What are the advantages of a .25-06?

Gunsmith- I did all my load work up with a new Redfield Revenge in 4-12. Then when I could afford the Vortex I put the Redfield on my .270 So far I like it, I haven't shot it a whole lot but it seems to be repeatable. Took it on an elk hunting trip in October. Didn't get a shot at an elk but I shot a rock at 925yds first shot. I held a little too much wind so I was probably 4'' left of where I wanted to hit. Would have been a dead elk had I been shooting at one.

As far as the barrel goes I'm not sure how long it will be on there. I'm not getting the velocity I would like out of it, only 2870 fps. I believe a 27'' barrel would get me much closer to the 3000 fps mark. Sorry it took me a couple days to get back to you.

Justin
 
Thanks for the report, Justin. I doubt I would change a barrel that hit a rock at 925 yards. 2800+ is good enough if you're that close already :) The next barrel can be your dream and accurize a new round for it. Good luck.

BTW, I'm now convinced. I want the Savage Long Range Hunter in the 6.5-.284 Norma, or perhaps the 13.5 lbs free rifle comp model. I will probably end up with the LRH, though. Carrying 10.5 lbs on my damaged shoulder won't be too much fun for many more years, let alone 13.5 lbs...

Cold Trigger - sounds like you're on top of it. My temptation when shooting a furbearer at close range with too much energy is usually a head shot and save most of the pelt, bye bye head...
 
Advantages, you have a great selection of brass to choose from depending on your wants or needs. If you simply want to shoot straight 25-06 cases you have several name brands of which I have found Remington or Winchester to be the better of the bunch. If you want to neck down from 30-06 you have the choices from mil surp LC to Lapua depending on how tight things get. I have used it all at one time or another.

As for reaching out and touching things at range, I settled on the 115gr weight, and from there pretty much stuck with the Partition. Most of my shooting is hunting deer and I found the Partition simply worked no matter the range out to 400+yards. The Berger is a great bullet as well, I simply didn't like the trimming I had to do on a shot at less than 100yds with them rocking along at around 3100fps.

Stick with powders in the slower ranges with the heavier bullets and nothing faster than IMR-4831 for the 100gr weights and you will get your best performance. Personally I haven't found anything that will hold up to RL-22 with bullets ranging from 110 - 115grs in accuracy or velocity within sane pressures.

I guess I was lucky with my rifle being an off the shelf Remington 700. It has shot clover leaf groups since the beginning and has accounted for plenty of meat on the table and vermin on the ground. I for the most part shot the 115's exclusively and it was no issue putting one between the eyes of a yote a 300yds or ear holeing a skunk at 287. My reply to anyone who shot it was to simply put the + where you want to hit and gently squeeze the trigger.

I passed it along to my daughter and she has used it to take several really nice bucks off our property. When I did this the 110gr AB had just hit the market and I loaded some up using the same load I used for the 115's. We had to literally drive out to the 200yd target to see them all clustered together in the enlarged one hole group. While the 110's seem to work on the deer, they haven't worked out nearly as well on the feral hogs we are trying to work on. So I switched her back over to the 115's for a bit more weight and penetration. The hogs thick hair and hide just seem to cause more superficial wounds than I would like, not that they didn't drop a few, but most would hit the ground, flop, then regain their feet and leave in high gear. With the partitions there hasn't been any issues like that. Usually it is simply a bang flop.

Anyway good luck with yours and I hope you get as much enjoyment from it as I have through the years. I liked mine so much I went a step up after passing the standard over to the daughter and built the AI version. I used a 1-9 28" Broughton on it and am loving smoking the 120gr pills out at better velocities than I could get with the 100's in the standard version. Talk about smoking a yote or hog. LOL
 
Thanks for the input. I'm going to experiment a bit with loads, nothing crazy, just to be able to reach out as far as I can with it.
 
The 100 gr SMK at 3200 is a good fox round. Quarter sized hole thru the chest do not hit the shoulder or the hole gets big. 3-4 inch hole in a shoulder coyote 1.5-2 inch hole on coyote chest shot. 100SMK is amazing on antelope and will shoot thru at 500 yards. 115 Berger is a quarter sized hole in wolf shoulder. 110 Accubond will shoot right thru an elk chest or stick under the hide on the off side.

