Like the old Bud Light commercials - today we salute YOU, Mr. This 1896 Krag Is Chambered In .303 British And I've Got The Fired Cases To Prove It Guy.

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And he fired 303 ammo in it. I suppose it could have been converted but seems unlikely.

Wow! 120 pictures to show off his .303 shooting Krag rifle. That's sure some strange cleaning rod he found in the butt trap also.

That metal is so in the white it almost looks like it's nickel plated.

The thing is so valuable he's handling it with museum gloves.

Other than not having any finish left, a few small stock cracks and a touch of rust, this Krag doesn't seem to be in that bad of shape.

Nice vintage sling, too.

I'd buy it for $300.

Shame the stock has been sanded or refinished. I also was thinking drill rifle as nickled as it looked.

Could it be possible that the chamber was modified to the .303 case dimensions (reamed to advance the shoulder), but the bore is still 30 caliber... but perhaps oversize.  It is possible to throw a .312 bullet down a .311 or .310 sized bore with little problems.  My guess would be that someone reamed the chamber to .303 dimensions because of the scarcity of 30-40 ammo and brass.

Maybe he was just ignorant and shot .303 British out of a .30-40 Krag chamber?

Can't say what would happen. I've never tried it!

IIRC - 'Parashooter' has displayed, a number of times, that the Krag bolt can be closed on a chambered .303 British round, with a bit of 'springing' of the cartridge case.

It is probably good that there is a bit of 'freebore' and that many Krag barrels are .309" across the grooves.

I got tired of looking at the redundant photos.

120 photographs! The man is either incompetent or an aspiring 'hand-model', (or both)!

What you see X 120 is what you get.

butlersrangers wrote on Mar 26^th, 2020 at 2:02am:

IIRC - 'Parashooter' has displayed, a number of times, that the Krag bolt can be closed on a chambered .303 British round, with a bit of 'springing' of the cartridge case. . .

Yup, doesn't take much to crank a Krag down on a .303 round. (By SAAMI specs, difference in length to start of neck between .303 case and .30/40 chamber is just .057" - and .303 shoulder is decidedly slimmer.) If you look at the aution photo of fired .303 cases it's pretty obvious that's the route taken.

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Attached photo below demonstrates chambering (NOT firing) various .303's in my '98 Krag.

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With 303 having SAAMI max of 49000psi and CIP being even higher doesn't seem the owner of that rifle was smart to shoot it in a Krag  and with an oversized  bullet even if it can be forced to chamber. 

No horse in the race-not defending anyone or trying to start something but it’s possible the 303 case was a hand load resized to 30/40

I made some emergency ration [during the brass shortage] .303s into .30-40s for my Krag scout rifle. Shot fine but I didn’t try any real .303 loads in it.

Baltimoreed wrote on Mar 26^th, 2020 at 11:10pm:

I made some emergency ration [during the brass shortage] .303s into .30-40s for my scout rifle. Shot fine but I didn’t try any real .303 loads in it.

I am going to go out on a limb and guess that you are not a risk taker. Using 303 brass for reloading with sane Krag loads - no risk.

Putting a higher pressure 303 round through a .308 diameter barrel is very risky. Maybe the guy has one of the early barrels that was really .311, but he is still living on borrowed time, on a hot day with 49K PSI the pressures could really get out of hand. If he has done a lot of this insanity he may have set the locking lugs back and have greatly increased his head space.

While shooting the .303 in a Krag is probably not wise... the likelihood of shearing off the locking lug and sending the bolt into the shooter's face is doubtful (I refer to the late Michael Petrov's experiments).  Now cracking the lug, receiver or both is more likely, I suspect it would hold up longer than people think.  Again, refering to Petrov... he used a case full of Bullseye before he finally destroyed his Krag, and this was after shooting several loads that far exceeded the recommended max 40,000 CUP.

These old guns are much stronger than they’re given credit for.
Referring to Mr. Petrov again, apparently the Trapdoor took so much abuse before detonating he would never publish the data!!  Sure would love to see those numbers just for scientific curiosity.

The proof mark on Krag barrels supposedly showed that after production testing was done successfully with a load rated at 70,000 psi. PSI and CUP ratings are somewhere around 7% of each other, + or -.

So, the "safe" rating of 40,000 CUP does not mean that things start blowing a part at 40,001 CUP. There's some room to spare, Mr. Petrov's experiments not to be ignored, though.

But.  ...But.  ...But what about 40,000.25?  The Horror!  That's it.  I have the answer to safely handle my Krags.  I'll put together some deer hunting rounds using spent primers.

Whew.  Now I will not have to worry if 112 will blow up on me while I am hunting.  ::)

I agree.  Some folks (no one here) forget that the gun designers in the late 1800s were accomplished and talented engineers who would never put their names on an inferior and dangerous gun that could cause harm to people.

