Greetings @
akaroa1,
A month or so back I suggested, half jokingly, that I may use my 30-40 Martini in a 300 yard F class shoot. A little later I dug the hole deeper so am now committed. A little while ago I measured the throat on my rifle and found that the 165 grain Hornady Interlock could be seated 1mm from the lands and still have around 7mm of projectile seated in the case. This was as far as I had got when I spotted your OP to this thread. I gave myself a mental clip around the ears and reminded myself that, fortunately for us handloading junkies ammo does not load itself.
A document search of data revealed little I would trust but I knew that the net case capacity of the .30-40 Krag and the .308 Win were close to the same so the velocities and pressure should be similar and the start loads for the .308 would be close to Max in the .30-40. Hodgdon listed a start load of 41 grains of H4895 (AR2206H) for 2,525 fps and 38,600 CUP. This is in a 24 inch barrel, same as my Martini.
I would still like to see some comparable data for the Krag that backed up my assumptions so I was rummaging around in the Load Data dot com website that I subscribe to and found loads by Brian Pearce developed for the .30-40 in a Browning 1895 rifle with a 24 inch barrel. He listed a start load of 33.5 grains of H4895 for 2142 fps and a max of 36.9 grains for 2,326 fps. This is close to what you would expect based on the .308 start load data.
AR2206H was selected as I have plenty of it and it tolerates lighter loads although it does shoot a bit dirty. It has also been used in my .308 rifles for soft target loads, 40 grains and later 38 grains with 150 grain projectiles. Both showed signs of low pressure and could be handloaded endlessly with just neck sizing. There are a few 165 grain projectiles in the shed so I had better get cracking.
Regards Grandpamac.
Bookmarks