My Hermit's Pass Krag

[George Lang]

my first rifle, a gift from my Dad, came from Ye Olde Hunter. It is an El Tigre SRC 44-40 Spainish copy of the Winchester 1892 and I still have it 67 years later.

[Kevin McCormack]

Originally Posted by Dave Noreen

Frank's Ye Olde Hunter ads made me nostalgic. I opened Google Earth and found I don't see anything familiar along the Alexandria waterfront. The address of Potomac Arms was Zero Prince Street. I no longer own any of the guns I bought there. Best gun I ever saw there I put Kevin onto, and he wrote his article "Grandma's Gun" for The Double Gun Journal about it.

Yes, my eternal thanks to Dave for alerting me to "Grandma's 28", a Parker GH 28 gauge Damascus Steel jewel in completely original condition, purchased by a local Alexandria businessman from William Wagner's shop across the river in DC on Pennsylvania Ave. SE, a veritable Mesopotamia of Parker smallbores from the c. 1895 - 1915 era. Regular patrons included Gen. Billy Mitchell and Judge Louis Wright, both Parkerphiles in the little gauges. A very significant number of early Parker 28 bores can be traced directly to Wagner's shop.

It never ceases to amaze me the number of exotic and now-considered uber rare guns that came to within 25 miles of our nation's capitol; Henry Bartholomew's River Valley Farm on Broad Creek feeding the Potomac River became home to some of the finest A.H. Fox heavy waterfowl (and not a few bird) guns, handled by luminaries such as Nash Buckingham, 'Doc" Reuter, and Col. Jack Hession. Canvasback shooting within sight of the Washington Monument and Railbird hunting across the river in VA at Huntley Meadows - who could envision it today!?

[Phil Yearout]

Those old magazine ads were wonderful. I remember drooling over them without ever having the hope of buying anything!

[Bill Murphy]

Kevin is right about the mystique of Washington, D.C. and smallbore Parkers. Many of them never left the area. I have two 28 gauge Parkers from Billy Wagner's shop and both were found within a few miles of the Pennsylvania Avenue sports emporium.

[OH Osthaus]

the first center fire rifle I fired as a kid was a Krag

that's when I learned about the trilogy of a Krag, a thumb and a nose

nice rifle Frank - I bet it would be impossible to count the Penn's woods deer taken with one

[Double Trouble]

Frank - that is a SWEET Krag ! I saw a guy walking one around during a gun show a few years back. It had a custom maple stock with an intense curl to the grain. (It looked like a Krag & an old PA longrifle had a baby !) The stock was just a tiny bit "fat." I think it needed to be slimmed down a bit to look/feel "perfect." If it wasn't for that, I would have bought it on the spot. I have an 1892 (with the typical arsenal upgrades) that I love to shoot. Accurate as hell ! For the life of me, I cannot understand why I only own ONE Krag...