The 30-40 Krag Rifle

The 30-40 Krag was adopted as the U.S. Army's first small bore service rifle cartridge in 1892. It was adopted into service to replace the 45-70, with the 30-40 Krag pushing a 220 grain bullet at about 2200 feet per second it was a vast improvement. Captain Ole H.J. Krag of Norway was the genius behind the bolt action that used the 30-40 Krag. Even when the 30-40 Krag was originally denoted as the U.S. Magazine Rifle Model 1892, it took on the name of "The Krag" without any prompting.

The Krag rifle was a quite odd looking rifle but proved to be incredibly reliable and smooth in the action. Even today as new technology is working on new firearms and cartridges the bolt action of the Krag is still considered one of the smoothest bolt actions around the market. Although the action was not particularly strong it was perfectly designed for the power of the 30-40 Krag cartridge. So well in fact that the 30-40 Krag served this country very well, and when the 30-40 Krag saw the end of their run in the military and were denoted as military surplus almost all of them found great new homes within civilian walls, and the DCM or Director of Civilian Marksmanship sold many Krag rifles,Carbines, and low cost reloading parts and supplies.

Outside of the military the 30-40 Krag saw a very successful life as a hunting cartridge. While commercial ammunition was loaded with 220 grain bullets, it was able to achieve deep penetration on even the larger game of the North American Continent. With heavier bullets the 30-40 Krag cartridge has been known to take Moose and Elk, but a little underpowered for the bigger bears of the wild. IF loaded with the 180 grain bullets the 30-40 Krag cartridge is very capable of taking deer out to 250 yards, not to bad for a 1892 cartridge design.

Most of the military rifles of the Krag have a generous throat to accommodate the long service bullet, and because of this many Krag shooters have found that even though the heavier bullets are just plain fun to shoot the bullets lighter than 180 grain usually performed better. The odd part about the Krag rifles was simple the irregularity of the manufactured rifles, some have a nominal groove diameter of 0.308 while other have been know to go to 0.314 at maximum. In these cases you may have to change up what type of bullet you are loading until you find one that fits the best, whether it be actually for the 303 British or a regular 30-40 Krag cartridge 0.308 bullet. Any way you cut it a good condition Krag with the nominal diameter of 0.308, has been known and proved to shoot excellence groups even today over 100 years after its creation.

Although the 30-40 Krag cartridge is known for the rifle of the same name it has also been chambered by Winchester in the Model 1895 lever rifle and the 1885 single shot or "High Wall", Remington has also produced a fine firearm that was chambered in the 30-40 Krag like the #3 single shot carbines. With the attention that the 30-40 Krag get even after 100 years after its creation there will be plenty of 30-40 Krag cartridges to go around.