Why No 25 Caliber Bench Rest Cartridges?

rkittine

rkittine

New member
I am new to the bench rest game, but over the years have enjoyed shooting my .25-06 and my .257 Roberts. Pretty much MOA with worked up hand loads. I am sure that there is a perfectly logical reason, maybe lack of variety of projectiles, or something to do with BC, but I just wondered.

Thanks, Bob
 
Jackets and/or custom bullets. Back in the 1980's and early 90's there was minor interest in .25's in BR. If I recall someone produced a benchrest worthy jacket. Can't recall who but I think Jef Fowler sold the bullets.

Variants of the 6 BR were the most common .25-cal. Wildcatters dabbled with the quarter bore in BR. Homer Culver was one of the first with his .25 Dart in 1953. It's based on the .220 Swift (see below):



But again, it really comes down to components. That plus the PPC is so perfectly suited for short-range, there's really no reason to reinvent the wheel.

-Lee
www.singleactions.com
 
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No 25 cal in benchrest? No bullets of significant quality. As stated above Jef Fowler made some for a while but the availability of benchrest quality jackets made the project difficult. With Jefs passing most of his equipment was sold to a bullet maker who now mostly shoots score. His 25 cal dies were sold to a couple of old time centerfire shooters who are now not currently making bullets mostly because of the jacket issue and the fact they are more shooters than bullet makers.

Jackie and a few, very few, shot a 25 BR for a limited time.


.
 
The good RG Robinett continues to hand swage those precious 25 caliber bullets. He produces the 88 grain and 110 grain rockets:cool:
 
RStiefel said:
The good RG Robinett continues to hand swage those precious 25 caliber bullets. He produces the 88 grain and 110 grain rockets:cool:
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I hope he stops by and chimes in. 25 caliber benchrest cartidges have won at national level competition, thanks to Randy. Someone must have told him it couldn't be done.
 
Fowler

Did produce 25 cal bullets. Somewhere in my stash is a bunch I never got around using. They were an 85 grain flat base.
 
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rkittine said:
I am new to the bench rest game, but over the years have enjoyed shooting my .25-06 and my .257 Roberts. Pretty much MOA with worked up hand loads. I am sure that there is a perfectly logical reason, maybe lack of variety of projectiles, or something to do with BC, but I just wondered.

Thanks, Bob
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Back in the 1990's, I did. It was an idea of mine and Glenn Newick.

I called it the 25BR Whacker. It was simply a 6 BR necked up to 25 caliber. JGS ground the reamer, .274 neck and a .060 throat.

What made it work was Jeff Fowler's 85 grn FB match bullets, made on .925 J4 Jackets. I used Krieger 13 twist barrels, and N130.

I didn't do bad with it. I won a few yardages, the first "teen" Agg I ever shot was with it.

The big problem was Jeff would only make the bullets periodically. I was also shooting a 6PPC, so after a few years playing with it, I decided to just go 6PPC.

There are good bullets out there for it. Berger being one, and BIB is making some interesting long range bullets. A good friend of mine and myself just took a 1-8 twist 25 caliber barrel and made sort of a 25 Dasher. We ran the reamer in .070 long, and I made a rig up to form the cases. He used BIB 115 grn (I think), and the darned thing shot pretty darned good at 400 yards. Ed is getting a dedicated reamer ground now.

We were able to do this because my original Whacker reamer had a trim to length at 1.500. Since a 6BR case is 1.560, we had some metal to play with.

The longer ranges might be the future of the 25.With the 25 BR Dasher configuration, you can easily get 3000 FPS out of a 115 grn bullet with a BC in the range of 550. But in all honesty, I doubt it will do anything better than a 6Dasher with 108's.
 
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Randy sent me some of the first BIB .25 cal. 88 gr. BR flat based bullets to test for him. Here's two five shot groups with them:



Here's the gun I tested them with: 250 Savage Ackley, Hart #2 barrel twisted 1:10, 'smithed by Stan Ware (SGR Custom Rifles), McMillan hunting stock and a 6 power non-A.O. scope. Not exactly a BR quality 'test bed'. ;)



Yeah.....Randy's .25's are killer good. :)
 
jackie schmidt said:
Back in the 1990's, I did. It was an idea of mine and Glenn Newick.

