The woods loafer's gun: Winchester's darling .25-35 WCF is back

Guns Magazine, Nov, 2005 by Holt Bodinson

Introduced in the Model 94 Winchester in 1895 together with the .30-30 and discontinued in 1952, Winchester's mild-mannered .25-35 is back in the Model 94 line. It's about time, for it's a pleasant little cartridge, easy to shoot, easy on the shoulder, easy to reload and, on the average, the most accurate cartridge ever chambered in a Model 64 or Model 94 Winchester.

I saw my first .25-35 in the window of a Dallas, Texas, pawnshop. To working parents with kids on summer vacation, the endless parade of guns on pawnshop row took care of our mornings while an afternoon double feature movie was sufficient for the rest of the day's supervision. That pawnshop .25-35 was a Model 94 with an octagonal barrel and virtually new. I can still see it. In the eyes of a 12-year-old, it was the Holy Grail. With a $40 price tag, it just as well might have been.

Actually, the first .25-35 I got my hands on was a Savage Model 99 that was the big-game gun of a man I worked for in my teens. You saw quite a few' .25-35s on the ranches years ago. The caliber was considered perfectly adequate for antelope, deer, bear and smaller species wearing fur or feathers of any kind.

What's doubly interesting about the Savage chambering is Charles Newton took the .25-35 case, necked it down, and cooked up the Savage .22 Hi-Power cartridge. Winchester then necked it down a few thousandths more and gave us the .219 Zipper. There was also a bit of competition given the .25-35 years ago in the form of the Marlin .25-36 and the .25 Remington.

The Europeans liked the .25-35, giving it the 6.5x52R metric designation and chambering it in a variety of combination guns.

The .25-35 even proved popular in the woodchuck meadows of New England. Paul Estey, in his 1936 book, The Woodchuck Hunter tells of chuck hunting with Colonel Whelen, who used his Winchester Hi-Wall in .25-35 with telling effect, while Estey carried a custom Sedgley Springfield in the same chambering. Henry Stebbins in his classic Small Game & Varmint Cartridges labeled the .25-35 as the ideal "woods loafer's" cartridge in the Model 94.

Maybe that grand old man of the outdoor press, Horace Kephart, summed it up best when he wrote, "The .25-35 is an excellent little cartridge for all-round use in a country where turkeys and geese and small mammals are commonest game, yet where deer and black bear are met now and then."

For 2005, Winchester is bringing this grand little cartridge back to life in two distinctly different models. There's a standard round-barreled Model 94 carbine called the "Trail's End Hunter Round" and a spectacular octagon-barreled short rifle, with a color casehardened receiver, lever, forearm cap and crescent buttplate called the "Trail's End Hunter Octagon." Both models are available in .30-30 and .38-55 as well.

I've been working with a stock Model 94 carbine, shooting Winchester's 117-grain RNSP factory load as well as some standard handloads. Even when using the crude factory open sights, it is a superbly accurate combination, with the 117-grain factory fodder producing 50-yard groups averaging 3/4" to 1".

Why Winchester didn't drill and tap the new model for both standard receiver and tang sights, defeats me. There is hope, though. Williams makes the FP receiver sight (FP-94SE) that utilizes the existing, rear, angle-eject scope mount holes. It just happened to be out-of-stock when I needed it most. Why didn't I just mount a scope? Scopes on little, light, Model 94 Winchester carbines just destroy the balance and fine handling qualities of the gun. At least, that's my opinion.

And, oh yes, the factory trigger weighs in at seven pounds, which is three pounds too much on any rifle. The nearest 7-pound trigger I own is on all 1873 Springfield Trapdoor musket.

The .25-35 Model 94 has the fastest rifling twist of any Winchester lever action rifle made, being 1:8", and sports a long throat for the standard, snaky looking, 117-grain RNSP. Actually, the 117-grain bullet has the same sectional density as a 165-grain, 30-caliber bullet, and has a well-founded reputation for penetration on game as well as for accuracy.

Registering 2,160 fps over my PACT Professional Chronograph. the current 117-grain factory ammo seems a bit slow. The classic factory velocity for the 117-grain bullet was 2,300 to 2,350 fps. Hornady, which makes the 117-grain RNSP component bullet, lists a top velocity of 2,300 fps with either IMR 3031 or IMR 4320. My test carbine gave 2,320 fps with 25 grains of H4895, which is 1.8-grains under Hornady's maximum.

The .23-35 lends itself very well to using lighter bullets for small game, and a favorite has always been the 86-grain SP, or similar weight cast bullet, designed for the .25-20 Win. Loading some ancient Western brand .25-20 bullets on hand (Midway stocks the current Remington 86-grain SP), I was able to attain 2.813 fps with 29 grains of H4895 and 1" groups at 50 yards.

I also tried Speer's 75-grain SPFN that features that all-important crimping cannelure. The Speer topped out at 2,856 fps with 29 grains of H4895 and generated 7/8" groups.