30-40 Krag + 5744 + heavy boolits ...

[Nick Adams]

I don't mean to be critical about your choice of propellants, but what is your obsession with 2,000 fps.+ loads in a 120 year old battle rifle? That old sweetheart has probably seen a lot of stressful conditions if it was used by soldiers at all.

2000fps was the velocity of the original Krag Mil load with a 220gn jacketed bullet.

The Lyman cast load discussed earlier indicates a 210gn 311284 HC boolit pushed to 1995fps as the listed book max using 28.0 gns of 5744. For a near duplication of the original mil-spec Krag load with a HC slug, that's pretty close.

My Gramps custom Krag sporter is actually in really good shape. The bore has good rifling and isn't pitted or fouled.

In hindsight, having re-read the Venturino Handloader piece again, (referenced above), if I load the 210gn boolits with 5744 I'll just stick to his data, where 24.0 gns was his max load.

If you want 30'06 performance, get yourself a high number Springfield and leave the old one lug pretty boys in the gun rack where they belong

Not looking for '30-06 performance' at all.

[clearwater]

Amen.

As I understand it, XMP-5744 was originally a European military powder. (Czech?) It wasn't good for the military use it was intended for, so it was surplussed, and it found a niche among cast-bullet shooters. Mike Venturino promoted it for the .30-06 and .45-70. The milsurp supply dried up, but the demand was such that Alliant got another powder maker to duplicate it. And that's what you get now as AA5744.

In the '90s I burned a lot of it in .35 Remington, for loads in the 25k to 30k range, where it worked well. At pressures under 20,000 it leaves a lot of half-burned kernels, and it's too fast to be used above 30k psi IMHO. An inflexible powder. I eventually dropped it. I never was one for the big cases, and in any event it doesn't meter well at all. I was at one time lining myself up to try it with cast bullets in the 7.5x55 Swiss, but Blue Dot and Varget proved so effective there that I never did.

Time to repost these photos of cracked Krag bolts, as a warning to them as wants to try to make the old girls emulate the .308:

Attachment 253836Attachment 253837

Alliant?

http://www.accuratepowder.com/products/rifle/

[clearwater]

Has anyone mentioned the hazards of using cast bullet date for jacketed yet?

[uscra112]

Alliant?

http://www.accuratepowder.com/products/rifle/

Thank you. Old age and brain fade.

[Nick Adams]

Has anyone mentioned the hazards of using cast bullet date for jacketed yet?

Yes. That lunacy has been sufficiently addressed.