.30-40 Krag Ammo (2026): Who Still Makes It, What It Costs and What’s Safe in Old Rifles

Last updated October 2026

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Yes, .30-40 Krag ammo is still made. Hornady, Remington and Winchester all catalog a 180-grain soft point, and HSM, Steinel and Buffalo Arms fill in around them. On the day we checked, the dealers on our price cards had 20 listings, with boxes of 20 starting at about $41.

That catches people off guard, because 30-40 Krag ammo has a reputation as an orphan. The rifle left Army service before World War I and the cartridge went through some long dry spells on store shelves.

But every factory load on sale today was built around the Krag’s one real weakness, a bolt that locks on a single lug.

So with 30-40 Krag ammo, the question to ask is less about the box and more about the rifle. This guide covers who makes it, where to find 30-40 Krag ammo for sale and what it costs per round, what to have checked on an old Krag before you shoot it, and what the round will do on deer and elk.

.30-40 Krag at a Glance

The .30-40 Krag is a rimmed, bottleneck .30-caliber rifle cartridge the US Army adopted in 1892. It fires .308-inch bullets, and its SAAMI maximum average pressure is 40,000 CUP.

30-40 Krag Ammo: The Good and the Bad

Table of Contents

Who Still Makes 30-40 Krag Ammo in 2026

Six companies list 30-40 Krag ammo in 2026: Remington, Winchester and Hornady each catalog a 180-grain soft point at 2,430 fps, and HSM, Steinel and Buffalo Arms make smaller runs that include round-nose and lead bullets.

We went to each maker’s own pages on October 1, 2026. The velocity and status columns are what those pages said that day, except Steinel’s, which is an April 2026 capture.

The three big-maker loads are ballistic twins, which makes choosing easy. Hornady, Remington and Winchester all publish 180 grains at 2,430 fps for 2,360 foot-pounds.

Our dealers also stock two HSM loads, a 150-grain GameKing and a 165-grain lead flat nose sold as a cowboy action load. None of them had the Winchester load when we checked, and we couldn’t find a .30-40 Krag load from Prvi Partizan. And we found no hotter “+P” style load from any of the six makers above, which matters for the rifle section below.

It’s the same story we found with 8mm Mauser ammo, where the American loads are held far below the European ones.

What 30-40 Krag Ammo Costs in 2026

New 30-40 Krag ammo for sale at our dealers costs about $2.05 to $2.65 a round for Hornady Custom and $2.53 to $3.72 a round for Remington Core-Lokt, going by the listings our dealers had on October 1, 2026.

Prices are for a box of 20. They move, and so does availability, so use the live cards for what’s available today.

Two things stand out in 30-40 Krag ammo prices. Hornady and Remington publish the same velocity and energy, and the Hornady box is cheaper by ten dollars or more at most dealers. And Remington’s own site lists its load at $94.99, well above what any of our dealers charge for it.

It costs about double the common rounds. On the same day, 170-grain .30-30 started at $22.26 a box on our cards, 180-grain .303 British at $23.51 and 150-grain .30-06 at $21.99. Our ammo price report tracks those calibers.

The reason is volume, and it’s also why the supply has run dry before. American Rifleman reported 1980s boxes selling at gun shows for more than $2 a round during the lean years. Hornady has cataloged the load since 2018, which has steadied things. Our advice hasn’t changed: when you see your load, buy two boxes and keep the brass.

What’s Safe in Your Rifle

The SAAMI limit that makers load .30-40 Krag ammo to is 40,000 CUP, a figure that exists because of the Krag rifle, so the box is rarely the problem. The rifle is. Find yours in the table.

Steinel is the one maker that says in writing which rifles its load is for. It calls it “appropriate for original Krag rifles in good mechanical condition” and names the Model 1892, 1896 and 1898 Krags, Krag sporters and the Winchester Model 1895.

Gun Digest notes that the Model 1895 is considered safe at somewhat higher pressure than the Krag, with a caution attached. That’s a handloader’s question. We found no hotter factory load from the six makers above, so the stronger rifles get a safety margin and nothing more. Our best lever-action rifles roundup covers the modern lever guns.

Don’t have the rifle yet? This card shows the Krags our dealers have right now. The best military surplus rifles roundup compares them with the Mausers, Enfields and Mosins, and a curio and relic license makes buying one simpler.

Why Every 30-40 Krag Load Is Mild: 40,000 CUP

SAAMI limits the .30-40 Krag to 40,000 CUP, measured by the old copper crusher method, and where the psi figure should be its table prints “Piezo Pressures Not Established.” There is no American psi limit for this cartridge.

That matters because “40,000 psi” is printed all over the internet. It’s the right number with the wrong unit. CUP and psi aren’t the same scale, and one can’t be converted into the other. You can read the table yourself in the SAAMI centerfire rifle standard.

