Best 25-06 brass

[Stammster]

What are you all using for 25-06 brass?

I've got a lot of R&P from the late 80's that I'm about to retire after 8-10+ firings.

The "go to" brass manufactures such as Starline and Peterson never seemed to have gotten around to that caliper. Plus, Nosler and Lapua are too rich for my blood considering it has taken 30+ years for me to wear out 100 rds of brass.

I shoot and reload 270 Win and 30-06, so I'd rather not resize either of those and stay with a 25-06 headstamp to avoid any future confusion.

 

[MagnumManiac]

I have a few hundred Remington, a few hundred Winchester and 100 Norma.
I have never seen a difference in accuracy between 3 of my rifles using these brands.
My favourite is, and always has been Remington brass in this cartridge, always seems consistent and lasts many firings.
Still on the fence with Norma, as in other cals the primer pockets have opened early.

Cheers.

 

[Chopaka81]

What are you all using for 25-06 brass?

I've got a lot of R&P from the late 80's that I'm about to retire after 8-10+ firings.

The "go to" brass manufactures such as Starline and Peterson never seemed to have gotten around to that caliper. Plus, Nosler and Lapua are too rich for my blood considering it has taken 30+ years for me to wear out 100 rds of brass.

I shoot and reload 270 Win and 30-06, so I'd rather not resize either of those and stay with a 25-06 headstamp to avoid any future confusion.

When you consider the cost and difficulty in finding the other components (bullets, primers, and powder) in these days, you may want to consider spending a little extra on brass.
That said, the first manufacture I would look at is Hornady Brass, not sure if you will find it in 25-06 although. I recently ran thru a batch of brass in 308 Win and found the Hornady Match brass to be very consistent in weight and dimensions. There was a lot of variance in Win and Rem brass. The Federal Match, Nosler, and Lapua brass were not significantly better in terms of consistency. However, Lapua was best, followed by Nosler.
Just my $.02, Good luck.

 

[RT2506]

Right now and for a while you will have to use what you can find. I was doing some reading and some of the wholesalers were saying the reason that they are not being resupplied with hand loading components is because they are all going into ammo. The ammo makers are running full bore and can't keep up with the demand. I have been running Remington in my 25-06 and I can't tell you how old or how many times they have been loaded but I check each one really well before loading again. I don't run HOT loads and I don't shoot it a whole lot, just make sure it is still zeroed and shoot a few deer each year, so they have lasted a looooooog time.

 

[sierracharlie338]

I'd buy the Lapua brass and be done with it. I've been running it for years and it has been the best I've used to this point.

 

[Plinker147]

Good ol' WW is been my favorite in 25-06. Works fine stretches a little less than RP and Hornady. Not as consistent in weight as the top brass but for a mid range cartridge it isn't as important. Mine will easily hold MOA at 600 with out weight sorting which is a far as I would use that cartridge for deer sized critters.

 

[Stammster]

I should have mentioned, these will be used in my groundhog gun (1980's Rem 700 heavy barrel with a Japanese 6-24X Tasco World Class) - with a mission of 1/2 MOA to 400 yds.

Here is the group I shot the other day. It opened up with the magnetospeed on to about 0.75 MOA. I also could not duplicate the load with the new 100 gr Nosler BT's, as they opened up also, even with variance in charge weights and seating depths on both sides of my original load. However, everything this gun shoots is still sub 0.8 MOA, no matter the bullet, powder charge, or seating depth, factory ammo, etc.

Note: This load was developed in the early 90's with the original style of thin jacket NBT bullets. After measuring them, they are also dimensionally different. Plus I never had the fancy equipment and techniques I use now. I.e. Trimmed shorter than would fit in a simple flat cartridge gauge - with many below the SAAMI min trim length, manual scale, standard RCBS dies, no case tumbler, brass FL resized to full camover, no calipers, etc. In fact, I don't remember doing a lot of load development as I just copied what a buddy of mine was using for powder type/charge in his Ruger #1 heavy bbl, with seating depth for my gun and bullets based off a sooted bullet.

 

[highdrum]

I'd probably purchase peterson 270 Winchester and neck down and perform whatever alterations needed to get it in proper dimensions to your chamber. Peterson brass is just as good as lapua in my comparisons. The shoulder on the 25-06 is 30 thou longer than the 270, you can simply set a false shoulder when necking down. You may need to turn off a thou on the necks after but maybe not. Just depends if you can easily push a bullet back into a fired case.

