As a note to anyone wishing to shoot in the Roosevelt Commemorative Matches and in need of 30-40 rounds or brass, please be sure to contact all of the manufacturers and send them requests for either brass or loaded ammunition. I have sent requests to every manufacturer who has had a history of manufacturing rounds or components and will continue to do so until I can get a response. Now that the CMP has instituted these matches it would be to someone's economic interest to manufacture the components we will need.

Thank you.

Thanks so much for taking the time to contact the manufacturers.  We all should take an active role in this.  I've written Remington, and a few independent brass manufacturers in the past with little response (one told me they had no intention in creating brass unless there was an enormous demand for it... like somewhere in the neighborhood or 100,000 pieces).  I, for one, have no intentions in retiring my Krags anytime soon... and my herd of useable brass is starting to thin a little (9 cracked necks this season)... so I need to start thinking of replenishment.

I've written PRVI more than once, and asked Graf's to throw in their voice.  They could easily sell 100,000, in time.  If all else fails, I got lots of long bullet molds and .303 brass.  But I won't need to go that way for some time yet.

I am running into short sighted production managers who think that the 30-40 round is dead. Considering that there are quite a few thousand Krag, Winchester, and even Ruger rifles in the hands of both hunters and competition shooters there would be sufficient demand for at least twice a year runs for either brass or live ammunition. I too am using 303 brass that has been reformed in shooting at present.

It's really silly of a company that already makes .303 to not make Krag brass too.  The bevel on the rim isn't a necessity, if they think that's a problem. 

My son and I have sent emails to Hornady urging them to consider making 30-40 brass. It would seem that this cartridge would be a good fit for them.

Seems odd that one can still buy a Uberti copy (+/-) of a Winchester High Wall in 30-40, with several different style options.

I sent e-mails to both winchester and remington and they would not even send me an e-mail back. Hope we can find someone or else I will have to use 303 brass even tho I don't want too.

I'm fortunate in that I started saving my brass over 30 years ago, so I amassed quite a lot of it (over 500 rounds worth).  Some of my brass, however has seen over 20 reloads, and is starting to wear very thin in the necks.  Every match now, I find at least one cracked neck.  Needless to say, my supply has been dwindling for awhile now.  Add to that the fact that I separated out 200 rounds for use with cast bullets in my benchrest sporter... and I'm down to under 250 useable cases left now.  I really don't want to resort to using .303 yet either.

I'm actually really pissed at myself for not buying new brass a few years ago when it was still available (and I had the money)!  Hopefully, we'll get Privi on board and get them making 30-40!

I'm not waiting for my brass to wear out.  I have picked up two bags of Winchester .303 brass as an emergency fall back.  That gives me one hundred pieces to work with when the end comes.

Heck I may just run out and get a couple more bags.

I should probably start looking into getting some too.

Just go out and pick up a nice Lee Enfield No. 1 Mk III and then you have an even better reason to stock up on .303 brass. Then you'll have a 2 for 1 going.

I have a SMLE somewhere in the pile along with two thousand rounds of S&B ammo.  Would you believe I have never shot it?  Of course I have seen neither of them since 2005.

As great as that sounds... one could wind up in a great deal of trouble if they weren't extremely careful.  Ammo loaded for 30-40 used in a British Enfield - no problem, although the accuracy would suck.  However, ammo loaded for .303 used in a Krag could spell a very bad day for the shooter!  Higher pressures coupled with the .312 dia. bullet would be well over the acceptable 40,000 cup acceptable pressure of the Krag action. 

Food for thought, and one of the reasons I'm very hesitant to use .303 brass for my Krags.  Although I don't own a .303 Enfield, I may one day!

Paul - With its case shoulder further forward, I don't believe a .303 round will chamber in a Krag. (So, it is not likely to be a safety issue).

.303 will have to be F/L resized in a .30-40 die.

Yeah... as soon as I saw your responses (Chuck and Paul), and thought about it for a nano-second... I realized I had suffered a catastrophic brain fart!  LOL

Belay what I said about trying to fire 303 in a Krag!