The only transducer limit on paper comes from Europe. C.I.P. lists a maximum of 3,250 bar, about 47,100 psi. Here is where the Krag sits against its neighbors in SAAMI’s crusher column:

So the Krag is loaded a step above the .30-30 and well below the cartridges that replaced it. Brian Pearce, writing for Wolfe Publishing, says loads “should not exceed industry pressure guidelines of 40,000 CUP.” That’s the rule the factory loads are built to.

The One-Lug Bolt: What to Check Before You Shoot a Krag

The US Krag bolt locks on one lug at the front. The rear of the guide rib works as a safety lug that doesn’t touch the receiver in a sound rifle, and the root of the bolt handle is a second backup.

One lug was enough for the service cartridge. It wasn’t enough for more. In 1899, after the Spanish-American War, the Army raised the load from about 2,000 fps to 2,200 fps to chase the 7mm Mauser, and reports of cracked locking lugs followed. The hot load was withdrawn within a year.

Shooting Times adds that the steel was part of it: “U.S. Krag rifles had some fairly brittle metal for bolts and receivers.” That’s a 125-year-old rifle with a known weak point, and it deserves a look before it’s fired.

How does a 2,430 fps factory load get away with it when 2,200 fps cracked bolts? Velocity isn’t pressure. The 1899 load pushed a heavy 220-grain bullet, and today’s loads push a 180-grain bullet inside the 40,000 CUP limit.

The inspection to ask for

Pearce puts the advice in one sentence. Krag rifles “should be in good condition and determined to be safe” by “someone familiar with this design before firing factory ammunition or handloads.” He names the locking lug and the bolt face as the parts to inspect.

1. Take the rifle to a gunsmith who has worked on Krags, and say that’s what you want checked.
2. Ask for the locking lug to be examined for cracks and the bolt face for damage.
3. We’d also ask for a general safety check of the action and chamber while it’s on the bench.
4. We’d have the bore looked at too. Old Krag barrels vary by a few thousandths.
5. If the rifle passes, shoot factory ammunition and leave hot handloads to stronger actions.

If the inspection finds a crack, don’t fire the rifle. And don’t shoot it to find out.

Round Nose or Pointed: What Feeds and What Shoots

The Krag was built around a 220-grain round-nose bullet, and every big-maker factory load today is a pointed 180-grain soft point. Whether the pointed load feeds from the magazine depends on the individual rifle.

Accuracy is the other half of it. Sierra notes that older rifles were throated for the long 220-grain round nose, so accuracy can be hard to get from lighter bullets, particularly spitzers.

Some Krags feed it and some don’t. American Rifleman ran the pointed Hornady load through two Krags without trouble when it came out in 2018. Load five and cycle them at the range before you count on yours for a hunt.

If your magazine balks, look at the round-nose loads from Steinel and Buffalo Arms. Buffalo Arms loads the 220-grain bullet the long throat was cut for. The Winchester 1895 and the single shots don’t care either way.

Buffalo Arms lists its 220-grain round-nose load at $66.09 a box and 2,046 fps from a 30-inch barrel, which is close to the load the Army issued. It says it uses properly headstamped brass when it can get it, so ask what cases are in the current lot if that matters to you.

.30 U.S., .30 Army and the Names That Look Right but Aren’t

Boxes and headstamps marked .30 U.S., .30 Army, .30 Government, 30 USA and 30 USG all hold the 30-40 Krag cartridge, and US Krag-Jorgensen ammo is never anything else. The trouble starts with the .30-caliber names that sit next to them on the shelf.

One more for the list: a Krag can’t be turned into a .30-06 or a .308 by rechambering. Those cartridges run at far higher pressure than the single-lug action was built for.

Old Boxes and the Ammo That Came With the Rifle

We found no military surplus 30-40 Krag ammo for sale anywhere, and a round that came in a coffee can with the rifle is a collectible first and ammunition a distant second. Treat every military Krag round as corrosive.

Frankford Arsenal made Krag ball from 1894 to 1907, and the earliest lots used mercuric primers as well. Mercury ruins the fired brass and corrosive salts rust the bore. The brass ages badly too. One dealer in collector cartridges notes that many surviving rounds have split necks.

If you do fire old ammunition and get a click, keep the muzzle pointed downrange and wait. The NRA’s range safety guidance says at least 60 seconds before opening the action. Afterward, flush the bore and bolt with hot water, dry them, then clean with bore solvent and oil as normal.

30-40 Krag Ballistics for Deer and Elk

Factory 30-40 Krag ammo sends a 180-grain bullet at 2,430 fps for 2,360 foot-pounds, which puts it level with the .303 British, about 530 foot-pounds ahead of a .30-30 and about 550 behind a .30-06.

Those 30-40 Krag ballistics come from Winchester’s own listing, with one bullet family across all five rounds.

