hporter
Active Member
I picked this little carbine up about 8 years ago. It finally worked it's way up to be a project for me.
It caught my eye when I saw that it was re-chambered in 30 Government. So I bought it from an online auction site thinking it might be a fun companion to my Krags and my Ruger #3 in that caliber..
I haven't fired it yet. I do have a 30-40 Krag no-go headspace gauge (that it will not close on), but I don't have a go-gauge. Empty brass chambers fine.
I never fooled with it after purchase because I couldn't get the enbloc clips to work with 30-40 brass. It sat lonely in the back of the safe since then.
So I got it out this week, and tried again to see about getting the brass to feed. The 30-40 brass will not load into the enbloc clip, and "making it fit" doesn't help because the bolt will not strip the cartridge into the chamber from the clip/magazine well.
So I did some internet searching and saw that people use 303 British brass to form the original 6.5 Dutch round because the rim sizes are so close. That reminded me that 303 British and 30-40 Krag cases are pretty close cousins, with the 303 British rim being slightly smaller than the 30-40 Krag.
So out to the garage I went to retrieve a couple 303 cases. A little imperial wax and a trip through the 30-40 Krag sizing die and seating a 311299 bullet with no powder or primer resulted in a case that not only fit into the enbloc clip, but stripped off the clip effortlessly and into the chamber. Hmmmm...... Now we may be getting somewhere.
So I need to re-size and load some 303 British cases up for a test in the near future.
I wanted to ask the Winchester Guru's on the site what action this barrel might have been taken from?
It was dovetailed on the bottom of the barrel for a rear sight, which seemed strange as the Winchester barrel roll mark is visible from where the top of the barrel is exposed in the stock. Maybe it was used for another project before this one?
It caught my eye when I saw that it was re-chambered in 30 Government. So I bought it from an online auction site thinking it might be a fun companion to my Krags and my Ruger #3 in that caliber..
I haven't fired it yet. I do have a 30-40 Krag no-go headspace gauge (that it will not close on), but I don't have a go-gauge. Empty brass chambers fine.
I never fooled with it after purchase because I couldn't get the enbloc clips to work with 30-40 brass. It sat lonely in the back of the safe since then.
So I got it out this week, and tried again to see about getting the brass to feed. The 30-40 brass will not load into the enbloc clip, and "making it fit" doesn't help because the bolt will not strip the cartridge into the chamber from the clip/magazine well.
So I did some internet searching and saw that people use 303 British brass to form the original 6.5 Dutch round because the rim sizes are so close. That reminded me that 303 British and 30-40 Krag cases are pretty close cousins, with the 303 British rim being slightly smaller than the 30-40 Krag.
So out to the garage I went to retrieve a couple 303 cases. A little imperial wax and a trip through the 30-40 Krag sizing die and seating a 311299 bullet with no powder or primer resulted in a case that not only fit into the enbloc clip, but stripped off the clip effortlessly and into the chamber. Hmmmm...... Now we may be getting somewhere.
So I need to re-size and load some 303 British cases up for a test in the near future.
I wanted to ask the Winchester Guru's on the site what action this barrel might have been taken from?
It was dovetailed on the bottom of the barrel for a rear sight, which seemed strange as the Winchester barrel roll mark is visible from where the top of the barrel is exposed in the stock. Maybe it was used for another project before this one?
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