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I have been hanging around here long enough to know the Krag is relatively strong and long lived if common sense is used.
I got the impression the seller had been feeding hundreds of rounds of 303 through it. Finally looked at the ad and 3 rounds. He bought it from someone that thought is was converted. Maybe he is just an idiot for goofy advertising, instead.

I have never touched a drill to a Krag receiver, but it has been described by a gunsmith that I trust as hard on the case and butter soft under the case. Looked at the fellows gauging of the barrel with a 303 round, I would guess that barrel is closer to. 308 than . 311 or .313. All that said if 303 rounds are loaded to 49K Cup then this thing has operating at 30.06 pressure levels for some time. Butter soft steel will move under abuse even though no cracks show. I think this would happen mainly in the receiver as the bolt treated with cyanide on the lug would be harder since more surface area on the angles and corners would have been benefited from the extra carbon.

My worry was that increased head space could lead to a separation in the extractor area. Looked at a loose Krag barrel and that is pretty unlikely. If the headspace is stretched on this one, a person could keep on using 303 brass with 308 bullets and stop further damage. It is a shame this was done to an otherwise nice looking rifle. Maybe the first owner that did the 303 thing, only shot a few rounds and damage is minimal to non-existent. I would pass on it because of the unknown.

FredC wrote on Mar 27^th, 2020 at 2:29pm:

. . . if 303 rounds are loaded to 49K Cup then this thing has operating at 30.06 pressure levels for some time. . .

This topic demonstrates the level of confusion arising from old and newer pressure methods. By current SAAMI standards Maximum Average Pressure (MAP) for .303 British is 49000 psi measured by piezo transducer and 45000 CUP by the old copper crusher method. These pressures are actually the same - it's only the method that's different. Old publications from before general adoption of piezo equipment usually express crusher pressures as "psi", leading to many misunderstandings.

The latest SAAMI publication I have doesn't list a transducer pressure for the .30/40 cartridge (probably due to low production) but specifies a MAP of 40000 CUP (crusher). While the difference between this pressure and the .303's 45000 CUP is substantial, it's not what I'd call catastrophic. In addition, the .303 cartridge shown in the auction is likely Winchester commercial 180-grain - not necessarily loaded to maximum pressure.

Table below comes from an old Hercules data booklet -

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This is the same kind of tabulation that shows there is a + or - 7% variation between these two pressure unit determinations.

Good discussion about concerns for over-pressurizations and re-loading concerns with these older firearms.

Parashooter,
We have discussed this before does not hurt to do it again, thanks for the chart. Interesting that the 2 straight cases that I see 45/70 and 30 carbine show the same pressure for both styles.
303 and 308 with very similar powder capacities are 9 and 15 percent different.

With the Krag in the ad we do not know the actual bore size, if it happened to be .307 just a fuzz on the tight size the pressure could be a lot different than the 45/49 for 303 standard commercial ammo.

Proof rounds were mentioned at 70K. One proof pressure test in old riveted boilers made them stronger by shifting all the rivets till they were bearing evenly. Without the proof test only a couple might have had a load, when they failed the next tight ones would bear the load till they failed, pretty soon you get a catastrophic failure at what should be a safe pressure. I think the same principle applies to the proofing of the original Krags, the lug surfaces have slight angles on them, proofing would mush the surfaces slightly so that a higher percentage of those surfaces were bearing the load. One advantage the rifle has is normal wear would help the surfaces mate over time without proofing. Constant repeated overloads can not be good for a boiler or an rifle.

As always... Para comes through with the good stuff.  Many thanks Para!

This all boils down to misinformation, misunderstanding, and downright confusion.  As FredC says, there are too many unknowns.  Was it REALLY chambered for .303, or did some unsuspecting or uneducated shooter simply not know the difference (to the untrained eye, at first glance, one could easily mistake .303 for 30-40).  Without actually speaking to the first guy sticking a .303 into it... and without actually measuring the chamber/barrel/receiver/etc., there are too many things left to chance!

FWIW - If I understand the Springfield Armory procedures correctly, our barrels were proofed with special (sub-caliber) cartridges before they were rifled, out-side contours were turned, and several straightening operations were performed.

The barrels received this initial proofing before being "finished" & screwed into their ultimate Krag actions.

(The actions were likely proofed in a different process).

IIRC - A percentage of finished Krags, from a 'lot', underwent an additional proof firing.

I've been given several varieties of .303 British ammo but I have no .303 British rifles.  So most of the .303 got sized down in my tightest chambered Krag and it's now emergency Krag ammo, or it could still be used in .303 since headspace is on the rim.  I'd use it in a sporter that has a .3105 groove diameter barrel if I needed to.  Most is hunting ammo, but there's also some South African ball of WWII production.