Quarter bore heaven: reloading the accurate .25s

Guns Magazine, July, 2009 by John Barsness

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Bigger rifle cartridges tend to be less accurate than smaller rifle cartridges. This tendency was first publicized by the late Warren Page, long-time shooting columnist at Field & Stream magazine. Page published an article in the 1968 Gun Digest called "The Bigger The Cartridge...." about some interesting statistics from the production of Remington's semi-custom 40X rifles. These accurate rifles were all built the same way, with the same barrels, stocks, bedding system, etc., then test-shot before being shipped. Despite all that care, 40Xs chambered for the .222 Remington consistently out-shot rifles chambered for the .22-250, .308s out-shot .30-06s, and .30-06s out-shot .300 Winchester Magnums.

In general this rule holds true--except, perhaps, for .25-caliber cartridges. The .250-3000 Savage has been acclaimed as a super-accurate round since its beginnings shortly before World War I, when a young Army lieutenant named Townsend Whelen tested a pre-production rifle. I have owned a bunch of .250s, ranging from old Savage 99s to several modern bolt actions. All shot well, and some shot fantastically--but not any better than the several .257 Weatherby Magnums I've fooled with.

One of my two present .257 "Roys" is a factory Vanguard Spotter that will put three shots into half a minute of angle all the way out to 400 yards. I also just started working with a New Ultra Light Arms Model 28 weighing 6-3/4 pounds with a 3.5-10x40 Leupold. Its very first 3-shot group at 100 yards measured exactly 1/2". The powder capacity of the .257 Weatherby is almost twice that of the .250 Savage, but none of my .250s shot any better than these two .257 Weatherbys.

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Other .25s have been just as accurate. The first big game rifle averaging three shots in 1/2" or so at 100 yards in my hands was not a modern synthetic-stocked, pillar-bedded, "blueprinted" super-rifle, but the Remington 722 .257 Roberts my paternal grandmother used on pronghorn and deer in central Montana. And it would perform this miracle with 100-grain Nosler Partitions, supposedly not the most accurate bullet in the bunch.

Fine No. 1

The .25-06 isn't any slouch. My latest rifle in this chambering is from a special run of Ruger No. 1s offered by Lipsey's, a distribution company that makes an annual habit of special Rugers. This particular rifle has a stock of very nice Circassian walnut and a slim 24" barrel. Now, Ruger No. 1s are not known as target rifles, but the first two handloads I tried, using Barnes Triple Shocks and Nosler Partitions, grouped three shots under 3/4" at 100 yards.

Then there is my .25-35, a Model 1894 Winchester made in 1898. This rifle is well-used but not abused, and even has the factory original sights on its 26" octagon barrel, a 3-leaf rear and a combination Beach front sight with an ivory bead and a globe pin. Despite light pitting in the bore, it will group three shots in a little over an inch at 100 yards, even with my 50-something eyes behind the open sights.

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I have puzzled for a while about why all the .25s tend to be so accurate, and decided that, aside from light recoil, they also have more steel around the bore than rifles in larger calibers. This makes even "sporter" weight barrels stiffer, and thus more accurate.

Now, it could be argued we don't really need super-fine accuracy for the slaying of deer. That's true. But .25s have never been just deer rifles. Even in the early years of the 20th century, when Elmer Keith lay down in the snow behind the Montana capital building in Helena and started whacking away at a coyote with his .25-35 (he eventually connected at around 600 yards), people were using .25s as dual-purpose deer/ varmint rifles.

None of the .25s are exactly right for all-day shooting of smaller varmints like prairie dogs. The smaller .25s don't shoot as flat as the 17- or 22-caliber rounds, while the bigger .25s kick too much, and cost too much in powder, bullets and burned-out barrels. But on bigger varmints, whether chucks or coyotes, the .25s work as well as any cartridges made. In fact, the .257 Roberts was originally developed by Ned Roberts as a woodchuck rifle.

The .257 Weatherby is perhaps the ultimate long-range varmint rifle. My friends Marty and Casey Tillard, a father-son ranching team in Wyoming, are essentially professional coyote hunters--as well as rifle loonies. They tried about everything on coyotes before settling on the .257 Weatherby because it shoots really flat, really far, and really accurately.

There are a pile of good varmint bullets in .25, but the two I prefer are the 75-grain Hornady V-Max and 85-grain Nosler Ballistic Tip. The V-Max is more explosive, so works better on smaller varmints, and in the smaller .25s. The Ballistic Tip also expands readily, but the jacket's heavy base keeps penetrating on coyotes. Both shoot flatter and expand more reliably at longer ranges than any softpoint or hollowpoint bullet.

Big Game

Some he-man hunters claim the .25s aren't really enough for big game, but my wife Eileen and ! have killed dozens of big game animals out to 400 yards with the .250 Savage, .257 Roberts, .25-06 Remington and .257 Weatherby. In fact my longest shot ever on a pronghorn was made at 430 yards with my grandmother's old 722, and my second-longest pronghorn shot was made at 401 yards with a .257 Weatherby. (Here it probably should be noted I've never shot at a pronghorn beyond 430 yards.