saying.

I realize neither Brophy or Mallory was totally correct, either. I liked Brophy's pictures and I thought Mallory had more to say. But, in the end, what do you tell the poor slob just looking for some basic information? Our hobby is rapidly "graying" - unless we stir up some more interest, collecting guns (and especially Krags) might be going the way of the Dodo bird.

While agreeing you can't just publish a 16-page book, you could publish (I believe) a 150-200 page paperback with the basics.

[5MadFarmers]

OK! Less than 5% of the Krags are "Original"

No. 5% of the guns thought to be original by collectors. So if 5% of Krags are thought to be original, 5% of those.

Given that fact, establish the gradient and then give us a cheat sheet by which we can evaluate Krag specimens in the wild, please and thank you.

It can't really be done. If I may I'll address that, and Rick's post, but first the fork on Poyer's trapdoor book. Incorrect information doesn't make me lose patience. I'm not even sure that dodgy does. Dodgy followed by well poisoning is what set me off there. Overly harsh? Probably but the dodgy bit isn't what did it - it was the well poisoning.

Mallory and Brophy did what they could with the information available. I respect that a lot. Let's not lose that. I'm just on a path they missed.

Krags and collecting. That's really only 1/3 of the market though right? Shooters care more about bore. Rightly so. Re-enactors care about the history of it all. Rightly so. I don't class myself as in the "shooting" group and I don't re-enact. Which leaves me in the collector group. If we had a caste system like India did that would be the lowest caste...

Shooters. You're the right ones.
Reenactors. Second place.
Collectors. We're the insane ones. The lowest class. Think about it. Who cares if the gun is correct? What does that lead to? Rack queens, which are primarily rebuilds, being highly prized and the beat to tar ones being looked down on. Yet those beat to tar ones have the evident history. Thus reenactors rank higher.

The collectors are the ones on the wrong path. I'm aware of that in spite of being on that path. So every time Jon posts "embarrassed" about adding shooting or history bits he's reversed. That's the more important stuff.

So where does that leave the collectors? A house of cards. I'm going to undo it. Using research and footnotes. Why? Why not?

This started, about a decade ago, with me receiving a captured pistol and an Ike jacket. The move to complete that ensemble started me on this path. I'm nearing the end.

In order to write a Krag book I'll need to unravel the rest first. Then rebuild it. Only then will the Krag book make sense and the reasons for my claim that the existing books are all wrong will become clear. Sadly we're all obstinate people. Thus a pile, an irrefutable pile, is necessary.

Not this year. Not until I'm done processing the data I'm sitting on and I finish the collection. Then I'll be ready. I keep trying to rush it for people other than me and that isn't the correct path.

Don't underestimate the work involved. I've done most of it but that was in survey mode. A second pass is "vacuum, complete" mode is harder. It'll come but it's a lot of work.

[John Beard]

I find this thread very interesting. I have no desire and certainly don't have the knowledge to join the fray. But I will point out that anyone writing a serious Krag book without studying research done by the Society for Industrial Archeology will have made a grievous mistake!

For what it's worth.

J.B.

[Kragrifle]

Late to the fray. John, what is the Society for Industrial Archeology? I will do an immediate Google search!

[5MadFarmers]

I find this thread very interesting. I have no desire and certainly don't have the knowledge to join the fray. But I will point out that anyone writing a serious Krag book without studying research done by the Society for Industrial Archeology will have made a grievous mistake!

For what it's worth.

J.B.

Glad you're all having a good time.

I'm not feeling particularly charitable this week as I was legislated out of a job. No, that didn't bother me overly much as I'll be shifted to another. I supervise people and that is a problem. So I probably shouldn't post anything anywhere for some time as I'm not in a particularly good mood.

I've been aware of Poyer's playing funny with the list for some time but this thread opened it up. I'll be perfectly clear for all concerned - it wasn't even that reordering that bothered me. It was his assertion that "serious researchers" were in agreement that they O.D. wasn't playing funny to ensure the trapdoor was made. That is the bit I call poisoning the well. Why does that bother me? Because it's rude. So I'm therefore free to be rude in return. I rarely consider myself to be much of anything but I'll be honest enough that the hours I spent in archives would likely place me in the category of "researcher" at this point. I won't extend that same title to Poyer. Anyone, with access to the Secretary of War reports (mainly the report of the General Commanding), would not have taken the position that Poyer took. To then reorder the list to support that point, and then further to poison the well, is not kosher.

Society for Industrial Archeology you say? I'll poke and thanks for the pointer. I found the "American Machinist" to be incredibly informative. Surprisingly so. Sounds like it runs along the same lines.