The 25 sst...up and running

October of 2022 was a great month for my 25sst.

First my 12 year old son shot this 4x4 muley on second day of general season in Idaho. The buck was shot at 300 yards. Bullet went through and through, hit the heart, and had a great exit hole. The buck went maybe 10 yards and piled up. My 10 year old daughter was with us and she was just as excited as her brother. My biggest regret is I didn't get a picture with her in it. Just completely spaced it in the moment. I typically don't take a lot of pictures and prefer to get working on the animal right away. I think I'll be kicking myself for many years about not getting her in the pic...she was an absolute trooper on the hills.

Then I took my nephew out and he shot this 6pt bull on the general opener. The bull was shot at 175 yards. First shot was right in the boiler, went through and through with a great exit wound. Bull spun around and stopped facing the other way. I could see the exit wound and blood spilling out in the binos. The bull was dead standing, but I told my nephew to put another I'm him. Second shot went practically through the exit hole of the first bullet, but surprisingly didn't exit. Bull piled up maybe 30 yards from location of first shot. This is the first big game animal he has ever shot. Not a bad first!

Both were incredibly fun hunts with lots of great memories made.

Rifle and load info: Tikka t3x action, Bartlein 3b 24" 7.5 twist, factory Tikka varmint stock, Vox S suppressor, 131 BJ bullets, RL26, downloaded to 3000 fps for an easy recoil for my kids.
 

Attachments

  • 12931.jpeg
    12931.jpeg
    995.2 KB · Views: 73
  • 12930.jpeg
    12930.jpeg
    985.8 KB · Views: 65
  • 12935.jpeg
    12935.jpeg
    946.3 KB · Views: 64
  • 12928.jpeg
    12928.jpeg
    979.3 KB · Views: 61
Last edited:
Thanks to @CjC73 i can now add to this thread. Maybe Saturday after we put up the new targets I can test out what it will do.
 

Attachments

  • 1F04AEC5-B171-45CD-8F86-3EAFA3735ECE.jpeg
    1F04AEC5-B171-45CD-8F86-3EAFA3735ECE.jpeg
    1.9 MB · Views: 56
  • 07A06E40-54BB-4826-8EE0-8A8E38635422.jpeg
    07A06E40-54BB-4826-8EE0-8A8E38635422.jpeg
    2 MB · Views: 60
  • C472BC19-81A9-4990-B6BA-B6D1B8EF6F1D.jpeg
    C472BC19-81A9-4990-B6BA-B6D1B8EF6F1D.jpeg
    2.5 MB · Views: 64
An update on my original 25sst. Against better judgment at 1320 rounds I decided to have my original barrel rechambered with the new b reamer. Smith set the chamber back .120" and cut the bbl down from 26 to 18". I have 2 more barrels but wanted to see how a rechambered barrel would do. I got it back a few months ago and just now got to shooting it. At first I shot some of the ammo I already had loaded up previously with 58gr of h1000 that was giving me 3170fps out of the 26" and was down to 3130fps by the time I got it rechambered with the 131s. Of course with the new chamber the the bullets were jammed quite bit and shooting 3shot groups around an inch at 2800fps. Went back in seated them 20 thou deeper and shot a .5" group (top of the target). Then went back in and seated them another 30 thou deeper to try and get back to original .020" jump where I used to run them then shot another 3 shot group that went in the .1s (bottom right, the shot just left that is marked was from my 22creed) this was all just now in bright sunlight with a 15mph wind at 3cl. Went back in and seated 6 more like this and shot them they went into about a 1.2" group but the wind was up to 25mph at 3cl by then. So will have to shoot a few 5 shot groups later in better conditions to see how it's going to hold up. Also went and got some of my 67gr hammer loads that we're running 4200fps in the longer barrel and blew up some Michelob ultras that got left out here (I'm an ipa guy)
131s moving 2800fps right now with a mild load of h1000 so if the gun still shoots well next outing. I may load them at 3000fps with n570 to get the most of the new setup.
IMG_5730.jpeg
 
How'd the throat clean up with that .120" setback? I'd assume with that round count it had some cracking for a ways?

Oh yea! I bore scoped it before I took to him and it looked pretty rough. Meant to bore scope it again before I shot it but haven't yet.
I shot it again just before dark at distance just messing around, it was still pretty windy. I have no idea if rechambered barrels speed up again like with new ones but it's seems to be speeding up. Velocity was around 2860fps this evening.
 
Top