First is a bandoleer of 30-40 Krag ammo, packaged in 1918. The National Guard still used plenty of Krags, because there weren't enough Springfields and Enfields to go around.
The pockets are sewn shut with thread. A fabric tab is used to pull open the pocket. Three of the six pockets on this bandoleer are still sealed. There are sixty rounds in the bandoleer, which is more of a combat load than the leather cartridge box worn as part of the uniform.
The rounds, made by Remington, are dated 1917, making them 90 years old this year. They look good, but looks are deceptive.
Four out of five rounds have a microscopic split in the case neck. After all these years, the brass has fatigued and crystallized. Not only does this let air in to oxidize the smokeless powder and primer, but it also does not hold the bullet in the case long enough for sufficient chamber pressure to develop. The biggest risk in this kind of defect is not a dud, but a squib load that has enough power to push the bullet part way down the barrel, making for a dangerous obstruction.
On the right is a 8mm Mauser round from WW2. Like the 30-06, it's a higher-pressure, higher-velocity round than the 30-40. The 30-40 is a very useful round at any practical range encountered in combat. But the world's military was on a high-velocity kick, and wanted to get that last foot-per-second out of a bigger case pushing a bullet as quickly as possible. Except for use in machine guns, the world's troops were seriesly overgunned when most engagements took place at 200 yards or under.
The Rough Riders had a good round in the 30-40 when compared to the Spanish 7mm Mauser, the "hot round" of the day. But the Krag action was an evolutionary dead end compared to the Mauser, which was easier to make, faster to fire, and could handle higher pressure ammo.
I was going to talk about some other WW1 ammo I found, but then I realized why not wrap with the rifle itself? So here's my 1898 Krag rifle, made in 1902, and the bayonet.
While most bolt action rifles by 1898 used rimless cartridges that were stripped from a clip into a magazine, the Krag was loaded one-at-a-time from a magazine side gate. The rimmed cartridge never lent itself to any "elegant" clip-feed system, even for other countries that used rimmed rounds, like Russia and England. With the gate open, rounds were placed inside one at a time. The feed path was basically a "U" on its side, with rounds going in below the bolt, and coming out above the bolt on the left hand side.
You can also see the open receiver bridge, less strong than other actions, but fine for the moderate (and pleasant-shooting) pressures of the 30-40. The bolt had only one front lug, and the handle acts as the second. The complex nature of machining the receiver and feed mechanism made to Krag expensive. However, there was also a lot of craftsmanship lavished on it during manufacture. The action is slicker than snot on a glass doorknob. Once unlocked, just tipping the muzzle up is enough for the bolt to slide back on its own.
Here's the view from the left side, showing the magazine side plate. It's carefully machined on the inside to move the next round from the magazine up to a position above the bolt, where it will then be fed into the chamber.
The Krag design was constantly being tweaked, so there are different Models from the 1892 to 1899. It was only a first-line military rifle for ten years, and for many of those years the military was already looking for a replacement. The US government paid the Mauser corporation $100,000 for the key patents that went into the legendary Springfield. Those Springfields were then used to kill a lot of Germans.
But along the way, the Krag saw serious action in the Philippines, where it was discovered that a single high-velocity round might not stop a doped-up s#ithead in time. That also lead to the replacement of the "high-tech" .38 revolver with a .45 caliber pistol, and bringing a lot of Colt Single Action Armies and Winchester shotguns out of the cosmoline, and into the hands of the troops for close-in work.