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Thread: Alloy for .30-40 Krag, and pressures

  1. #21
    Boolit Master
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    Quote Originally Posted by Rich/WIS View Post
    Believe the groove was a carry over from BP and was a scraping groove to collect fouling from the prior shot.
    I did wonder about that. But the groove is so small. Then again, smokeless has much less fouling, so maybe that makes sense. Lots of strange things were done back in the day. This is a modern mold however. NOE.

    Lyman #2 i(95-5-5) should be quite a bit harder, about 15-16 BHN, than modern wheel weights (97-3Sb) which about 12-13 BNH.
    I have exactly zero experience with wheel weights other than tying them to duck decoys 40 yrs ago. I've cast a lot of bullets, but they have all be pure tin combined with pure lead. This stuff is very different but I think I have it working better now. The bullets look good anyway. We will soon see how they shoot (Friday, probably).

  2. #22
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    There were a number of boolit designs that had dirt scrapers on them, many of them designed specifically for use in the 30-40 for competition back in the early 19th century. There was a champion shooter named Hudson who designed a bunch of boolits back then, many of which had the dirt scraper, enlarged front band with the dirt collector groove in front of it. Some designs were intended to be hand-seated into fired, un sized cases, with the enlarged front band serving as sort of a stop-ring to hold the boolit from sinking into the cases, with the resulting cartridge single-loaded into the chamber. A fellow named Kephard was a major user of such loads, especially in 32-40 cases, and he had several moulds made up for such use.
    _________________________________________________It's not that I can't spell: it is that I can't type.

  3. #23
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    I've seen the scraper concept in blackpowder a lot, and even used it with paper patched bullets. This groove seems so small for that purpose, but what else could it be? So that must be it.

    I'm familiar with ring bullets as well and various other pseudo and true breech seating approaches. I've only seen a very few do well with the stop-ring bullets, for some reason.

  4. #24
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    Just an update. Shot 40 rounds with different powder charges. Excellent accuracy. I think these bullets will work just fine. I have a lot of things i can try yet, but most loads shot repeatable 5-shot groups in the 1.25" range at 100 yds. Really can't complain. Except for that trigger. I certainly can complain about that Krag trigger. Something else to work on.

  5. #25
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    Updated again.

    Took 60 rounds with 6 different loads out to the range to try for 200 yds. Nothing doing. I was lucky to hit the paper most of the time. Loads from 20 to 25 grs were all uniquely horrible. With the last 5 rounds which happened to be 20 gr, I went back to 100 yds to see if my early results had beeen a fluke but they shot quite well - about 1.25". So, something bad is happening from 100-200 yds. Horrendous bullet instability or something like it.

    Does anyone have the Lyman or NOE 311299 mold? If so, Could you measure its length for me?

    If anyone has the Accurate Molds 31-200L mold I would appreciate a length measurement on that too, but i think that one is listed on the website.

  6. #26
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    My Lyman 311299 measures 1.185 long without gas check.
    Is it possible your bullets are dropping from supersonic just before reaching the 200 yard target? That can cause your accuracy problem.
    I believe Dayton-Traister made an adjustable trigger for the Krag.

  7. #27
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    Quote Originally Posted by quack1 View Post
    My Lyman 311299 measures 1.185 long without gas check.
    Is it possible your bullets are dropping from supersonic just before reaching the 200 yard target? That can cause your accuracy problem.
    I believe Dayton-Traister made an adjustable trigger for the Krag.

    Many thanks. That is helpful. I think the bullet has to be unstable for something like this. I swapped a few notes with Mike Venturino yesterday and he recommends the 311299 over the 311284, and thinks that might solve my problem. I may give it ago, but I can only find a 314299 in stock. No 311299 so far. Midway lists the Lyman 311299 as only .309" diameter and this jives with some vague memory I have that recent Lyman molds are undersized. May go for the 314 version.

    Thanks for the trigger lead too. I'll chase that down a bit.

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Abbreviations used in Reloading

BP Bronze Point IMR Improved Military Rifle PTD Pointed
BR Bench Rest M Magnum RN Round Nose
BT Boat Tail PL Power-Lokt SP Soft Point
C Compressed Charge PR Primer SPCL Soft Point "Core-Lokt"
HP Hollow Point PSPCL Pointed Soft Point "Core Lokt" C.O.L. Cartridge Overall Length
PSP Pointed Soft Point Spz Spitzer Point SBT Spitzer Boat Tail
LRN Lead Round Nose LWC Lead Wad Cutter LSWC Lead Semi Wad Cutter
GC Gas Check