Sitting here in a rainy Thursday between errands, I stumbled across a video about one of my favorite cartridges, the .25-06 Remington. It's an old wildcat, designed by Charles Newton back in 1912, and standardized by Remington in 1969. What it suffered from in those days was a proper powder. It needs a slow burning powder. What it suffers from today is that it is an old cartridge, overshadowed by the newer whiz-bang cartridges like the 6.5 Creedmore. This guy is a fa, and seems to enjoy shooting the old standby.
He uses 7828, which I suppose is a fine powder. My pet load for that cartridge is 50.0 grains of Reloder 22 with a 117 grain bullet. My chronograph registers 2971 wit that combo out of a Ruger 77. Not quite the magical 3000 fps, but I doubt that any coyote or whitetail deer could tel the difference. It throws them all into 0.8" at 100 yards with boring regularity.
I guess I'd better get the keys to the truck and run into town. I need butane, and I'm thinking about cooking a big pot of spaghetti. Zach told me on his way out the door that it's been a while since we had spaghetti, and it seems like a good day to make some.
3 comments:
25 ought 6 was my first Remington 700 (of several 700's)in the Classic model. A tack driver it was and accounted for several coyotes.
I don't own a .25-06 Remington, so take my comments with salt. My understanding is that it is OUTSTANDING for taking long shots because of a laser flat trajectory. But that it burns out barrels, especially if used for small varmints at 'Prarie Dog Towns' where lots of shooting is done.
When deciding on my long range varmint / deer combination, I decided the 6mm Remington was more to my liking and picked a Ruger M77 for that as my 'year round take out gun'. I really had my heart set out for a .243 Winchester but they were sold out at the time. Remington is about $3 more a box at the time, now difference is more pronounced.
Then a few years later, an old Savage 99T carbine in .250 Savage made it to me. Ammuition is definitely harder to find, but what a sweet rifle it has been.
Sorry for the long story - the above was written in a flash.
Newer slow powders obviate any imagined barrel life problems.I used a .25-06 for many years as a varmit/p-dog gun with no issues.That said,it is a little recoil/muzzle blast heavy for long sessions of prairie dog shooting and I switched to .22 caliber rounds for that.
For big game the wildcat 6.5-'06 Ackley Improved will do anything the
25 will and better.IMHO
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