Krag Collectors Association Forum

<blockquote>It's really a matter of playing with different loads until you find the one that works best for you and your particular Krag.</blockquote><br />Thanks, I figured as much, but thought the asking might winnow the field a bit. <br /><br />My .30 Krag rolling block is now disassembled in pre...

Are any of the modern spitzers found to be generally as accurate in the .30 Krag as the Hornady 220 RN?<br /><br />Modern sources recommend the RN for accuracy in this round and report often mediocre accuracy with spitzers, yet in Whelen's 1918 book he praised the accuracy of the spitzers in commerc...

... I would pull the firing pin... Ideally you should feel a little fore and aft play in the bolt when closed.

With the pin out, the mainspring will not be pushing on the bolt, and you will be able to detect the play he mentioned earlier.

Looking back over your original post, I see you said the powders appeared to be the same. Looking at the descriptions in Whelen's book and comparing to your photo, the powder is likely WA. The grains of WA were .08" diameter and .04-.05" long. All the MR and IMR powders then were relativel...

I long thought the 40000 psi given by SAAMI was too hot, but reading old Army Ordnance reports from the 1890s says they were loading to over 40000 at times. Still, I prefer to load lower. Modern powders will match the original performance at under 34000.

<blockquote>They didn't always use 40gr of powder.</blockquote><br />Even for the early military loads this was true. At google books one can read several of the Army Ordnance Reports from the 1890s. Frankford was testing loads from under 30 gr to well over 40 gr, depending on the powder and lot. Pe...

Lyman's data, which was pressure tested using crushers, shows 4895 is quite safe with the 220 RN. In my 30" rolling block, their recommended starting load of 35.0 gr made 2000 fps, a little bit over what one might get in extrapolating from Lyman's 24" test barrel.<br /><br />Even though I ...

<blockquote>To understand what does removing the firing pin do for me?</blockquote><br />I'm curious, too. Cocked, the mainspring tension will (on my son's bolt action) shove the bolt rearward making it difficult to detect any play. With the striker in the fired position on an empty case (no primer)...

The .308 Win and the .30 Krag have nearly the same case capacity (about 57 gn) and nearly the same amount of bullet protrusion from the case (about 0.8"). The two will, then, likely be close in pressure. For the .308 Win, Hodgdon lists 14.0 gn of Trail Boss under the 150 gn Nosler BT as 27000 p...

Has anyone tried Hodgdon's load of 30.0 gn H322 under the 220 gn Hornady RN bullet?<br /><br />In a similar vein, do any modern load books have 3031 loads for this bullet?<br /><br />Hodgdon has no pressure data for this load, so I suspect it was done way back when, in the dark days of case head exp...