3" marked with punch letters ahead of the trigger guard, "97" above a circled script "P" proof mark behind the trigger guard, boxed script "JSA/1898" inspection cartouche marked on the left side of the wrist, "PARKHURST-ZALINSKI/INDEX ATTACHMENT/FEB.
Features of the rifle include a blade front and 1,800 yard M1896 folding ladder rear sight, oil-quenched receiver, blue finished barrel and barrel bands, nitre blue extractor, bright bolt with knurled cocking piece, smooth straight grip stock with grasping grooves, "NO. Parkhurst is credited with previous patents relating to improvements of the Gardner machine gun during his employment at Pratt & Whitney, as well as improvements and patents in machinery. As soon, however, as the barrel is without a cartridge, this projects, and can either be readily seen or felt: in other words as long as the cartridge is in the magazine the upper surface of the bolt is smooth, and vice versa." Army Captain Edmund Louis Gray Zalinski is credited with numerous artillery-related inventions and patents. To show the presence of the cartridge in the gun barrel, there is a projecting piece on top of the flat ejector spring, which does not project when a cartridge is in the barrel. Should it alone be desired to indicate the presence of cartridges, in reserve in the magazine, without reference to numbers, this side pin would serve by itself and the index finger on the right be omitted.
This defect is provided for by a pin on the left hand side, which projects as long as there are one or more cartridges in the magazine. It is defective however, in that the finger will not show when the last cartridge is still resting in the magazine. It is of such nature that, even in the dark, the soldier can tell approximately by feeling the number of cartridges in the magazine. The index finger on the right hand side points at numerals which show the number of cartridges in the magazine. To this end, the attachment as shown in rifle sent herewith, could be applied without much additional cost. It appears from correspondence authored by Captain Zalinski that he tried to interest the Navy, through Admiral Charles O'Neil, in modifying the Krags in Navy service with both the Parkhurst clip-loading device and the Zalinski-Parkhurst index device." A memorandum about the index attachment, written in 1901 by Zalinski and addressed to O'Neil, states, "It is desirable for the soldier to be able to ascertain or to know whether a cartridge is in the barrel of the rifle and approximately the number of cartridges in the magazine. Co-invented by Parkhurst (inventor of clip-loading device) and Captain E.
These inventor's models have a system incorporated into the receiver that indicates the number of cartridges in the magazine and also whether a cartridge is in the chamber. Brophy in which it states, "At least two prototype examples of a clever modification to the Krag exist. An incredibly rare example of a Krag-Jorgensen Model 1898 bolt action rifle equipped with an experimental Parkhurst-Zalinski index attachment, as described on pages 198-200 of "The Krag Rifle" by Lt.