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Post by Bullshop on Jan 9, 2016 11:21:23 GMT -7
Starting this thread because this is where my focus or should I say re focus is at the moment. Doing a little searching for load data reveals quite some interest in this cartridge with no shortage of data for both jacketed and cast bullets. My focus is on cast bullets for obvious reasons so that is what I will speak of but please anyone that has anything to share about experience with the 25-20 WCF please by no means feel intimidated. Things I am noticing about my gun a modern Marlin 1894 with rifle length barrel and full length mag tube is that it is very susceptible to small changes with the load. Any change in primer, powder, neck tension, or crimp will shift the POI enough to have to re zero to hunt with the gun. Something that surprises me though is that changing the rest point on the forend seems to not effect the POI and in my experience with lever guns this is a rather rare trait. In this thread but not this post I hope to list some purpose specific loads I am working on as well as a couple new 25 cal bullet designs we now have available. These designs are from Arsenal molds a fairly new comer to the market but a company that has already earned my respect. That's all I have time for right now as I have been promising my girls a rabbit hunting day and it looks like I have been roped and tied. BTW the two rifles we are taking are the Marlin 25-20 with the new Arsenal 65gn FNPB bullet and the new to me Krag hornet with a 52gn CBE design that shoots so well in it. |
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Post by Bullshop on Jan 9, 2016 18:33:06 GMT -7
Just adding a FYI about the rabbit hunting day. We did well bringing 8 cottontail rabbits to bag. All were head shots at less than 50 yards. All but one fell to the 25-20. A slight change in plan had the 25-20 shooting the Arsenal 80gn FNPB design being pushed by 6gn Alliant 410 and ignited by a CCI #550 small pistol magnum primer with a firm roll crimp on the bullet. This load shoots splendidly well from this Marlin.
The single bunny shot with the hornet was a total loss. The hornet was loaded with a 52gn CBE design being pushed by 7.4gn (I think) Alliant 410 and a CCI # 400 small rifle primer. This poor bunny was facing the gun and the 25 or so yard shot took him on the nose and passed straight through the body cavity emptying it of its contents as it passed. There was nothing left that was edible on that one at least nothing at all appetizing.
Anyway to stay on topic the 25-20 was the shinning star of the day. Its load worked splendidly for head shots but is likely too much for body shots for EDIBLE small game. The good thing is the load shoots well enough to make head shots within the range we shoot rabbits which is very seldom over 50 yards. In the boulder strewn mountain mahogany sage hills we hunt there is always a boulder nearby to get a solid rest on so misses of which we had a couple were the fault of the shooter whose name I will not mention.
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Post by missionary on Jan 11, 2016 17:34:35 GMT -7
Greetings Bullshop
Sounds like a lot of fun. No 25-20 in our home. Several 32-20's that fill the need. Had considered the caliber 25 years back but some older ground hog hunters told me big ground hogs were not going to be easy to anchor with bullets under 100 grains and the 115 grainers from the caliber 32 was far better. So off I went with a Winchester 73 for numerous years happy as a lark.
But it still sounds like a great caliber and fun way to spend the day.
Mike in Peru
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Post by Bullshop on Jan 11, 2016 19:05:33 GMT -7
We Grace, Hope, Joy and myself did have a good day hunting. The knee high to me snow was tough on the younger girls though but they took it like champs without complaint. We had fried rabbit for dinner that night and all enjoyed it.
BTW we got two new 25 cal bullet designs added to the line up today. You will be hearing about them soon.
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Post by FromTheWoods on Feb 5, 2016 15:50:25 GMT -7
Good shooting by those huntresses. Must have made for a special dinner. That other hunter though--maybe they should give him a few lessons!
Those new .25's will be interesting to try. I was just swapping out dies last week to begin testing the .25-35 with some of your "old" bullets. Trouble was, I spied water stains on the reloading room wall. Must fix the leak before playing with your bullets.
