1896 .30-40 Krag rifle with a little too much head spacing....

A cry in your beer tail. In 1976 I was stationed in San Diego,CA waiting for a new Destroyer to be built. I had plenty of free time due to a strike at the ship yard.
I got a part time job at a local Gun Shop.
A huge shipment of firearms from Mexico came up when firearm laws were made to prevent ownership in Mexico.
In this shipment were hundreds of 1896 Krag rifles.
I bought one for 75 bucks. Little did I know the beautiful bore was full of Mercury from primers. The first time I fired the rifle, the rifling was blown out!
It took 35 years to find an original replacement barrel from a rifle being converted to a sporter.
The rifle now shoots very well, but here's the rub. Its a one shot deal. One new round fired and the brass stretches far enough that on the 2nd reloading, the case fails at the web.
It is not my Gunsmith's work. The bolt body is the cause. It probable was a problem back in the 70's, I did not reload in the barracks and I threw the brass away.
So what to do? Order a brand new bolt body? Yep...done that waiting for it to show up. Will it solve the problem? Perhaps. I borrowed a bolt from a club member and it helped a lot.
Since new brass cannot be fired formed to my rifle without stretching ( due to the bolt body being a little too short, locking lug shows no wear ) What to do?
I loaded up 20 rounds of new brass and made them into blanks. A hefty charge of Bulls Eye powder and filled the cases with corn meal. Bang! instant .410 Brass shotgun shell. ( fired in a .410 musket ) But why do this? Total control as to where the case shoulder will be!
I annealed the cases ( see my post on the automatic case annealer I made ) and then backed off the .30-40 FL sizing die several turns. Sure enough a perfect case that not only head spaces on the rim, but now also on the case shoulder.
Does it work? you bet it does.
I loaded up five rounds and using 185 grain bullets, fired formed them in my rifle. No stretching at all. Now I'll only neck size the fired brass. I'm hoping to get several reloads out of each case.
I'm sure there are others who have the same problem. This is an easy, inexpensive fit the a head spacing issue. Not excessive and unsafe, but just enough to ruin the fired brass.
The .410 brass case- my formed casing- New Winchester case:
Attachment 323598
My case - new Winchester case
Attachment 323600
old fired case, note stretch ring-- new fired case. No stretching.
Attachment 323602
Attachment 323600

I had an original Marlin lever gun in 32-20 that split cases with every shot. It was quite accurate but impossible to reload. That wasn’t a big deal in the late 1970’s because 32 WCF was common and cheap. I should have kept it and had the chamber fixed but a buddy wanted to pay more than I wanted to spend fixing it.

Another friend of mine had a 303 SMLE that did the same thing - his fired cases looked a lot like yours, but again, we just shot surplus ammo and tossed the brass. Glad you figured out a solution for your Krag.

You have two other options. If you can hard jam the bullets into the rifling that will eliminate the stretch or neck up to 338 or 358 then size back to form a false shoulder.

Don't size the cases so much after the first firing. The first firing fire-forms them to the chamber. Leave that alone. Size the neck enough to hold the nest bullet and all will be well.
Good Luck,
Rick

Thanks for the replies.
I do only neck size the once fired cases for my rimmed calibers that are hard on brass. .303 Britt, 6.5 Dutch, 6.5 Jap and this .30-40 Krag.
So far the "new" case shoulder seems to have worked very well. I have a match this weekend and will be firing 40 rounds. That should be a good trial.
I'll try the expanded neck tip as well.

I bought a 1898 Krag about 4 months ago. Like yours, there were headspace issues. If shooting factory ammunition, there's no way to control the case stretching. Just shooting a factory round will not give you the proper headspace. The case is driven forward by the firing pin strike, but only the amount that is from the bolt face to the top of the rim. My Krag has up to .007 there, depending on which case brand I'm using. If reloading the rounds, you can do what has been mentioned already and jam the bullet into the rifling to push the case back against the bolt face. I load cast boolits in my Krag. I use the Lyman 311284 mould. This boolit has a .300 bore riding section, so jamming the rifling will not work. I only partial size, and the neck is only sized to .400 down from the top of the
case. The loads I make up are low pressure, so after the sizing step, I do not remove the the case lube. This allows the case to NOT stick to the chamber walls, and slide back against the bolt face so the shoulder will be blown forward to the shoulder part of the chamber.
It would be interesting to know how much space you have from the bolt face, to back of a chambered case.

If your 311284 bullet has a bore riding nose section too small in diameter to resist the rifling, I submit that you need a different mold. You should get definite imprints of the rifling on the nose. Old 311284 dimensions are all over the map and I went through three of them before I found one that had a large enough nose diameter. Made a world of difference in the Krag I was shooting at the time, as well as the Krags I'm shooting now.

A 311284 bullet that achieves that protocol will suffice to hold the case head back against the bolt face for initial fire forming. If not, simply seat the bullet out far enough so the first driving band engages the rifling hard.

Lacking a bullet such as the 311284 I would simply do the trick of expanding the case neck to .35 caliber and then pushing it into a .30-40 die incrementally until the bolt barely closes on it. Neck size only after initial fire forming. I've done that trick with more milsurps in my life than I can remember.

I too have left case lube on the case and fired them with a reduced load to allow the brass to flow out and into the chamber.
I will add tape the the face of the bolt and calculate the free head space with a long seated bullet.

What I used to check the headspace, was a aluminum disc. I make the discs to make plain base checks for my .41 revolver. The disc fits the bolt face perfectly. It was just a case of luck that I had the disc laying on my reloading table.
As for the 311284 boolit. It does have to be lightly tapped into the muzzle of the barrell. It does show light rifling markes when pulled out. But, I don't believe there is enough engraving to stop the firing pin from driving the case forward when struck.

