Krag Collectors Association Forum

As for me... I just back my LEE 30-40 die out one full turn. Works like a champ!

Paul & Butlersrangers,

Many thanks for your quick responses. As always, very helpful.

Paul, I used your method of 'backing out' the Lee .30-40 F/L sizing die one turn. It seemed to work well; I'll take those neck sized cartridges to the range in 3 days ( It is going to rain here in central Massachusetts for another 2 days) Thanks for the tip.

I have been on a learning curve up at the home and it sent me down a straight road towards more education. My preacher likens it to insanity. He could be right. Who knows...

Any way since my original post on this matter I dived into the world of the F-class shooters. I figured would know better than they to build good ammo. I wanted to take away as many variances as I could given my level of expertise. I learnt a thing or two along the way that is evident in my 7.5 Swiss outing last week. That is the best ammo I have ever shot aside from real GP-11.

So I put the calliper on my forty rounds I fired off and opened a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets are your friends. I down loaded the SAAMI spec to see what the manufacturers are doing.

So one of the things I thought may be a problem for crappy shooting, aside from my poor shooting performance of late could have been my ammo. They were my reloads after all. I looked at the brass and only found two pieces that were out of "spec" according SAAMi and by extension Winchester and Remington. One piece was out for shoulder length at the datum point of .375. Piece number #5 was .002 under the minimum of 1.767 inches. Not a deal stopper. The rest tell me the chamber is cut to the minimum with a spread of about .003. Yes. I know the Krag headspaces on the rim. It just shows me there is no case stretching.

Piece number 21 is the other out of "spec" chunk of brass but it is out for case length. It is the only one and it out by .002 above the SAAMi maximum. Again not a show stopper since the minimum chamber dimension is 2.322 and case length is 2.314. I have never annealed or trimmed any of my brass whether .30-40 to .30-06. Why? I've never got around to learning how.

My conclusion in this little exercise is 1) I believe my load is sound, 2) my shooting is adequate, and 3) my rifle is a piece of ka-ka. I will have to break out the M1895 Winchester Musket and use it as a test bed for the ammo since it has a brand new barrel on it. It's in the pile. Just have to dig it out.