The company I was with and I have parted company at their request so it looks like a greater chance I will be making it to Camp Perry this year.  Will be on the west side of the duck pond on Tuesday.

Having said all that I will be getting busy with my brass and sierra 220s I have squirreled away for this type of emergency.  I do have 185 lbs of rotometal linotype lying around too if that can be used to put bullets on target.

I have a bunch of IMR4895, varget, H110, 1680, 5744 and some 2400, 3031 and 4064 on hand.  What should I go with first?

And to take a quote from a Bugs Bunny cartoon.  "Pardon me, but can you help a fellow American who is down on his luck?".  Any one got an extra job in their back pocket?  I am keen on a job as a janitor at a school for wayward girls if one is available. 
:D

I'd go with jacketed if I were you.  I've tried cast in a few matches, works great for the first string, then accuracy deteriorates from there.  My last attempt was an 80rd match with my K31.  By the time I got to the end of that match, I had a heck of time getting my brass brush down the bore and the yellow brass was silver by the time I was done.  I was using babbitt bullets, a bit harder and tougher than lino. I therefore came to the conclusion that there was a reason those cast bullet benchrest shooters were cleaning their small artillery pieces after each string.  The majority of them are lino shooters too.

If you are trying long strings of cast bullets, slow everything down.  Try reducing MV to something under 1500 fps.  Not as much fun, but maybe better results.

That's one vote for Sierra.  I am of a similiar opinion.  Casting would be a new skill set and expense and I already have 85 percent of the tools needed for jacketed bullets.

Was sitting here going through the different bullet and powder sites for load data for 30-40 and other cartridges.  I don't recall having any 4350 in the "pile" so that will be on the list once I get back to the States.

Primers?  tens of pounds of WLR.  Powder? As stated. Brass?  Out the whazoo.  Bullets?  See: The whazoo.

Now I just have to get the 1895 from Turnbull's place and start working up loads. 

Could be, I was working around 2000fps with an Eagan 168 that fits like OJs hand in that glove, real tight.

Shoot those sierra 220s with either 40.0 of 4350... or an appropriate load of the 3031. 

By the way...  GREAT NEWS!  Are you heading my way soon?  You can join me in some local matches to spruce up your trigger finger!  Looking forward to seeing you again bud!

I think I will heading northwest in a few weeks.  I have to drop off a case of .22LR to a guy west of you.  Will keep you informed.  Might be after the 1895 is ready.

Awesome!  Look forward to seeing you!!!

If the two of you get your heads together, I'll bet you'd be able to come up with a box type charger for that 95.  A combination of  the back end of parashooter's krag design to get the right width for the rim, and that of a K31 charger, a couple examples of which I'll be sending to Paul soon, might work.  I'm not sure about the design of the 95, that'd be for you guys to figure out.

Ha!  Way ahead of you.  I have a couple of prototypes in my head.  The charger style would work if it was not a rimmed case so I am going a different direction.

:o

The Russian-contract 1895s had clip guides - perhaps you could fabricate and epoxy/silver-solder (so as to be removable) something like that, and I'll bet Russian stripper clips would take Krag rounds.

That is true.  I have not seen a Russian Winchester up close  but I would think they modded the feed lips with cutouts for the rim to use the chargers.  Just a guess.

The CMP rules state the rifles must be as issued so I can not go with a charger style loading device.  Dang

You can not modify the rifle... but you can use a charger that does not modify the rifle!  We'll figure something out!!!

I found a top view of a Russian here:    (You need to Login; I can see a modified parashooter design charger fitting right in there!  I don't know about the 30-40 feed lips, they'd about have to be similar to the Russians.  Here's a vid of Hickok loading 30-06, note he pushes the top round down with the head of the next round, then slides them back under the lips.  He may not be doing it right, those lips ought to expand a bit and one should be able to simply push a round down through them.    (You need to Login; If the 30-40 is like that, it's a major problem to overcome, but if they're like the Russian, you guys ought to be able to figure a way.  Here's an old illustration of the 95, it shows the rims stacked on top of each other, got to be a slot for those rims if that's the case or shorter rounds would be moving around, locking the rims.

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First rimmed 30-40 then 30-06

  (You need to Login

Second showing loading 30-40

  (You need to Login

The picture is nice but I think the reality is the rims are not rim to rim as drawned or like the chauchat but like the krag staggered one in front of the other.

No problem I think I have a fix for it. 

AND

An 1895 in 236 USN!  Now there is a rare gun.  I'm swooning.

I remember when 'Russian' Model 1895 Winchester military rifles began showing up in the 1960s through "Hunter's Lodge" and at gun shows.

IIRC - They sold for around $65.00 and were in very rough condition. (At the time, dirty & beat up Krag rifles sold for around $40.00. Good 1903 Springfields sold for $35 to $50. My Parents were buying a house and raising a family on $6,000 a year).

I suspect the M-1895 Winchester rifles must have come from Spain (Spanish CW surplus), since we were in the heart of the 'Cold War' and things were not imported from the Soviet Block.

This 1963 William's Gun-sight - "How to Convert Military Rifles" shows the fate of some of these rifles.

