30-40 KRAG boolit

[JTknives]

I just picked me up a 30-40 krag 1898 Springfield and am itching to shoot cast out of it. Last night I bought a box of 165gr Speer HPBT bullets to load. Apon inspection this gun has a really long throat. So long in fact that I can't seat the bullet long enough to even come close to the throat. After measuring it I found that from my load length of 3.125 the bullet jumps .225 till it hits the throat. This hot me thinking about round nose heavy cast boolits. So I'm looking for advice on what boolit design to go with. Thanks guys.

[texassako]

How about a Lyman 311284, or something similar? It worked very well in my .30-40 AI.

[scb]

How about a Lyman 311284, or something similar? It worked very well in my .30-40 AI.

Yup. Best shooting boolit in my 1898.

[Hardcast416taylor]

The Krag a local gunsmith sportered and loaded for liked the Speer 165 gr. and 3031 powder. He took a fine black bear up in Canada with this combo about 25 years back.Robert

[Scharfschuetze]

The Krag was designed for a 220 grain round nose FMJ bullet. To match that, a long round nose bullet like the old 220 grain soft point jacketed bullet or as mentioned above, the Lyman 311284 bullet works. They'll fill up that throat and enhance your accuracy. The Krag's 1 in 10 twist will handle heavy bullets well.

Another option is to use bullets sized to .312 or .314 to get the bullet centered up in the leade or throat if your chamber will allow that. When the kids were young, I loaded up the 98 grain 32 SWC cast bullet sized at .314 over bullseye and it shot into an inch at 50 yards which for the kids was well within coke can accuracy requirements. I used a Lyman M die to open up the necks enough so as not to damage that larger than normal diameter bullet in the Krag.

My own particular favorite bullet in a Krag is a Hoch custom mold that has a long bore riding nose at .302 with No 2 alloy and a .310 sized body with a gas check base.

[runfiverun]

http://www.accuratemolds.com/bullet_detail.php?bullet=31-205B-D.png
jt.
I have this mold.
if it looks about right I have some made up not checked or sized yet.
you know how to get ahold of me, i'll send you a bunch to try out if you want.
I also have a little brother to it at about 155 grs, but it pours a tick smaller in diameter.

[LynC2]

Not a Krag, but my #3 Ruger 30-40 loves the 311284 better than anything else I have tried.

[JeffinNZ]

The 311284 was designed for the Krag but it's worth checking the throat and groove as you may require something a bit more stout like the 314299.

[Outpost75]

Original Krag barrels vary all over the map, but tend to run large. Also cast or upset a tbroat slug and measure it. The cylindrical ball seat in these rifles often exceeds .312" diameter and barrel groove diameters often exceed .310". If yours is one of those, bullets dimensioned for the .303 British will give better results. If the cylindrical forepart on your #311284 casts at least .301" diameter, it will work.

Quick check is to poke nose of bullet into muzzle. If it enters easily with no resistance up to the first driving band, forget about any kind of accuracy. You want a bullet in which the forepart will engrave somewhat and be positively guided by the rifling.

[lotech]

I've had better luck with the #314299 than the #311284 in more than one rifle, but the latter has a strong following.

[Lance Boyle]

The 311284 was designed for the Krag but it's worth checking the throat and groove as you may require something a bit more stout like the 314299.

I was going to suggest this after slugging the throat.

[Bigslug]

Check out the Accurate Molds web catalog. Click on anything in there and you'll pull up that mold's blueprint, which should give you ample info on what will work with your throat. Keep in mind, however, what works in the throat may or may not work in the magazine.

Also, if you don't have the Hornady (formerly Stoney Point) OAL gauge that uses a modified case to determine throat depth, you'll save yourself a lot of trauma and drama by picking one up. http://www.hornady.com/store/OAL-Gauges-and-Modified-Cases/

[Char-Gar]

You will not find any bullet, cast or jacketed that will engage the rifling when seated unless it is seated way out and singled loaded because it to long to feed through the magazine.

Any bullet is going to hit the rifling on the run, if the round can be feed through the magazine. I just seat the bullets out as far as I can have them feed through the magazine and don't spend any time worrying about it.

Outpost75 is giving you very good counsel.

Because of the long and large throats on Krag rifles, I have found that best accuracy is found by using cast bullets as large as you can load them and still chamber the round with ease. This will be about .313 or .314 depending on the individual rifles. It is worth the effort to neck turn brass to use the larger bullets if that become necessary.

[Dean D.]

My experience mirror's what's been said already. A nice addition that works great for me for a lighter plinker is the Loverin design 311466.

[JTknives]

Ok I slugged my bore as best I could using pure lead cast in my buckshot mold. The breach and muzzle mesure the same at .301-.309 but its only .309 just for a sec most is .308. Also it's hard to mesure the .301 cause its a small groove in the slug but its most likley smaller then .301 as I got that just measuring the slug normanley. Now the throat measures weird and I might need to check it agian but I was getting like .314-.318 like it was out of round. I did notice on the slugs that the rifling does not seam real pronounced like when you slug a modern rifle. I look down the bore and thy look not as crisp. Thanks guys

[Char-Gar]

The breech end of your barrel is eroded/worn and that is not unusual. Read my above post for best sizing diameter of cast bullets and don't concern yourself with barrel specs.

[390ish]

311284 was great in my krag. killed one doe with it at 145 yds with peep sights. one shot. very accurate. think I used imr 4350.

[jonk]

Much as it pains me to say this, I've never gotten cast to shoot anywhere near as well as jacketed in my Krag; the bore looks like it should do fine, muzzle looks good, I've tried the usual suspects- 311284, 311299, the Lee 200 gr job, and a few others, with powders going from red dot up to 4831. Seated long, short, and everything in between. Bore measures .309, I've tried sizing to .310 and .311. Different lubes, two types of gas checks... gun will shoot 1.5MOA with Hornady 168s and 40 gr of 4064, but won't shoot cast worth snot. So go figure.

Now that said, mine being the odd duck, you've gotten some good advice so far; to it I would only add that the chamber on mine is pretty tight and won't chamber anything over .311, unless I wanted to neck ream brass. Something to keep in mind.

[jonk]

Check out the Accurate Molds web catalog. Click on anything in there and you'll pull up that mold's blueprint, which should give you ample info on what will work with your throat. Keep in mind, however, what works in the throat may or may not work in the magazine.

Also, if you don't have the Hornady (formerly Stoney Point) OAL gauge that uses a modified case to determine throat depth, you'll save yourself a lot of trauma and drama by picking one up. http://www.hornady.com/store/OAL-Gauges-and-Modified-Cases/

I've looked at those but ultimately decided that (for me) it was a huge waste in money. I can have the gun handy and within about a minute of fiddling with the seating die, produce a pilot cartridge with no powder and primer for a given bullet/gun combo as a max OAL. If it works for you I certainly won't knock it, but to me, it still isn't as exact for any given bullet as creating a pilot for that bullet and gun; all the Hornady tool is going to do is show distance to lands, and that doesn't help much with many, many different bullet profiles out there.