Is it a good deer rifle? Yes. Remington’s figures show the 180-grain Core-Lokt still carrying 1,609 foot-pounds at 200 yards and 1,312 at 300. Remington labels the load for big game, and Sierra calls the cartridge capable of cleanly taking even moose and elk.

How far can it shoot? With iron sights and a 2,430 fps load, we treat it as a 200 to 250 yard rifle. The cartridge carries the energy farther than that. The sights and the shooter are the limit.

For an outside view of its effective range, Steinel rates its load excellent on deer to 250 yards and good on elk to 200. And John Plute’s world record Rocky Mountain elk of 1899 was taken with a .30-40.

Recoil is easy to live with. Chuck Hawks’ recoil table puts the 180-grain load in an eight-pound rifle at 16.6 foot-pounds, against 17.5 for a .308 and 20.3 for a .30-06 with the same bullet weight. Our guide to the best deer hunting cartridges puts those numbers in context, and the .30-06 guide covers the round that replaced it.

30-40 Krag Myths vs. the Truth

The first 30-40 Krag ammo myth to drop is that the round is obsolete and nobody makes it. Remington, Winchester and Hornady each list a 180-grain load at 2,430 fps and 2,360 foot-pounds. Here are the rest of the claims that come up on the forums.

Our Range Notes: Velocity and Accuracy in Two Krags

We took a Model 1898 Krag rifle with its 30-inch barrel and a sporterized Krag cut to 22 inches to the range for two mornings in September and shot 120 rounds over a chronograph. Both rifles had been checked by a gunsmith first.

Groups were five shots at 100 yards from a rest, with the issue sights on the rifle and a receiver sight on the sporter. The Hornady load shot a little tighter in both. Neither load showed a flattened primer or a sticky bolt lift.

Feeding was the thing we watched. Both rifles took the pointed bullets from the magazine without a hang-up in 120 rounds, loaded singly and with the box full. And the Krag’s magazine gate is still the nicest thing about it, because you can top it off with the bolt closed.

The long barrel gave back a little more than the listed speed and the short one gave up about 100 fps. That’s worth knowing if you hunt with a carbine. We’d buy the Hornady for either rifle and keep the brass.

A Short History of the .30-40 Krag

The Army adopted the Krag-Jorgensen and its .30 U.S. Army cartridge in 1892, the first smokeless powder, small-bore cartridge in American service. The government arsenal at Springfield, Massachusetts finished the first rifles on January 1, 1894. The service load was a 220-grain round-nosed full metal jacket bullet at about 2,000 fps.

Winchester had it in the High Wall single shot by 1893 and in the Model 1895 lever action soon after. It replaced the .45-70 and saw combat in Cuba in the Spanish-American War of 1898 and then in the Philippines. The Army adopted the M1903 Springfield on June 19, 1903 with the rimless .30-03, which kept the 220-grain round-nose bullet, and the Krag’s short career was over.

Surplus Krags sold cheaply after World War I and the cartridge became a deer and elk standard with 180-grain factory loads. Gun Digest notes that no commercial rifle was chambered for it from 1936 until Ruger offered the No. 3 single shot from 1973 to 1977. The name follows the old black powder pattern of caliber and charge, but the .30-40 Krag was a smokeless round from the start: a .30 caliber bullet over 40 grains of smokeless powder.

A Note on Reloading

The .30-40 Krag takes standard .308-inch bullets of 150 to 220 grains, and Shooting Sports USA reports original Krag barrels with groove diameters from .307 to .310 inch. Handloaders keep the cartridge alive, the long case neck makes it a favorite with cast bullets, and brass has come from Remington, Winchester and Hornady. Cases can also be formed from .303 British brass, which leaves a short neck.

We do not publish load data on this page. Use a current manual from a bullet or powder maker, stay inside the 40,000 CUP limit in any Krag, and start with our beginner’s guide to reloading if you’re new to it.

Bottom Line: Which 30-40 Krag Ammo to Buy

• For an original or sporterized Krag: Hornady Custom or Remington Core-Lokt 180-grain, after the bolt has been inspected. They are the same load, so buy on price.
• For a Winchester 1895, a High Wall or a Ruger No. 3: the same two loads. We found no hotter factory option, and you don’t need one.
• For a Krag that won’t feed pointed bullets: a round-nose load from Steinel or Buffalo Arms.
• For the old rounds that came with the rifle: keep them as collectibles and shoot new ammunition.

If you’re still shopping for the rifle, where to buy vintage guns online covers the dealers.

We’ve done the same job for other old calibers: the .32-20 ammo guide, the 7.62×25 Tokarev ammo guide, the .44-40 ammo guide and the .45 Colt ammo guide.

Lead image: composite based on a CC0 photo by Tenacious Trilobite.

30-40 Krag Ammo FAQ