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Post by Bullshop on Feb 5, 2016 17:39:38 GMT -7
I would like to hear how it goes with your 25-35 and I assume our 125gn bullet. There are many people that are leery of using the 125gn bullet in the 25-35 because they cant find any load data for that weight bullet. For that reason we have replaced that particular design with a new one that weighs 117gn. We are sending to 125gn mold to Eric at Hollowpoint Molds to have it hollow pointed and hopefully then drop bullets very close to 117gn.
We hope to soon be offering the 257420 in HP as well.
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Post by FromTheWoods on Feb 5, 2016 23:50:53 GMT -7
One of my Daughters-in-law enjoys shooting her .25-20, so I'll be loading those also. If I'm remembering correctly--we have three of your bullet weights in .25's to try. Have to familiarize myself to your new .25's. Newer is better?
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Post by Bullshop on Feb 6, 2016 7:54:26 GMT -7
"""Newer is better?"""
Not necessarily but more choices is certainly better.
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Post by Thomas on Feb 15, 2016 7:32:46 GMT -7
Good shooting by those huntresses. Must have made for a special dinner. That other hunter though--maybe they should give him a few lessons! Those new .25's will be interesting to try. I was just swapping out dies last week to begin testing the .25-35 with some of your "old" bullets. Trouble was, I spied water stains on the reloading room wall. Must fix the leak before playing with your bullets. Very interested myself in the 25 caliber NOE 116gr FPGC for my long suffering 25-35 Winchester. Have had some success with Dan's 120gr NEI but am still not satisfied with the results. This is the only rifle I have not been able to get to shoot 1" groups with and I have tested this rifle more than any other I own. Thomas |
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Post by Bullshop on Feb 17, 2016 16:24:41 GMT -7
I have spent a lot of time and burned a lot of powder with certain rifles trying to get them to shoot moa with my bullets and most often am successful but there have been a few times that I have given up unsuccessful but it sure was not for a lack of trying.
Some guns just wont do it and that is a tough one for me to accept but there have been a few times that I have had to bite that bullet.
I have had two rifles in my lifetime that I remember anyway that would not shoot moa with any type of bullet. One of these of all things was a Rem 722 in 222 Rem. It had an inclusion of some sort at mid chamber and trying to clean it up destroyed a reamer. The other was a Ruger 77 tang safety in 7mm08 Rem. I burned several pounds of powder in that rifle just trying to find a decent shooting load but never did.
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Post by Thomas on Feb 19, 2016 7:24:32 GMT -7
I plan on ordering some of your 25 caliber NOE 116gr FPGC and give it another try. Can't get rid of the rifle as its one of the new Winchester's made in the mid 2000's and I can't afford one of the old ones. If it still doesn't shoot like I want it to I will put it back in the safe until the next new reloading component come along to try out. Ever the optimist!
Thomas
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Post by Bullshop on Feb 19, 2016 11:34:33 GMT -7
If you try enough different things sometimes the weirdest combinations yield good results. I am often very pleasantly surprised by trying powders that would be considered much to slow in burn rate such as 4831 in cases the size of the 25-35, this usually in conjunction with heavy for caliber bullets.
I have even gotten very good results with duplexing smokeless powder in such applications. This duplexing usually with very slow surplus powders such as wc-860/870 with a moderately fast kicker such as wc-820, wc-680 etc..
The long searches with the most obscure combinations resulting in good results seem also to yield the greatest gratification.
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Post by Thomas on Feb 19, 2016 13:03:32 GMT -7
If I can get this rifle to shoot I will consider it a major accomplishment!
Thomas
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Post by Bullshop on Feb 19, 2016 19:14:09 GMT -7
Bring it over and I will help.
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Post by Thomas on Feb 19, 2016 19:23:26 GMT -7
Bring it over and I will help. Was a dream of mine when I retired from the Air Force to move to Montana. It was not my wife's dream. Since I am not close enough to drop for help you can see who won that match.  ? Wish I could spend some time getting some practical advice. Thomas |
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Post by Bullshop on Feb 19, 2016 21:38:01 GMT -7
Maybe its time to give her that special just because I love you Montana vacation gift.
