Here's the skinny on Andrew H. Russell
Class of 1871 West Point Graduate. 2nd Lieut. in 3rd Calvary. 1st Lieut. as instructor of gunnery and ordnance, Capt. of ordnance, retired as Colonel in Ordnance Department in 1908 after 40 years of service. He was never assigned to the armory in Springfield. (He served some later years in the ordnance dept. in the Philippines.)
In 1880 he and a guy named Livermore were granted a patent. He and Livermore had submitted two rifles as seen above to the Board on Magazine Guns. The Krag Jorgensen was selected by this Board. Russell had petitioned the Chief of Ordnance of the U.S. Army on infringement on his patent by the Krag Jorgensen design. This made it to the Supreme Court. However, the contract with Krag Jorgensen had an indemnification clause that held the U.S.A. safe against any alleged patent infringements and it would be solely the responsibility of Krag Jorgensen to handle. And that is what the Supreme Court used to hand down an answer to Russell and Livermore. End of story?
In a 1906 Military Journal Russell had an article on service rifles. By then the clip-fed 1903 Springfield was out and he had this bold claim:
(You need to Login to view media files and links)Looks like he tried to get some validity most of his military life and never got much credit for anything, deserved or not. His petition on his patent infringement was likely of some concern at the Ordnance Department. They were already fighting off a second look at American designs as directed by Congress and now they had somebody within the U.S. Army (in Ordnance) crying foul on the Krag design. Had to be a tenuous time.