.30-40 rimless Or .30 ball Model of 1901

[Culpeper]

I have another windmill to tilt at said Don Quixote. It popped into my head the other day about rimless 30-40 cartridges. Yes, I know Springfield looked at it. Did a little research and found the early goings on lead to the .30 ball Model of 1901, though not quite the same final product. How hard could it be? Turn off the rim. Cut a groove. Build a cartridge. Have a reamer made. Find a suitable donor rifle. Re-barrel maybe. Ream. Shoot and enjoy.

Simple. Just takes time and money.

[butlersrangers]

'Culpeper', I believe a rimless cartridge was considered and tried, right from the start.

I suspect the early influence for our .30-40 Krag and the British .303 cartridges was the 'rimless' 7.7 mm Rubin cartridge.
Both Frankford Arsenal and the British purchased Swiss Rubin cartridges, in some quantity, and were experimenting with this 'smokeless' cartridge in the late 1880's.

In 1889, the U. S. Ordnance Department was experimenting with the (Austrian) Shulhoff and Swiss Magazine Rifles using the rimless Rubin cartridge.

A number of the 53 rifles evaluated from 1890 to 1892 by the Board of Officers used rimless/flangeless/cannelured cartridges.

I believe the Durst rifles and Krag-Jorgensen No. 6, (and maybe the Blake rifle), used a rimless version of the .30-40 test ammo.

Part of the attraction of the Krag-Jorgensen design was that it could be adapted to work successfully with rimmed or rimless cartridges.

It seems that both the U. S. and British War Departments went with a rimmed cartridge because of the belief it offered more reliable extraction and a better 'gas-seal' in the event of cartridge-case failure.

[Culpeper]

Right. But War and Ordnance must have forgot all about that after their encounter with the Mauser in Cuba in '98. I am looking at the post war period of 1899 to 1901 and the run up to the .30-03. Cartridge Collector states the .30-01 was just renamed to .30-03. So if I had an 1895 Winchester I could re-barrel it and stamp it .30-01 be good to go with necked up 270 winchester brass. But I want to do a rimless .30-40 round. Pesky windmills.

https://www.oldammo.com/february05.htm

https://cartridgecollector.net/30-01-ca ... model-1901

https://m1903.com/odd1903/

[butlersrangers]

'Culpeper', I guess I am not really comprehending your point.

In 1898 we didn't even have an optimal domestic propellant for the .30 U.S.A. (and definitely not for the 6mm U.S.N.)!
The .30 cal. bullet jacket was also a work in progress.
A lighter .30 cal. projectile would have been a good move - IMHO.

But a rimless F.A. experimental version of the .30-40 cartridge was a reality before 1893.

The '.30 Blake' was pretty cool and offered a commercial rimless version of the .30-40.

The aluminum cartridge 'packets' were objectionable.

[Culpeper]

Right again. However the early rimless .30-40 cartridge idea seems to have been abandoned, from what I can find, at the time the Krag was fielded in '94. So I just want to make myself a rifle that will shoot a rimless .30-40 because I have more money than brains and life is too short not to have fun and adventure.

[butlersrangers]

I think a 'rimless' U. S. Krag would be a bad idea.
In the event of a serious case failure or head-separation, you have the same metallurgy as a 'low-number' 1903 Springfield rifle and less provision for the venting high-pressure gases.

I put a lot of stock in the case rim of .30-40 Krag and .303 British brass. Even with complete head-separations the gases stay in the barrel, where they belong.

Attached is a photo of a Model 1898 Krag (Smithsonian Collection) that experienced some type of event in the Philippines in 1899. I think the case rim prevented things from being much worse.

[Culpeper]

That is good advice as always. I was thinking of a high number 1903 that was already in an off caliber or a bubba'd M1917 in the same condition. I could not bring myself to re-barrel a military correct rifle but one that has been reworked is fair game.

I have a couple of engineering friends I can throw ideas to and see how they hold up in the world of real things.

[Knute1]

I know there is no dispute about going flangeless. I submit the link below only for historical context to this subject. There are (3) tabs on the right that all discuss rimless in articles from 1892. The first tab states that rimless and flanged both have merits. But the War Department thought that the flanged was an improvement over the Danish rimless design, just didn't base it on anything as far as I could tell.

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Th ... frontcover

[FredC]

Some other things to think about. The recess in the Krag bolt is sized for the rim diameter of the flange. Pressing a sleeve in there to take up the space would be difficult because the recess is so shallow. If i remembering correctly the 30/40 rim slides under the extractor as it is loaded from the magazine. Load one into the chamber and the extractor pops over the rim. Never seen a Danish Krag except for a few photos. Is there a cut out on the bolt for the case head rim to slip into position against the bolt face as it loads form the magazine? Because of their common ancestry a lot of the dimensions of a Danish bolt should be the same as the American. It would be a hoot if they were directly interchangeable. Even if not, having a Danish bolt in hand would give you ideas on how a changeover would need to be done.
If anyone one does to attempt this, I would watch with interest.

Edited: rim sliding under the rim did no make any sense.

[butlersrangers]

Just for clarification, the Danish Krag-Jorgensen action uses a rimmed cartridge. (I don't know where the idea, that the Danish Krag rifle used a 'rimless' cartridge, came from)?

In regard to early 'knurled'-'cannelure'-rimless cartridges and Krag rifles:

The Krag-Jorgensen 1892 "Patent Model" in the Smithsonian collection is made with dual 'locking-lugs' and chambered for a rimless 7mm cartridge.

A rifle submitted to the 1892 U. S. Trial Board, Krag-Jorgensen rifle No. 6, was likely chambered for the rimless F.A. .30 caliber cartridge.
Its mate, Krag-Jorgensen rifle No. 5, that became the prototype for the U. S. Model 1892, used the rimmed .30 U.S. cartridge.

(BTW - "No. 5" & "No. 6" were assigned IDs to differentiate between multiple models submitted by Krag-Jorgensen, not serial numbers on the rifles).

A strong point in the Krag action's favor was that it could be easily adapted to successfully handle a rimmed or a rimless ('cannelure' cartridge).

At the Chicago 1893 Columbian Exposition the U. S. War Department display featured a Kongsberg Arms Factory Krag-Jorgensen rifle in 6.5 X 55 mm (rimless).
The Norwegian rifle was a 'stand in' for the new U. S. service rifle, since Springfield Armory was not able to provide a completed example of the newly adopted arm.

Attached: Fresh images of the Smithsonian's 7mm 'Patent' Krag, acquired long ago from the U. S. Patent Office.