Well at first I thought you must taken one too many tokes from the hash pipe but I dismissed that right away because you sold that months ago for your krag addiction.  (One addiction at a time is what i say)  Then I thought maybe you had laid in a years supply of airplane glue but I thought about the people in your PBA group (Paper Bag Anonymous) who would be disappointed that you relapsed from plastic for paper. (Again)

Then it came to me in a snap of the fingers.  Ol' Steinmayer had a stroke.  That could be the only answer and sure enough I was right. 

To our visitors:

Steimayer's comments about firing loaded ammo is spot on.  Resizing brass in times of brass shortages will get you through the hard times.

While there's a certain amount of variation in U.S. Krag chambers and probably somewhat more in new .303 brass, it's been my experience that most .303 cartridges can be chambered in my Krag using only a minor amount of brute force turning down the bolt handle. Try it with some new .303 brass and you may be surprised. (Shoulders are pretty far back on most unfired specimens I've handled.)

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Naturally, firing this combination isn't a recommended practice - but probably wouldn't produce a disaster since the Krag's breech configuration provides outstanding case support, even if the primary (forward lug) is compromised.

That's how I sized my PRVI .303 brass.  It is nicely annealed and forms fairly easy in the rifle.

Too much information. Now, I'm confused!

The 'Loaded' military and commercial .303 British cartridges, that I have, will not chamber in the several .30-40 Krag rifles I have checked.

IMHO - It would be quite a task to force a loaded .303 round into a Krag chamber and close the bolt.

(It would be easy to re-form empty .303 brass in a .30-40 F.L. Resizing Die to fit the Krag chamber).

Photo comparing nickel plated .30-40 round with British Mk VII .303 round.

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butlersrangers wrote on Oct 8^th, 2016 at 4:05am:

IMHO - It would be quite a task to force a loaded .303 round into a Krag chamber and close the bolt.

While that may be true for your chambers and cartridges, I assure you it is not so for mine. Some force is required, but nothing that can't be applied by a normal bare hand (vintage 1945). Here are a few examples -

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Note how little shoulder deformation is needed to match the fired .30-40 case. Don't be confused by comparison of shoulder position with a new .30-40 case - there's a significant difference.

This is a good potential hazard to know. I would not want a future shooter to put a jacketed .314" projectile through a .309" bore.

It is our responsibility to clearly mark any non-standard ammunition and the firearm it is intended for.

Which sort of brings me back around to my brain fart (sorry... no stroke Culp).

I agree that the Krag has excellent case support... and Michael Petrov's experiments prove protection in the safety lugs should the single locking lug be compromised.  Still, I would worry that someone could try, and succeed in firing one, and the potential for failure does exist!  If I ever had to use re-formed .303... I would have to make darn sure that the brass used in my Krag was clearly identified as such!

Just today, someone brought me a box of .303.  Well he gave me the box after I dug a couple .303s out of his Winchester 94AE in 30-30.  It was a box of Winchester 180gr Power Point.  They go fairly easy into my Krag, takes a bit of extra force to close the bolt, but not a lot.  On the left is an unformed one, on the right, one that I closed the bolt on.  Bullet mics .3105", not likely to produce a whole lot of extra pressure in my .310" groove diameter barrel.  A handy thing to know in case of emergency, but emergency is the only scenario that would allow the use of .303 in a Krag.  I'm a handloader, no big deal to pull the bullets and remove a couple grains of powder.

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Of course I had to pull one down to satisfy my curiosity.  Winchester claims 2460fps for the 180gr bullet.  I was surprised to find 39.4gr of a stick powder, certainly not 4064 as I had some of that to compare.  I was expecting a ball powder.  .033 thick grains, about .085 in length.  Looking on the Hodgdon site, IMR4166 appears to be a likely candidate, producing 42,300CUP.

I do hope folks know that factory ammunition is normally loaded with "non-cannister" powders for which there is no precise equivalent available to handloaders.

I emailed Starline as they have just started producing a bottle neck rifle round, got no reply.