I was reading in an old handloaders digest about the 30-40 krag round being one of the if not the first govt. Round to use gas checks. I went on to talk about the rounds use in long range target competition. Here is where it got interesting. It said competitors used plain based bullets with cream of wheat between the powder and bullet because they did not have copper gas checks. This kept the bullet base from being damaged upon firing. I knew cream of wheat was used for fire forming but never heard of it used as an organic gas check!  The article said the round was accurate at 600 yards. Anyone ever here of this?

I have heard of cream of wheat being used quite a lot in shot gun shells as wadding. It was cheap, easily obtainable and quite effective.

So, I guess it was used for more than just shotgunning!

I think it would work if it was kept in a hardened paste form and retained in the neck of the cartridge case, like a card wad.  If you put it loose on top of a full charge (for hard-cast bullets) of smokeless, maybe 1600 fps, I think you are courting danger. 

There is a lot written about damaged "ringed" chambers in original single shots, even with barrels made by Winchester and Remington.  The problem stems from over-powder wads, stuff like Dacron. 

When I use to shoot in Civil War "Skirmishes", from 1968 to 1976, a measured amount of loose 'Cream of Wheat' was put on top of the reduced Black Powder charge (of, approximately, 45 grains of FFFg) in Smith's, Maynard, Gallagher, and Burnside carbine cartridge cases.

The reproduction cartridge cases, for these carbines, held too much powder for accurate 50 to 100 yard target shooting. The 'Cream of Wheat' filled air-space and also prevented 'bullet lube' from contaminating the powder. A slight compression kept everything positioned in layers.

This worked well in this specialized application and these C.W. Percussion-Carbines were accurate and fast.

The .50 to .54 caliber Pure Lead carbine projectiles weighed around 350 grains and were lubricated with a Beeswax and tallow mixture. The cartridge cases were 'straight-walled', withstanding BP pressures in reduced-loads, a whole different cartridge situation.

Ringed the chamber of one my rifles using a filler called Puf-Lon.  Ground cellulose I think.  I got a little bit more in one case vs the others, noted it and pushed it on down in the case.  I noted it took a bit more squeeze to get it down in there.  Pretty sure it was the one out of several loads that did it.  I shot it some ringed, but wasn't comfortable with having something that was stressed to the stretching point under my hand! The steel formula for the Krag barrel has no chrome moly, they are a bit softer than later developed barrel alloys.  Now I look to fill the case with powder or use a powder that is known to burn consistently w/o a filler. 

Thanks: I do not plan on trying this in my rifle. The bore is clean and gas checks are not that hard to find. I guess at the time it served a purpose for the target shooter wanting higher velocity.

Believe I read in an old Gun Digest article on the Krag that the CoW loads worked but it was found they raised pressures enough that it stopped being used.  Thought I had saved the article but either I didn't or anyway can't find it.

I haven't loaded much BP beyond my 1858 Remington .44 Ball and Cap.  However, I've been told multiple times that Cream of Wheat is just the thing to take up the space when loading BP cartridges when using reduced loads to keep everything nice and compressed.  I'm going to be loading 45/70 sometime in the near future... and since it'll be for an original 1873 Carbine (405 gr and 55 grains), I don't want to FUBAR anything!