As for date of manufacture, the barbrel was stamped 10-12, so October 1912?

The Rock Island serial number was 200,000 something as I recall.

I doubt a gas check came off since they are seated in the neck and not hanging in space down below. Even so, it would be so light lying on only a moderate percentage of the powder, I can't see it having much effect that way.

Fred, I don't know what to make of that reloading stuff you found. I took my numbers from the Lyman Cast Bullet Book, 4th Ed. Most manufacture's manuals seem to be very lacking in cast bullet data, esp for modern cartridges.

Interestingly, the same reference for the .30-40 Krag with this bullet starts at 19.0 gr and has a max of 26.5 gr. The .30-06 started at 28 and goes to 38.5 (this for the 210 gr 311284 bullet that I was using).

Then going down slightly in weight to the 311299 (200 gr), the Max for 5744 is only 29.5 in the .30-06. Seems odd that a lighter bullet would have MUCH lower max than a heavier bullet in the same cartridge and for only a 10 gr difference in weight that seems like a lot of difference in the Max charge. The pressure of this 29.5 gr max load is 33,200 psi, just slightly higher than the pressure of the starting load for the heavier bullet. Peculiar.

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BrentD, (Professor - just for Stan)

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