I was reading an old 1958 issue of American Rifleman the other day and ran across a short discussion of some early National Match Springfield 1903 rifles and the "Star Gauge" process for marking barrels that were made to a higher quality standard for accuracy desired for NM barrels and matched receivers that were equally accurized for NM rifles. This was done prior to better ways of checking accuracy of barrels after around 1939.

The star gauge, as I have heard before for 1903 NM rifles, is marked at the 6 o'clock position at the end of the muzzle. These marked rifles are usually highly sought after by collectors although, as we know from Krag collecting, some have been faked.

But, the article also mentioned that you could send your 1903 OR KRAG rifle back to Springfield Armory to have it accurized with possibly a new barrel installed that would then be star gauged and marked as such.

Has anyone heard of this before or ever seen a starred muzzle on a Krag barrel? I think that would be a great find, if authentic, for a Krag collector. It would be nice to find one and see if it did shoot better than some of the ones we are enjoying on the range.

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