(p.s. - As a young collector, I would occasionally see some Winchester - .236 USN rounds in a Rimmed version. Does anyone know what rifle these were intended for)?

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Yea those illustrators sometimes took some liberties.  I had considered that.   Rimmed for the potato digger, or gatling guns, or maybe just for the 95?  Only things I can think of.  I'm sure you and Paul can figure it out, I just sent him a couple K31 chargers.  Those things are bringing $25/ea on ebay.  Well someone is asking that much.

As a young lad in the 50's, I also saw a few of the .236 Navy rimmed rounds.  My high school English teacher had a second job as the Collectible Cartridge Editor of the old Gun Report, so I asked him.  Here is what I was told:

In the early 1890s, about the same time that the Krag cartridge was being developed, the European military establishments (and Mexico) were investigating very small bore, smokeless cartridges with jacketed bullets.  A lot of experimental work was done in Germany & Switzerland; Bore sizes ranged from 5.5 mm to 6.5 mm.  That is where the 6.5 Mannlicher cases came from (Dutch, Rumanian & Carcano), and also the 6.5 x 55. 

Winchester did most of the developmental work that led to the 6mm Navy cartridge. The original cases were rimmed.  A very few (<5) Winchester single shot actions were used as test rifles for cartridge development.  There was (probably) a Gatling and a Browning "potato digger" machine gun made up for test purposes.  There are also some .236 rimmed cases made by Remington, with different shoulders. Remington was trying to keep on top of the new trends.  Remington made a few of their No. 5 rolling block rifles to test ammunition.

When the USN decided on a rimless case and the straight-pull action, developmental work on the rimmed cases stopped.

Winchester advertised their 1885 High Wall Single Shot and the 1895 in .236 Rimmed, but I think only a few developmental rifles were made.  After the rimless Navy cartridge was standardized, Winchester developed a rimless cartridge extractor for the High Wall and sold a few rifles in 6 mm USN caliber.

The Spanish-American War demonstrated that the 6mm Navy cartridge was out-ranged by both the Krag and the 7x57 Mauser cartridges.  That is why it was abandoned.

"Winchester faux pas of 1962".

Winchester PR department mislabeled Arizona Rangers (as Texas Rangers).

They also slighted the 'Gun Savvy' Arizona Ranger, who brought a Krag carbine to the labor dispute. (Man with necktie, 5th from the right).

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There were (at least) two rimmed versions of the .236/6mm.

One, a fatter cased version was known as the .236 Remington Sporting, and is quite rare.

The .236 Navy rimmed was - I believe - one of the chamberings in the M1899 bolt-action.

The teacher mentioned must have been Frank Wheeler. I corresponded a bit with Graham Burnside, another early writer and cartridge collector when I was in high school in the 1950s.

Thank you, gentlemen, for the insights on the Rimmed '6mm USN' cartridges.

madsenshooter wrote on Mar 28^th, 2016 at 3:50pm:

Yea those illustrators sometimes took some liberties.  I had considered that.   Rimmed for the potato digger, or gatling guns, or maybe just for the 95?  Only things I can think of.  I'm sure you and Paul can figure it out, I just sent him a couple K31 chargers.  Those things are bringing $25/ea on ebay.  Well someone is asking that much.

I think I have it figured out but I will need a llama, a roll of duct tape , and a midget with a pipe wrench to see if it will work.

Graham Burnside was my English teacher & was the guy I asked.  Yes, the Remington version was fatter & had rounded shoulders.  I believe that you could theoretically buy a Remington No. 3 (Hepburn) in that caliber also. 

But if you had appeared in either Illion or New Haven with 3 double eagles in your pocket and wanted either the 1899 or the 1895 repeaters, could they hand you one?

Later in life (ca. 1992) I had the pleasure of meeting Graham face-to-face. Quite a guy.

One of my trips to UL in Chicago, in connection with testing the line of bullet-resistant doors my employer was producing, chanced to fall on the weekend of his annual hog-roast, which proved to be a blast. Frank Mallory drove out from MD for the event, as well. Good memories! Somewhere (I hope) I have a picture taken with the three of us in front of the barbecue spit.

Culpeper wrote on Mar 28^th, 2016 at 8:15pm:

I think I have it figured out but I will need a llama, a roll of duct tape , and a midget with a pipe wrench to see if it will work.

I'm standing by with a roll of duct tape and whistling for a Llama (the animal kind... not the Dali).  The midget with a pipe wrench is Bob's department!

Here's a clip that kept the rims stacked in order, the Parkhurst.  That may or may not be necessary, wish I had a model 95 in hand.  The Mosin and .303 clips don't necessarily keep them stacked in order.  Fellow that was shooting an Enfield from my point experienced a case of rim lock that left him with a very low rapid fire score.  I found .303 clips a bear to get the rounds out of.

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I thought about my parkhurst clip, too, but dismissed it out of hand for the same reason as the russian clips and that loading system.

I will have to wait for the winny to come out of the shop

A Spanish Civil War '95 Winchester, supplied by Soviet Russia.

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