30-40 Brass Requests

[butlersrangers]

Too much information. Now, I'm confused!

The 'Loaded' military and commercial .303 British cartridges, that I have, will not chamber in the several .30-40 Krag rifles I have checked.

IMHO - It would be quite a task to force a loaded .303 round into a Krag chamber and close the bolt.

(It would be easy to re-form empty .303 brass in a .30-40 F.L. Resizing Die to fit the Krag chamber).

Photo comparing nickel plated .30-40 round with British Mk VII .303 round.

[Parashooter]

IMHO - It would be quite a task to force a loaded .303 round into a Krag chamber and close the bolt.

While that may be true for your chambers and cartridges, I assure you it is not so for mine. Some force is required, but nothing that can't be applied by a normal bare hand (vintage 1945). Here are a few examples -



Note how little shoulder deformation is needed to match the fired .30-40 case. Don't be confused by comparison of shoulder position with a new .30-40 case - there's a significant difference.

[butlersrangers]

This is a good potential hazard to know. I would not want a future shooter to put a jacketed .314" projectile through a .309" bore.

It is our responsibility to clearly mark any non-standard ammunition and the firearm it is intended for.

[psteinmayer]

Which sort of brings me back around to my brain fart (sorry... no stroke Culp).

I agree that the Krag has excellent case support... and Michael Petrov's experiments prove protection in the safety lugs should the single locking lug be compromised. Still, I would worry that someone could try, and succeed in firing one, and the potential for failure does exist! If I ever had to use re-formed .303... I would have to make darn sure that the brass used in my Krag was clearly identified as such!

[madsenshooter]

Just today, someone brought me a box of .303. Well he gave me the box after I dug a couple .303s out of his Winchester 94AE in 30-30. It was a box of Winchester 180gr Power Point. They go fairly easy into my Krag, takes a bit of extra force to close the bolt, but not a lot. On the left is an unformed one, on the right, one that I closed the bolt on. Bullet mics .3105", not likely to produce a whole lot of extra pressure in my .310" groove diameter barrel. A handy thing to know in case of emergency, but emergency is the only scenario that would allow the use of .303 in a Krag. I'm a handloader, no big deal to pull the bullets and remove a couple grains of powder.

[madsenshooter]

Of course I had to pull one down to satisfy my curiosity. Winchester claims 2460fps for the 180gr bullet. I was surprised to find 39.4gr of a stick powder, certainly not 4064 as I had some of that to compare. I was expecting a ball powder. .033 thick grains, about .085 in length. Looking on the Hodgdon site, IMR4166 appears to be a likely candidate, producing 42,300CUP.

[Parashooter]

I do hope folks know that factory ammunition is normally loaded with "non-cannister" powders for which there is no precise equivalent available to handloaders.

[Eagle223usa]

I emailed Starline as they have just started producing a bottle neck rifle round, got no reply.