Scrounging Old 30-40 Brass

[Cat Man]

We all agree that 30-40 Krag ammunition, weather factory loaded, or hand loaded from components, will continue to be a challenge to keep our old guns shooting.

I always keep an eye open at gun shows, estate sales, gun clubs and even antique malls for "old leftovers". Tattered old paper ammo boxes, half filled coffee cans,
cardboard boxes of estate sale reloading equipment all, will many times yield the scarce cartridge cases. Shooters new to vintage Krags or those who don't handload miss opportunity by
overlooking those dirty icky discolored used unmarked or mis-marked spent cases and someone else's old handloads. Fear not! Keep digging.

Now I'd never trust actually shooting someone else's 50 year old hand loads but I have built up my stock of shootable commercial 30-40 brass buying any Krag stuff I come across.
Remove the mouse nest, disassemble the ammo, clean the brass and inspect every single case. Look inside and out. Discard only those rounds that are too far gone to reuse. Not as many as you may think.
Cleaned and annealed, inspected and measured and sorted into lots by brands will keep our favorite Krags shooting.

I've bought as many as 250 cases in a single dirty coffee can and as few as eight in a used plastic sandwich bag. Just keep hunting, it is still out there.

Jeff the Caterpillar man.

[Culpeper]

Amen, Brother CAT Man!

There is hope for you souls without adequate holdings of brass. Buy what you can of loaded ammo in the mean time.

https://ammoseek.com/ammo/30-40-krag

https://ammoseek.com/reloading/brass/30-40-krag

[scottz63]

Wish I could find some brass. I have 120 rounds of commercial ammo to shoot up and have the brass from that. I would like to find some brass to load to take out my first time shooting it as well when it warms up.

[psteinmayer]

Amen Cat Man! (missed seeing you at Perry the last couple years...)

I agree... even old "SuperSpeed, Rem-USA, and other extinct headstamped brass can be salvageable! Krag loads are normally kept mild anyway so with proper care as Jeff stated, brass can last for decades! Some of my brass have more than 20 reloads on 'em!

I haven't looked lately... but does Graf & Sons still offer the GRAF stamped 30-40 brass?

[scottz63]

Does Graf & Sons still offer the GRAF stamped 30-40 brass?

They carry Hornady and Winchester brass but, have been out of stock for some time now.

[Culpeper]

I haven't looked lately... but does Graf & Sons still offer the GRAF stamped 30-40 brass?

Most likely not. It looked like Grafs had contracted with Jamison/Captech for that batch. And as I have railed on in the past Jamison was a lousy businessman and that operation went belly up for the unmpteenth time and was broken up and sold off. Sorry to see the brass go (never bought any though I know you guys did) but good riddance.

https://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/ca ... goryId/764

[larrys]

Check Ebay. When I acquired my Krag a couple years ago (a genuine 1898 carbine) I scored several hundred rounds of new brass from two different sellers on eBay. Found dies there, too. Flogged 100 rounds to a member here. Since I have just one Krag I neck size only. Brass for life!
Larry