Winchester 30 Army Full Patch

[Jeremy T Garner]

I walked in one of my local shops and they had decided to sell some pieces out of a display. One of the pieces I picked was an already opened box of Winchester 30 Army. Ammo is in fantastic shape. I paid $60 for it and thought that's was pretty decent.

[butlersrangers]

Nice display item!

[psteinmayer]

Ok... I have a couple questions for the more astute collectors:

1. Shouldn't the bullets be cupro nickel and not copper jacketed?
2. Shouldn't the primers be brass/copper and slightly rounded?

Not trying to rain on your parade Jeremy... but they look to me like they've been reloaded using modern primers (possibly CCI) and Hornady 220 gr FMJ bullets (no longer made, but still available up until 5 years or so ago). I could be wrong about this (and frequently am)... but it's just my gut feeling.

[Dick Hosmer]

Am not 100% sure, Paul, but I believe you may be correct. Didn't think about the primers when first viewing the pics, but my first (and instantaneous) reaction to the bullets was "Huhh??"

[Jeremy T Garner]

I wasn't sure overall so I figured I'd post up some photos and see what others thought. The pictures I've seen from other previous auctions of this or the red label Winchester showed both colors of primers but they both were definitely cupped primers and not flat. I've also seen photos of the bullet itself being both Cupro Nickel and Copper jacketed so I really wasn't sure. The box and the brass with that headstamp is cool and worth at least half what I paid for it to me so I figured I'd take the gamble on it. The headstamp on the brass was unique as I have never seen it just marked WRA 30. I've almost always seen it marked WRA Co.

[Jeremy T Garner]

My box states "Staynless" and that's why I didn't initially question the primers because the early Winchester "Staynless" primers were silver in color. From further research the 30 on the headstamp is not a caliber as I thought but year of manufacture. The only other photo I could find of just a WRA headstamp without the Co. was WRA 31 220 gr full patch with a copper jacket and "Staynless" silver primer made in 1931. The top label of my box confirms this on the bottom right where it reads 8-30 (August 1930).

[butlersrangers]

I am not a 'Cartridge Collector', but, this is all quite interesting. Thanks for Sharing.

[Dick Hosmer]

Ditto, though I have a bunch of (mostly) sealed boxes of .50-70 and .45-70 to go with my guns. Never really acquired much for the Krag, and, it is all Frankford Arsenal stuff, in any event. The box under discussion is commercial, and I'm not sure that the rounds shown are those that it originally contained. Not sure they aren't, either - but someone will ultimately tell us, I'm certain.

[psteinmayer]

I have two boxes of Krag ammo... a Frankford 04 box and a WRA 07 box. Both have cupro bullets and bronze cupped primers. Both also have some split/cracked cases. I believe this is because of the age, coupled with incorrect (before they came to me) storage. I have never fired one, although about ten years ago, I did disassemble a round (Frankford 04) that was not part of my boxes, and loaded the powder and bullet in a modern Remington case and fired that, which fired just fine.

[reincarnated]

I dug out WRACo Vol 1, thinking to find the answer, but found no reference, except that Winchester-made bullets were marked with a small "w" until 1932. HWS Vol 1 reports that "Navy contracts for Cal .30 ball ammunition continued through the 1920s and into the early 1930s. An illustration shows a WRA 31 headstamp. Later in the same long paragraph, the writer reported that some of the contract ammunition was released to civilian shooters via the National Board for the Promotion of Rifle Practice. The last sentence in the paragraph reads "A late ball round, headstamped W.R.A. 30, has been examined with a nickle-alloy or monel metal primer cup - possibly for subcaliber use."

In December 1961, I was assigned to inventory ammunition in storage at the Naval Ammunition Depot at Lualualei, Oahu. I was amazed to find .30-40 cartridges in service. They were Model 1925s, loaded with 172 grain M1 ball bullets. The boxes were marked for subcaliber use and had Frankford Arsenal labels. The cases were headstamped FA and dated from the late 1920s.

After all that, I don't think the cases are original to the box. The box would have contained cases headstamped "WRACo". After all that, the box and cartridges are still an item of interest.