I used to tinker with Krags a bit, and came to the conclusion that eventually after thousands and thousands of rounds they will all have headspace problems. The problem is due to the single locking lug that takes all of the recoil and the metallurgy of the day, plus the fact that so many of these rifles were sporterized and subject to hot hand loads.

The traditional method, of course, is to remove and set the barrel back a few thousandths, but with a bit of luck and persistence the problem can be solved with a different bolt. I have a box full of bolts that have been replaced. I started by swapping used bolts among rifles, some used I acquired mostly on ebay and fixed several that way, but eventually found a seller who had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of brand new in-the-original-wrapper bolts. I found that these would solve the problems of even the most out-of-spec Krags. Originally this seller would sell the bolts individually for abut $90 each, but in later times was selling them in lots of 5 for about $250. I only encountered one rifle out of perhaps a hundred that I was unable to restore to in-spec headspace with a new bolt, and I re-barreled that one. I have to assume that the Army realized that there would be a headspace problem as they made so many extra bolts, and the part is not serial numbered.

Attachment 323623 Attachment 323624

A new bolt and subsequent neck sizing only of fired cartridges will likely solve your problem. If it doesn't, the only recourse is a barrel job.

DG

I just used brass shim stock cut to fit the face of the bolt. With a new Winchester case seated into the chamber and the bolt closed with resistance right at 2:00 on the bolt handle closing, I've got
.0250 free head space.
I double checked this reading by placing a long drill rod down the barrel into the chambered case and marked the rod. I then tapped the rod rearward and making sure the case was seated against the face of the bolt. Same reading. More than enough to cause case splitting at the web when fired.
By seating thee shoulder forward as described above, this should stop any case stretching.
I'm going to fire a 220 grain bullet into my bullet trap and check the fired casing as this will be the higher chamber pressure of my loads.

I just loaded up three rounds of ammo using 220 grain bullets and two types of powder. One being a max safe loading, the other the most accurate at long range from my notes. I used the same casing as in the above photos and seated the bullet to the bullets recommended OAL. The rounds were fired into my bullet trap.
The fired case does show the shoulder is blown outward to compensate for the .0250 excessive head spacing. There are no signs of an incipient case stretching using an inside case pick. ( yes, the reloaded case mouth is not trimmed from being blown out to .410 )
I'm hoping the bolt body will even close up the head space issue even more or perhaps totally.
L to R- fired 3 times-- new Winchester case
Attachment 323629

Rapidrob
I think I would be very happy with just .0250 headspace. That ain't much wiggle room. There is more than that in a lot of factory cartridges, to fit all the different chambering dimensions in different rifles. Even when I'm sizing some of my other cartridges, I may allow for up to .0300 -.0500. I've never had any case separation with my loaded rounds.
DG
From what I've read, and have been recommended, you have more than "tinkered" with the Krags. It has been stated by another member that you have great amounts of knowledge on the Krags. Glad to hear from you on the subject.
On my bolt, the front locking lug and the rearward safety lug engage at the same time. I don't really know if that is good, bad, or no matter but I just shoot low pressure cast boolits anyway.

I have heard it said, If you fit an o ring along the case so it fits snug against the rim and then shoot it as normal then the case will have fire formed perfectly to your chamber with minimal case stretch , From that point on neck size only and use that case only in that firearm

That sound like it might work very well. I may try that trick when I get to reloading my new brass. Thanks

I am so happy with the .410 brass cases being resized I did 10 for my 6.5 Dutch firearms. Using the same technique I found I could move the shoulder forward a few thousands and get the tight bolt closure it needed to prevent stretching.
I fired five rounds of 160 grain .266 bullets and the fired cases show no signs of stretching.
I've tried the O-ring trick but if you stop and think about it what you are doing is keeping the rim further away from the chamber. The brass is blown out to take up that new space. Sure the shoulder is now more forward,but where did the extra length come from? You stretched the case at the same time the shoulder is blown out. I only got two reloading before the brass failed at the web.
My method you bring the shoulder back to where you want it to be. Nothing is stretched, just reformed further out.
Original fired 6.5 Dutch military casing on left--- my reload on right
Attachment 323648

Close up of the two cases. You can see my reformed case shoulder is just slightly forward taking up the free head space
Attachment 323649

What causes the majority of stretching is the case being pushed forward by the ejector and or the firing pin. As the pressure builds the neck and front part of the shoulder expands adhering to the chamber walls. That is why leaving case lub. on the case helps minimize the stretching.

Bottlenecked cases with rim or belts tend to have a surprising amount of clearance on the shoulder. I've seen as much a .030" shoulder clearance, yet they were close to minimum headspace on the belt/rim.

I agree wiff dat.

One other thing to be careful about. I don't think I would do the lube cased procedure in a Krag action with factory ammunition or handloads with the same psi/cup. Not counting the rear safety, and only one locking lug, the bolt thrust eventually may crack at the lug or worse.

I too have seen Enfield rifles with perfect head spacing on the rim and shoulders so far forward that they are not safe to shoot with commercial ammunition.
I have a No1 MkIII sporter that had a chamber so long and out-of-round that it was a total waste trying to load for it.
I chambered it for 7.62x54R as the throat was so worn out from shooting hundreds or more of rounds of CORDITE
that keeping it in .303 was no longer an option. At that that time a replacement barrel cost more than another rifle!
It is a fun little carbine now to shoot and it is accurate.
The rifle at that time had little value, been drilled by hand for a scope, and not done right, the chamber was oblong and the muzzle would swallow a .303 bullet.
I did not ruin a collectors rifle.