I recently purchased a very nice Ideal No. 3 in .30-40 Krag with all the dies..including the de-capper which always seems to be missing. Nickle looks to be near 100% and hinge is nice and stiff. Also included was a .311 sizer die/punch so previous owner must of been a Boolit user.
I load .30-40 with cast in an 1896 & 1898 rifle and carbine. I also have a custom Sharps Borchardt in .25 Ackley Improved Krag..full length krag case with body blown out with nearly no taper with 40 deg. shoulder. On a whim, I tried the Ackley in the seating die..figuring with it's larger dia. body it wouldn't fit. There is quite a bit of room in an Ideal seating die..no way could one call it a precision fit! The Ackley case protruded 1/16" more from die end than std. Krag case..on account of sharper shoulder angle. I hand seated a NOE 100gr. F.N.G.C. up to gas check, inserted case in die & closed handles..resulting in a perfect concentric seated bullet. These old Ideals are...well Ideal!
I had planned on doing load workup at range with this rifle this year, as I have several .25 cast bullets to experiment with..looks like this old tool will come along.