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25 wssm Coyote

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The series of Winchester super short magnum cartridges never really started any fires with the interest of shooters. You can read many threads of why these (223wssm, 243wssm, 25wssm) rounds are undesirable, along with reloading issues and touchy pressure spikes. Read More...
This is a thread for discussion of the article, 25 wssm Coyote, By Robert Coles. Here you can ask questions or make comments about the article.
 
I also picked up one of these last fall in nice shape. Finally got some brass and ammo and am just starting to play with loads. It's a very pleasant caliber to shoot and shows some good promise. My plan is for prairie dogs.
I've had to modify a shell holder so I can get my dies to set the shoulder back any at all. Factory loads work fine. The shoulder needs some set back to chamber. From what I've read this is a common problem with the short fat cases. Neck sizing doesn't seem to be an option.
 
Shoulder bumping here takes more attention because the brass is so thick. That is, 'expected' bumping results are countered by the additional spring back from thicker shoulders.

The WSSMs are not 'improved' cases (like an Ackley improvement), so expect to body size as with any other factory/SAAMI/non-AI offering today.

I feel like the 25wssm is the best of them, and I like my 26wssm even more.
The 22 & 24 wssms are just a bad design from the git-go.
 
I've modified a shell holder by grinding .010" off to set the shoulder back to near what factory rounds are, but only gained .002". Still need another .003". Those heavy walled cases have a lot of spring back even after annealling.
 
The Coyote was supposed to compete with Remington's Sendero when it came out and also introduce the line of WSSMs AND WSMs.

I have worked on many of these rifles because the owners though they should shoot better.
(I felt the same way because it was a nice looking rifle with lots of cartridge choices).

After a complete inspection of each rifle, I could find nothing basically wrong with the first one. so I decided it must be the ammo. "Wrong" so I decided to tear it down and do a complete blue print on the action and see what the effect would be. It did improve but by a small margin. And after exhausting every possibility but the barrel which was next on my list. Bore scoping the barrel proved it to be very rough (Lots of machine marks) so the decision was made to hand lap the barrel
to find out if that was the problem. (This rifle was a 325 WSM and the best group it could produce
was just over 2&1/2 MOA).

After casting the lap and loading it with 1500 grit garnet, I found it would not go down the bore but about 5" and it would stop. once I got it to go through I found 4 other tight spots that the lap had trouble with. After working hard The lap would pass completely through the barrel bore, Then I cast
another (Better fitting lap) and worked the entire barrel until it felt consistent. Bore scope inspection showed most of the machine marks were reasonably smooth.

So off to The range with it to find out if it had improved. It went from 2&1/2 to 3 MOA to .700 MOA
With factory ammo.

Armed with this information, All future Winchester Coyotes would be checked the same way. the results were astounding. The best accuracy from one was just under 1 MOA and the worst was just over 5 MOA. Not a very good showing for this rifle. Without exception, all of the barrels were bad
and had to be replaced. All I could figure was that Winchester got a bad batch of barrels and did not catch them in QC.

A good friend had Coyotes in all of the different cartridges and we ended up re barreling all of them in order to make them shoot well.(His best was 1 MOA with the factory barrel).

The rifle has the potential of being a great rifle as long as you do a complete blue print and re barrel
NOTE: I did not do just a barrel change On any of them after finding each barrel bad, so I cant say how well they would have done with a new barrel and without the blue print.

As to the ammo Issue, why Winchester decided to make the shoulder angle different on the WSSMs
28o to 30o and 35o on the WSMs is beyond me Unless it was for feeding, but they did. They are not a true Ackley but they are a good compromise.

I have had good accuracy with all of the re barreled Coyotes using factory Winchester Ballistic silver tips (Black box) and very good accuracy with quality re loads.

Others may have had good luck with there coyotes depending on when they were made and if Winchester installed better barrels. But this has been my experience with them. I have a 223 WSSM and 7mm WSM and both perform excellent with custom barrels. Both are well under 1/4 MOA Accuracy.

I believe that enough of the bad Coyotes were sold that it killed the rifle sales. the cartridges are very good short action cartridges and well liked by many for the power they produce in a small package.

This has been my experiences with the rifle and the cartridge.

J E CUSTOM
 
My 25WSSM looked good with the borescope. The issue I've had is that someone attempted to glassbed it and the stuff they used set up more like dried up playdoe. Even like that it shot 1 MOA :rolleyes:....Since correcting that and getting the trigger done I'm on my way to load development for prairie dogs.
 
My 25WSSM looked good with the borescope. The issue I've had is that someone attempted to glassbed it and the stuff they used set up more like dried up playdoe. Even like that it shot 1 MOA :rolleyes:....Since correcting that and getting the trigger done I'm on my way to load development for prairie dogs.


Great !!! glad you got a decent shooting one. They are nice rifles

The bedding was probably From Winchester. They, like some other manufactures like to use a little
dab of green or blue stuff that never really hardens and only works for a very short time (Not even long enough to brake the barrel in) under the action near the recoil lug. It must be totally removed
before re bedding. I also added pillars to the stock before I bedded that made a huge difference.

J E CUSTOM
 
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