I have an old 30-40 Krag Carbine barrel that is in poor shape. I looked in all my reference books etc, and I cannot find any 35-40 Krag Wildcat listing. That would seem to be a natural for a shot out 30-40 barrel in that you would simply neck up a 30-40 case to 35 cal. You could probably get 2000 fps with a 200 grain bullet with no pressure problems.

Does anyone know why this cannot be done or if it has been done.

Gracias,

Hoot

Hoot What you are describing is a slightly shortened 35 Winchester. Not sure why anyone would want a 35-40 wildcat when the 35 Win was a factory round.

Jesse at 35caliber.com lists the .35 Krag as one of the chambers he can cut and rebore to. I've had very good results from him on a couple of rebores, one a Ruger No.1 to .35 Whelen and another an old Husqvarna .32-20 single shot to .38 Special.

Snowman.

For me it's the best option. I have a lot of brass, I have a barrel that only needs re-boring and I have a Krag Rifle. I looked in Ken Waters book on forming wildcat cartridges and it is damn near impossible to make 35 Win Brass. He had some done by a fellow who re-drawed the 30-40 brass so it would work. Thank you for answering my post.

Gracias,

Hoot

bpesteve,

Thanks for the imfo. Will probably send the barrel to them. Now I just have to look into the dies. I could wind up with a helleva lot of money in this project. Thank you for answering my post.

Gracias,

Hoot

Hoot Both Jamison and Quality Cartridge are making new cases in 35 Win cal. They can also be made from 7x65 Rimmed brass. So I can't see brass being an issue. Nothing wrong with going with a 35-40,if that's what you want.

Hoot, as long as you are not pushing pressures through the roof (unlikely for a Krag), you probably will find that .35 Remington dies work just fine. Obviously you won't be able to full length size, but .35 Remington dies work great for neck sizing and seating of .35 Krag cases. RCBS makes a dandy tapered expander button for opening .30 necks to .35 which comes standard in a set of .35 Whelen dies, or did for years, and I'm sure Huntington's could dig one up for you if you don't already have a way of doing that.

You will actually be able to get about 1900 ft./sec. with a 300 grain gas checked bullet. You'll have to tell the smith that the twist he puts in can stabilize that bullet. roger

Snowman,

Thanks for the information, but the best option for me is to simply neck up some 30-40 brass that I already have. Especially after seeing bpesteve's post. I already have 35 Remington dies, so it looks like for me I only have to re-bore the barrel and I am good to go.

bpesteve,

Thanks very much for the information on using a 35 Remington for the neck sizing. I have the 35 Remington die set now. Can one use the bullet seater die in the 35 Remington for seating bullets in the 35-40?

Gracias,

Hoot

bartsche,

I don't plan to shoot hot loads in the old Krag. I will have to look at some bullet molds and see which one I would prefer. One thing for sure, is that I would want a gas checked bullet. Do you have an idea of what twist to use for the 300 gn bullet. I would think that the standard 1 in 10 should be fine.

Gracias,

Hoot

quote:

Originally posted by Hoot Murray:
Can one use the bullet seater die in the 35 Remington for seating bullets in the 35-40?

The set of RCBS .35 Remington dies I have will easily accept .35 Krag to a length of 3.140", probably more, and still be able to crimp.

As to twist rate, when I had Jesse bore a .35 Whelen barrel for me, I asked for a 12 inch twist since I wanted to use bullets as heavy as the 310 grain Woodleigh. That has worked quite well.

If I were going to use cast bullets of up to 300 grains I wouldn't want a twist any faster than 12" either, so as not to over torque and possibly strip plain lead bullets.

quote:

Originally posted by bpesteve:

If I were going to use cast bullets of up to 300 grains I wouldn't want a twist any faster than 12" either, so as not to over torque and possibly strip plain lead bullets.

Sounds like sage advice to me. You have a hard time arguing with experience. roger

A word to the wise; use someone other than JES.
You can take a look at some threads about tight .35 cal barrels he's been letting out and at least one blow up on AR member justahunter 's rifle.
Worth the time to readup on JES lack of accountability.
The 35 Krag sounds like a cool fix to your problem, there are replacement .30 cal Krag barrels floating about as well.

the 35 Krag and the 35-30 are both super popular with the cast bullet crowd.
the 35 krag gets you up there with the 358 win without too much trouble.
rcbs makes a 200gr mold if you want to duplicate the 35 Remington's jacketed loads.
[low pressure=no sweat]
the 358009 is right near 300 grs and a 280gr version is available easy enough.
250grs is what I like in the 358 win since it is a good balance between speed [2400 fps] and penetration when using lead.
the 35 krag will run a 250 along at about 2100 fps without even trying too hard.