 

[DJ Fergus]

Stammster. In 25-06 I've reloaded for my 700, a Savage heavy barrel 112 & an axis for a friend. Remington brass is tough in 25-06 and will last, weight sorting it vastly tightened my groups. In one bag of 50 I ended up with about 6 different weight groups when I sorted by 1 grain variance lots. One thing I found in common with these three different 10 twist factory models of 25-06 is that 80 & 85 grain bullets shot tighter groups than anything heavier. I could shoot 3/8" groups. Moving to 100 grain ballistic tips & partitions yeilded 3/4"- 1" groups no matter what I tried and I tried everything. Moving on up to 110 & 115 grain bullets give me right around 1-1/4" groups no matter what I tried. The 10 twist barrels just seemed to like 80-85 grain bullet the best. I ran Hornady & Nosler brass with 3/8" groups and didn't weight sort those but the pockets don't last long in either of those.

 

[JC in Calif]

What are you all using for 25-06 brass?

I've got a lot of R&P from the late 80's that I'm about to retire after 8-10+ firings.

The "go to" brass manufactures such as Starline and Peterson never seemed to have gotten around to that caliper. Plus, Nosler and Lapua are too rich for my blood considering it has taken 30+ years for me to wear out 100 rds of brass.

I shoot and reload 270 Win and 30-06, so I'd rather not resize either of those and stay with a 25-06 headstamp to avoid any future confusion.

I run a 25/06 Imp. I've used Remington mostly, as I have a good supply. Recently I fire formed some Nosler 25/06 with good results. I've had good luck with Nosler in .257Wby and 30/06 also. Expensive, yes, but excellent quality.

 

[Pointman]

When I started reloading for my 25, there wasn't much actual factory 25-06 brass (1971). What I used was military surplus 30-06 brass, mostly (LC ) date stamps in the '50s. Found them at a local "gun show". Ran them through an RCBS trim die for 25-06 then through an FL die. They had to have the primer pocket crimp reamed but they lasted a long time. Finally retired then after nearly 20 reloads. Didn't "hot rod" them but loaded for small groups. Best was 5 under a dime @ 100 yds. Now, I can find good 25 brass from various sources. In California, gun shows are a long lost memory.

 

[nicholasjohn]

When I started reloading for my 25, there wasn't much actual factory 25-06 brass (1971). What I used was military surplus 30-06 brass, mostly (LC ) date stamps in the '50s. Found them at a local "gun show". Ran them through an RCBS trim die for 25-06 then through an FL die. They had to have the primer pocket crimp reamed but they lasted a long time. Finally retired then after nearly 20 reloads. Didn't "hot rod" them but loaded for small groups. Best was 5 under a dime @ 100 yds. Now, I can find good 25 brass from various sources. In California, gun shows are a long lost memory.

I used to know an old gent who had a couple of 55-gallon barrels full of this brass, and he used it to form darn near everything he shot. He shot a 30-06, but also loaded 22-250 & 25-06 ( long before either was a factory-loaded round ) 270, 257 Roberts and 7 X 57. Everybody in his family and circle of friends had him load their ammo, back when the Sierra soft-points were the only bullets anybody in the neighborhood used. Those folks shot truck-loads of deer & woodchucks in that corner of Pennsylvania ( he lived up around Punxsutawney ) as well as a few foxes and an occasional black bear. This guy was a retired tool & die maker, and he made his own tools for prepping his brass. He liked doing this stuff, and the precision work was his therapy for working off the worries of the world. I wish he was still around, because I think I could learn a lot from him about loading, and about brass preparation in particular.

 

[Ol' Red]

I have been using Remington brass for 10 years (8-10 loadings) and will be replacing mine soon. Necks are starting to split , but I have never annealed them. So , Remington gets my vote and next time I will Anneal the necks.

 

[Pointman]

I used LC 30-06 brass I found at a gun show back in the days before Cailif banned them, and using an RCBS trim die for 25-06, necked them down, fire-formed them, and used them for a long time, I finally retired them at the 15 reload mark. To be fair, I do not "hot-rod" y loads; my preference is for small groups for long rang shots at varmint. I'm currently using some Norma brass, and while good, I do wish Lapua would make some since I use that brass exclusively in my .308 and 338 Lapua.