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Post by shootist---Gary on Feb 25, 2016 1:18:09 GMT -7
Hi Daniel. I was just sitting here reading everyone's posts about the .25-20's. I still have my old Model 92 Winchester solid frame that I bought back in the '60's for $65, that I used for groundhogs on our farm, until I bought a .30 M-1 carbine. The .25-20 with factory ammo always seemed to shoot pretty straight. Later, I reloaded for it, but as it's been more than 40 years ago, I don't remember the ingredients. It's still a nice looking rifle.
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Post by Bullshop on Feb 25, 2016 15:51:17 GMT -7
My first experience with the 25-20 was not so good. I was just a sprout at the time my Mum inherited a Remington pump action 25-20 that she gave to my older brother. He wanted my Marlin 22 more than the 25 so we traded. I found a box of factory 80gn ammo and took it out to shoot some chucks. Two shots and two lost chucks soured me for the 25 so I got rid of it and went back to the 22 LR. I was not a caster or re loader then.
My second try 20 years later was in a Marlin 1894 but by this time I was well into casting and loading so was able to realize the full potential of the cartridge. Fast forward another 20 years and a couple more Marlins passing through my hands and I have become a loyal fan of the 25 that has not fired a RF cartridge of any type in a good number of years.
The 25 is now well entrenched in my cant get by without list. At this point I do not own any RF firearms. The ones I did own have been converted to CF. No doubt that of the rifles I own the 25-20 and 22 Hornet get shot the most and it goes without saying that I only shoot cast in these.
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Post by Bullshop on Mar 10, 2016 22:29:13 GMT -7
I had a very interesting occurrence today shooting my Marlin 25-20 that may be interesting to other folks too. I was finishing up a box of ammo that I loaded about a month ago and this ammo was shooting very well from my Marlin holding about 1" at 50 yards. I had a load card in the box of ammo so I thought it would be easy to duplicate but in practice not so.
In trying to duplicate the load using the same powder and charge, same bullet from the same lot, same primer, and same brass but was not getting the same accuracy. In fact the accuracy from the this ammo was terrible throwing bullet 4 to 5 inches apart randomly with no grouping at all.
I was beginning to consider blood pressure medicine because I was about to blow a gasket trying to figure out why this was happening. Then I had an epiphany about the previous loading session and why it was different.
I was using the same 65gn PB bullet from the very same batch sized the same diameter with the same lube. I was using the same charge of 5gn of Accurate Arms #5 powder and the same CCI#550 small pistol primer. I was using the same seating die set without crimp BUUUUUUT I was using a different sizing die.
With the poor shooting ammo I was using an RCBS sizer die and full length sizing but with the original box of very accurate ammo I had used a 256 Win Mag die to only neck size half of the case neck. BINGO!!!!!
That was it! Going back to neck sizing with the 256 Win Mag die brought the accuracy right back.
I think that in an earlier post I mentioned that with this rifle small changes in the load had great effect on accuracy and POI and this indicates the type of thing I was talking about.
Anyhoo I have a good gopher load now for the 25-20 as long as I remember the sizing thingy, wow what a difference it makes.
BTW yesterday I saw the first of the season gopher so it wont be long before I have to start defending my property from being over run with the garden munching pests.
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Post by FromTheWoods on Apr 1, 2016 0:03:06 GMT -7
Yup, the small changes that boggle or satisfy us.
For years I've been reading the advice from accomplished reloaders to take good/complete notes. And year after year, I didn't take their advice. Lately though, I've noticed that my load info cards are becoming too small for the amount of specifics I've begun to note. Seems to be a direct relationship between the expanding notes and how expert I'm becoming in forgetting pretty much anything and everything. Maybe Dan, the way you phrased this, "...as long as I remember the sizing thingy...." maybe you're approaching the great Forgotten Abyss! Fight it, Dan. Fight it! (But maybe write notes while you are at it.)
Thanks for the story. Glad you found the BUUUUUUT part.
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Post by Bullshop on Apr 1, 2016 18:05:37 GMT -7
Yes absolutely, what were we talking about?
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Post by FromTheWoods on Apr 4, 2016 8:33:59 GMT -7
Huh?
(Good one, Daniel.)
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? Wish I could spend some time getting some practical advice.