Thread: 30-40 Krag load conundrums

Originally Posted by zimmer

@grandpamac I had an interesting experience with an unknown ball powder. Back in the 70s I purchased a couple of thousand milsurp 30-06. Mostly Denver and Twin Cities. I think it ran at around 2c a shot.
I stripped the cartridges and repurposed the 4895, hollow pointed the projectiles, shortened the cases and sized to fit my 308. Reloaded as 308W it made excellent fodder for the goat culls my NZDA branch used to do.
I was busy using an inertia puller (hard work) to pull the projectiles and tipping the powder into an old Erinmore tobacco tin. I wasn't taking much notice but then saw a quantity of ball powder added to the stick 4895.
Sorted out the last projectiles pulled and found them to be tracer. Hadn't noticed that when I put them into the inertial puller.
The 20 round carboard packets were unopened. I never ran into any more tracer rounds but certainly kept a better eye out. Quite bizarre.

Greetings @zimmer and all,
The Ball powder may have been WC846. This was used in .303 ammo and possibly others during WW2 and was later marketed as Western BL-Type C by Hodgdon. I used some of that salvaged 4895 and the 150 grain M2 projectiles for target loads in my .308 in which they shot better than anything 150 grain with a boat tail. The components came from a friend whose father had used the salvaged .30-06 cases reformed for his 8mm in the 1960's. Handloaders in those days used a minimum of kit and whatever they could get to keep their rifles going. A different time.
Regards Grandpamac.