I called it the 25BR Whacker. It was simply a 6 BR necked up to 25 caliber. JGS ground the reamer, .274 neck and a .060 throat.

What made it work was Jeff Fowler's 85 grn FB match bullets, made on .925 J4 Jackets. I used Krieger 13 twist barrels, and N130.

I didn't do bad with it. I won a few yardages, the first "teen" Agg I ever shot was with it.

The big problem was Jeff would only make the bullets periodically. I was also shooting a 6PPC, so after a few years playing with it, I decided to just go 6PPC.

There are good bullets out there for it. Berger being one, and BIB is making some interesting long range bullets. A good friend of mine and myself just took a 1-8 twist 25 caliber barrel and made sort of a 25 Dasher. We ran the reamer in .070 long, and I made a rig up to form the cases. He used BIB 115 grn (I think), and the darned thing shot pretty darned good at 400 yards. Ed is getting a dedicated reamer ground now.

We were able to do this because my original Whacker reamer had a trim to length at 1.500. Since a 6BR case is 1.560, we had some metal to play with.

The longer ranges might be the future of the 25.With the 25 BR Dasher configuration, you can easily get 3000 FPS out of a 115 grn bullet with a BC in the range of 550. But in all honesty, I doubt it will do anything better than a 6Dasher with 108's.
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When Jeff Fowler and a few others attempted to resurrect (hell, get it off the pad) the .25 Cal. around, or, about 1990-91, J4 offered four jacket lengths: .780"; .850"; .940", and 1.125". I believe that Jeff and his friendly rivals began with 75 gr. bullets - based upon the shortest offering - paired with 1:14" twist barrels. This made for a good partnership, because the finished FB bullets were about 0.80" long, with about a 10.3 specific gravity, thus exited the muzzle with more than adequate gyroscopic stability - about Sg 1.7 sea-level Std., @3000 FPS). All was rosy! :)

Then, the short jackets, "dried-up", whereupon, Jeff and others proceeded to craft their 75 Gr. bullets using the next longer (I believe .850") jacket, without regard/consideration of TWIST rate: this resulted in a weaker, but not catastrophic model: specific gravity dropped to about 9.1, begging for a 1:13" twist rate (sea-level, Std., @3000 FPS). Some [nominal] 14" twist barrels weren't quite up to the task, and precision began to erode.

Then, fast forward to the next jacket shortage, whereupon the jacket selection was reduced to the two longer offerings: .94" and 1.125" . . . keeping it short, FB bullets, of almost any practical weight, on the .940" jacket are marginally stable via 1:13" twist, and are much better at 1:12". BT bullets on this jacket will perform much better via 1:11" twist, which will also make FBs quite content. The 1.125" jackets shoot competitively via 1:10" barrels, but 1:9" makes for "hummers"! ;)

Well, at least, the HUMMER Bartlein, 1:9" twisted, conventional rifled 4-groove barrels have not been ruined by the "fast" twist!:D For a nice (perfect) Sg 1.5, the 110 Gr. BT wants the 9" twist! 7 HoF points in consecutive NBRSA Hunter Nationals dispelled the myth of twist rates being, "too fast" - As evidenced by a pair of 200 Yd. wins, and a Grand Agg. "Just right" works quite well.:eek: Note the groups delivered by Al's Hart 1:10" twisted .250 Ackley Imp.!

But, I'm rambling - BR shooters, who should have known better, blamed the demise of the 25 on, "bad jackets": the REAL culprit was mismatched (inadequate) twist rates. Twenty-five Cals. are neither better, or, worse than any other caliber: for those who can think outside the box, across the caliber spectrum, there's still a LOT of money on the table.

Back to Jackie's (red above) model - it (1:13" twist) had a chance! :p:cool:

On second thought, staying with, "that'll never work", may be a better plan - thank for the reminder, James, . . . Keep 'em ON the X! RG
 
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I guess with good jackets and dies you could make a 6.8 or .270 cal shoot good too if you can figure out all the details.
 