Thanks guys, now I have to find a good reputable company to bore the barrel.

Gracias,

Hoot

quote:

Originally posted by Hoot Murray:
Thanks guys, now I have to find a good reputable company to bore the barrel.

Gracias,

Hoot

Cutrifle.com

Oregunsmithing LLC

These are two I know of, haven't used either.

Jess reboring has been nothing but reputable for me. Everything I have had done by him has been top notch and I would use again in a heart beat. Fair price, Fast turn a round and accurate barrels.

JES has done well for me also. I had him do one a 30-06 to 375 Whelen. I recommended him to one of my best friends and he had 3 or 4 done and was happy with all of them. Two other acquaintances had one each done and were very pleased. I've read dozen of positive reviews on JES and only one negative and once that story was fleshed out the guy was using suspect ammo to start with.

I might be inclined to go with a 338/40 Krag, a bit more SD and that long 300 gr. Woodleigh would penetrate like hell...lot more bullet selection and there is just a lot of things about 33 caliber that I like..All that said why not just re-barrel or re-line it to a 30-40 Krag and maintain the original lettering on the barrel. Just food for thought.

Hoot, amigo, did you ever complete this project? I just fell into a Krag with a barrel that may or may not clean up. If it won't, I am thinking .35 Krag as well, as I was quite impressed with the .35-30 I played with a while back.
BPESteve, thanks for that intel on using .35 Remington dies, as the seemingly utter lack of off-the-shelf .35 Krag dies was discouraging.

Not to mention, unavailable to consumers from RCBS,as they told me. I truly understand reinventing the wheel. I've been doing it for decades. I suppose we all have a Grail quest in some form. After all the others that I have played with; for the last several years I have been enamored with Ross Seyfried's idea of a 30-416 AI. A 30 cal 180 G. bullet from a 416 Rigby parent case that could provide 4K M.V. Useless as tits on a nun I agree but we all have our interests.

Back when we could buy dies directly from RCBS the case form dies were $800 + the loading dies were another $400 +.inda put a damper on that project. But I got to thinking that the 338 Lapua is only a 416 necked down to 338 + the cost of dies necking down from a 338 to 30 should be considerably cheaper. Anyway, that is still my odd project for some time in the future. I think it should be done on a Ruger # 1 action. I can't see this as a bolt rifle,reallistcly.

I use 35Remington dies to reload 35-303Brit also.
They work as neck-sizing die and seater/crimp. Same as they do with a 35Krag.
I have 2 in that 35-303B caliber. One , a LeeSpeed came to me as converted by who I don't know. The other a Martini Sporter I had JES do and am entirely satisfied with the work.

303Brit brass can be used as Krag brass also. Simple resize in a Krag die or in this case a 35Rem die to form that neck.
They will be a bit short but work just fine.
I've heard all the stuff about burning out the chamber in my Krags using it. But in what's left of my lifetime of shooting,,I doubt it.

Plus I still have enough of real Krag brass left and I see Hornady is selling it at least for now at $1 an unprimed case.

I'll use the 303 reformed stuff in my less than perfect bore Krag sporter. Can't hurt that bbl.

You can stretch the 303 brass out a bit if you make up a set of dies to expand and then draw the case out slightly.
Something for the tinkerer and shop dweller to get involved in I guess.
But us older types do that sort of stuff for some reason when the real products are sitting right on the shelf for sale sometimes.
Go figure..

Here is a better idea/way. Yes, I have actually done it; not a theory.
Use 444 Marlin brass. Use 35 Whelen dies, cut off a bit.
No special custom dies or chamber reamers needed. Last one I did was on a #4 Enfield and the owner killed a bear and two caribou with it. Back when there were caribou in Quebec.

One other option is to buy a new Krag carbine barrel from CMP an leave the rifle a .30-40 Krag. The barrels are a match to original military barrels, and include all correct holes and cuts. I had dpcd install it for me, so he can also give you some insight. I went down this same rabbit hole and putting a new barrel on the rifle ended up being a much less costly route.

LIsten to Loud-n-Boomer, get a new knock off barrel...save big bucks..

I might add on these old Winchester 95s, 94s, 92c with shot out bores, many, if not most, of them still shoot pretty darn good even with the worst of bores and Ive messed with a hell of a lot of them over the years..low velocity and heavy bullets are less effected by bad bores than todays modern high velocity rounds..Its sure worth a try...I have a 30-30, a 38-40, a 25-35 with bores that look like the inside of a tramp steamers smoke stack, they all shoot under 2.5 inches at the most. Most of todays new 94s that Ive shot went 3.5 to 4"s at 100, not good.