The SMK shoots best in my Rem SPS little bug holes at 100 yards and 2 inch groups at 500 yards, but the ballistic coeficient is .382 compared to ab110 at .42ish or the Berger115 at .466

Very fun rifle to own!
 
Another thanks to 41Mag, nice post!

And to dbrow, Yes. The .25-'06 is a necked down 30-'06, which can put decent groups out to 1150 or 1200 yards before it runs out of stability, so the "magic" 1,000 meter group can be done. The bullet doesn't know how far its going...it just hits with whatever energy is left when it gets there.

The .25-'06 can be made to shoot as heavy a bullet as the .30, but you will likely need heavier-than-lead slugs to do it. I have made slugs out of Tantalum in the past (machining them is a Royal PITA), their density is very nearly equal to gold (19.3 grams per cubic centimeter, whereas lead is around 11.3 grams per cubic centimeter).

I made long ogive, semi-Spitzer/ semi-wadcutter boat-tail points specifically for 1,000 meter target work in wind. They are heavier, go slower, and therefore drop a bit more than lead/copper slugs, but they sure drift consistently in the wind. I shot these out of a 7mm Ackley Improved Remmington Magnum (which is not too dissimilar to a .25-'06). I was quite happy with the results, but it was years ago, and I don't have the data anymore.

There are other materials heavier than lead as well, and possibly easier to machine. Still, I wouldn't hesitate to try it on a .25-'06, as you may indeed get a fantastic result at 1,000 meters with them. By the way, size the diameter to the lands, not the rifling grooves. Tantalum is hard stuff and will ruin a barrel quickly if sized to interference fit. You're shooting a cutting tool down that barrell. If you can jacket them with something softer (copper), that would be a good idea.
 
Advantages, you have a great selection of brass to choose from depending on your wants or needs. If you simply want to shoot straight 25-06 cases you have several name brands of which I have found Remington or Winchester to be the better of the bunch. If you want to neck down from 30-06 you have the choices from mil surp LC to Lapua depending on how tight things get. I have used it all at one time or another.

As for reaching out and touching things at range, I settled on the 115gr weight, and from there pretty much stuck with the Partition. Most of my shooting is hunting deer and I found the Partition simply worked no matter the range out to 400+yards. The Berger is a great bullet as well, I simply didn't like the trimming I had to do on a shot at less than 100yds with them rocking along at around 3100fps.

Stick with powders in the slower ranges with the heavier bullets and nothing faster than IMR-4831 for the 100gr weights and you will get your best performance. Personally I haven't found anything that will hold up to RL-22 with bullets ranging from 110 - 115grs in accuracy or velocity within sane pressures.

I guess I was lucky with my rifle being an off the shelf Remington 700. It has shot clover leaf groups since the beginning and has accounted for plenty of meat on the table and vermin on the ground. I for the most part shot the 115's exclusively and it was no issue putting one between the eyes of a yote a 300yds or ear holeing a skunk at 287. My reply to anyone who shot it was to simply put the + where you want to hit and gently squeeze the trigger.

I passed it along to my daughter and she has used it to take several really nice bucks off our property. When I did this the 110gr AB had just hit the market and I loaded some up using the same load I used for the 115's. We had to literally drive out to the 200yd target to see them all clustered together in the enlarged one hole group. While the 110's seem to work on the deer, they haven't worked out nearly as well on the feral hogs we are trying to work on. So I switched her back over to the 115's for a bit more weight and penetration. The hogs thick hair and hide just seem to cause more superficial wounds than I would like, not that they didn't drop a few, but most would hit the ground, flop, then regain their feet and leave in high gear. With the partitions there hasn't been any issues like that. Usually it is simply a bang flop.

