Other than shooting events, what else can the GAF do?

[pony express]

The Carcano had that weird gain twist rifling.

One of our local members has been trying to work up a load for GAF with one, no luck so far with cast bullets. Seems like the gain twist works well with the jacketed bullets, but not so well with cast. I seem to recall that some origional C&B revolvers had it, maybe works better with round balls than loooonnnggg cast 6.5 bullets.

[cpt dan blodgett]

Pony Express,  Don't want a Krag. I plan to get a truly magnificent piece of shooting equipment...a 96 Mauser. I don't think there are sights made that can get a Krag to shoot that distance without the use of artillery sighting calculations.  OK guys, let me have it!

BTW,  I have found that the old 44 WCF loaded to 1300/1400 fps (1800s vel.) can knock down some pretty heavy stuff at 500 yds. I was truly amazed. Gonna take some of those rounds to Whittington this year and have at the "Banana Rock".

LTC Montgomery Little, Senior Chaplain, GAF

Check out the ballistics of the 8mm danish krag, 196 grains at 2744 fps.  That sir is pretty stout, essentially the ballistics of wwII german 7.92 mauser.    Hornandy 190 grainers in 30-06 Max out between 2700 and 2800 with most powders

[Delmonico]

One of our local members has been trying to work up a load for GAF with one, no luck so far with cast bullets. Seems like the gain twist works well with the jacketed bullets, but not so well with cast. I seem to recall that some origional C&B revolvers had it, maybe works better with round balls than loooonnnggg cast 6.5 bullets.

May be more than the rifling, I remember the second edition Hornaday manual basically said they didn't think the rifle was hardly worth the effort they spent developing data for it. 

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[pony express]

May be more than the rifling, I remember the second edition Hornaday manual basically said they didn't think the rifle was hardly worth the effort they spent developing data for it. 

Actually, they can be made to shoot pretty well with jacketed, but they have a larger bore diameter than .264, so most bullets available are a poor fit. Hornady now makes a .268 bullet for it, but that's actually a little too big, and can cause pressure problems. I think the origional load was with a .266 long straight sided round nose. I have a 1941 Carcano that shot ok with a few rounds of factory ammo, haven't loaded any yet for it. Those have regular rifling, though. I've read somewhere, I think it was an article reprinted on Surplus Rifle Forum, someone did experiments years back trying to blow up different milsurp bolt actions. In the Carcano, a case full of Bullseye caused a case failure, but the rifle was still ok. They eventuallu blew the barrell out of the action, but the action itself held. The Carcano and Arisaka were among the strongest ones.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

Check out the ballistics of the 8mm danish krag, 196 grains at 2744 fps.  That sir is pretty stout, essentially the ballistics of wwII german 7.92 mauser.    Hornandy 190 grainers in 30-06 Max out between 2700 and 2800 with most powders

WARNING; DO NOT PUT THAT LOAD THROUGH A ROLLING BLOCK.  There has been quite a discussion on gunboards.com about safe rolling block loads. 

http://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?2511-8x58RD-Data-from-Norma-Tech-Dept***

[pony express]

That sounds kind of hot from a Krag action, too. Don't dee how that could be under 40,000 psi. There is an old thread somewhere on Gunboards about a Rolling Block blowup somewwhere in Europe. They weren't sure exactly what load blew it, the shooter was killed by a piece of the breech block, and he had a variety of .50 cal cartridges laying on the bench beside him. Ranged from .50-70 and the correct 12.? MMSwedish, up to .500 nitro express! Guess he was just seeing what would chamber and fire.

[Sir Charles deMouton-Black]

I have heard that same story and belive it to be fact.

Swedish and Norwegian rollers were built from 1867 until the mid-1870s.  in 1889 the Swedes converted many to the 8 X 58 danish Krag cartridge. The actions were re-heat treated and new breach blocks manufactured. Initially it was loaded with black (like the 303 Brit) but when smokeless was loaded it had to be kept at a much lower pressure than the Krag could run. The trouble is that some erroneous loads were published some time back that are dangerous.

Recently container loads of these old rollers have been imported to the US (Allan's armoury & Simpson) and Canada (Trade ex Canada).

I would strongly reccommend that anyone wishing to shoot these firearms join gunboards and stick closely to the advice disclosed there.  These rifles are among the better ones, but they are still old.