Anyway good luck with yours and I hope you get as much enjoyment from it as I have through the years. I liked mine so much I went a step up after passing the standard over to the daughter and built the AI version. I used a 1-9 28" Broughton on it and am loving smoking the 120gr pills out at better velocities than I could get with the 100's in the standard version. Talk about smoking a yote or hog. LOL
Completely agree, my Remington 700 25-06 is still my favorite gun i own. I love how guys are using the saying "put the crosshairs on what you want to hit from 0-400 yards" its is so true, personally i shoot a mild load of 53 gr h4831 and top it with a 117 gr sierra spbt gameking. I've had one deer move after being hit, ONE. This is an old load that was passed down along with the gun from my grandfather, his other load for the gun was pushing a 100gr NBT close to 3300 fps... its destructive. Lately ive been thinking about trying either the 75 gr V-MAX or 85gr NBT for a multipurpose varmint load but my time (and money) is being spent on my 308 build... but then again why fix something that aint broke. I have 100 cases laying around for the 25 and i know most if not all will end up with those 117gr sierras stuffed in them
Longest kills with my 25-06:
Groundhog - 468 (half dozen or so kills past 400, mostly with the 100NBT but the longest was with a sierra)
Whitetail - 461, 398... and probably over 20 between 25-200 yards
 
I am familiar with tantalum. I used to machine it to balance alcohol burning sprint car motors. And you are very correct it is a royal PITA to machine. I highly doubt I will use it for bullets to cut holes in paper. As long as I know the thing will fling em that far I am sure I will be able to work up a much cheaper load for it. I just want it for giggles and to hear the gong ring after then bang. Thanks for the info.
 
You could try solid copper or lead/copper jacket if it is an Ackley Improved .25-'06 and just see how it goes at 1 km. I bet its pretty good in 0-18 mph winds already.

I had gotten blown off the range one day and got a little PO'd at the gust working me over wasting 2 boxes of ammo trying to find the target. So, I made up a batch of about 400 Tantalum pins (about 5 mm as I recall), which I fitted into the 193 grain mold and cast the rest out of lead. I think that was a 6.5 mm mold...I may have enlarged it into a 7mm just for this purpose.

I kind or remember wishing I had a .264 Win Mag or a .338 for that application. The 7mm slugs came out just under 300 grains, and when I got them worked up, I was aiming fairly low on the reticle, lobbing those bricks at the paper.

The wind hit 70 mph one night some time later, and I went out to see what the "Fat Man" slugs would do. At something like 9 clicks, it put a 22" group (10 rounds) in the paper at 1,000 yards (not meters). Then the targets all blew into the next county.

I remember drinking about a gallon of hot chocolate when I got in, and I was VERY happy with that group on the paper in 55 to 70 mph wind. They were the only bullets that hit the 1,000 yd paper in that session. The 220 grain Core Lokt shot out of the .30-'06 never found the 600 yard target, but the 7mm Ackley just kept bucking wind consistently and leaving a group. I was young, and I learned a little bit that night.
 
No it is just a plain old Remington SPS Model 700 chambered in 25/06. I am fond of the model 700 anyway and also have a 30/06. The 30/06 is my "all around" rifle. White tails and the like. My son passed away and left a Marlin 444 so if I need something really stiff I can use that. I sighted it in at an inch high at 100 yards. Shot up a box of shells and was very happy to be finished! That thing has a kick to it, or should I say a wallop! I was have a very hard time getting it tuned in and it really hurt me good. It is now cleaned, oiled and put away in the gun safe where it will stay until I get invited to a moose hunt.
 
The Remmingtons in those chamberings are fantastic guns at any price, let alone best in their price range. The ADL model 700 is good enough, but the SPS is a beauty. I suppose my favorite was the 700 in 7mm SAUM. Mine indicated 19% less recoil than the .30-'06 shooting a 165 grain when the SAUM was shooting a 150 grain a whole lot faster and flatter. I hope they chamber it in 6.5-.284 Norma soon.

The Marlin (I'm guessing in .44 mag?) is one I, too, wish was a heavier gun. I have a tendency to like heavy guns with light-to-medium recoil, and really hate light weight guns with lots of kick. I don't really enjoy anything over .30-'06 in 180 grains, but can endure a .338 Win Mag if it weighs upwards of 9 1/2 lbs. A buddy recently paid me to accurize a .477 Nitro Express. (WHY? ...I don't know.) Not a lot of fun...I really should have turned the job down. I felt about like the bomb squad after a bad day.

BTW, ReachOut, a groundhog at 468 yards is some decent shooting. Kudos!
 
Warning! This thread is more than 8 years ago old.
It's likely that no further discussion is required, in which case we recommend starting a new thread. If however you feel your response is required you can still do so.
Top