I guess with good jackets and dies you could make a 6.8 or .270 cal shoot good too if you can figure out all the details.
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PO ACKLEY suggested that a .270 based on the .308 case would be an ideal cartridge. (The venerable .270 is pretty good as is for it's intended uses. It could be interesting to see how bullets and twists evolve).
 
25 Cal.

Back in the 220 Russian Sako drought of the early nineties, Ted Perrico and Don "DJ" Jones were fooling with a 6BR case with the shoulder moved forward .070". They had 22, 6MM and 25 Cal. versions. DJ had some "Good" jackets and Homer's dies. They were both competitive in score shooting with the 25. The 22 version was deadly on prairie dogs out of a 19" barreled XP that DJ built.
 
Eddie - I remember Don's 25 BR well. We built our 6 BR around the same time because of the Sako brass shortage. Speaking of Homer's dies, they're churned out some world class bullets. My dad and he made a 6mm set that shot beautifully in a bunch off rifles. I really wish I knew where that set ended-up. BTW, do you happen to recall Homer's home-built lathe he used to true J-4 jackets? The old guy was a perfectionist and couldn't live with 0.0003" wall variation.

-Lee
www.singleactions.com
 
Lee Martin said:
Eddie - I remember Don's 25 BR well. We built our 6 BR around the same time because of the Sako brass shortage. Speaking of Homer's dies, they're churned out some world class bullets. My dad and he made a 6mm set that shot beautifully in a bunch off rifles. I really wish I knew where that set ended-up. BTW, do you happen to recall Homer's home-built lathe he used to true J-4 jackets? The old guy was a perfectionist and couldn't live with 0.0003" wall variation.

-Lee
www.singleactions.com
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Speaking of dies, who ended up with Jeff Fowlers 25 cal Die.?
 
Dusty Stevens said:
I guess with good jackets and dies you could make a 6.8 or .270 cal shoot good too if you can figure out all the details.
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Dusty, Yes! :eek: It always falls back to jacket quality and availability - meet these, and any caliber will shoot at a competitive level. ;) Had short jackets been available, along the lines of Tony C's thinking, I'd also have a set of .277 dies; I was too lazy to pinch-trim to a desired length. Following/during my "dizzy spell", I somehow acquired what appears to be, "a life time supply" of excellent 25 caliber jackets. Those jackets alone cost more - per K jackets - than the guy on Accurate Shooter is asking (per K) for the 6K Fowlers - those are a STEAL!;)

The "bad jacket" slur was/is so solidified, it took over two years of requests (almost begging) B4 Bill Neimi agreed to make a set of 25 Cal. dies for me. Before caving in to my nagging, he required me to provide jackets of BR quality, as he did not want/need a disappointed customer - so, I purchased jackets, and sent a bucket for his inspection/approval, whereupon, he agreed to make the dies. The wall variation was less than 0.0002". The dies opened the door to an interesting world of barrel/bullets testing - there is a LOT of BS and myth surrounding bullets, barrels, & tuning/stability . . . myth and misinformation are difficult to overcome.:p

About 12-15 years ago, [the late] Roy Oines obtained a set of 6.5 dies (I cannot recall the maker), and some 50K 1.3" PLUS long jackets. He wanted to mess with a 6.5 for Hunter Class - the problem there, was but a single jacket length available, which was entirely unsuitable for light weight, point-blank BR type bullets. Roy talked me into making the bullets, I agreed, but refused to pinch-trim them - that would be Roy's contribution.

He contacted [the late] Ferris Pindell, who graciously provided instructions for the proper making of the pinch-die.
Everything went well, except for the barrel twist rate! :( Arbitrarily, for the desired bullet weight, Roy opted for 1:14" twist - it was benchrest, right!?:p That proved a set-back, as for the slected jacket/bullet LENGTH (these were FB bullets, between 87 and 92 Gr.) the rocket science dictated nothing slower than 1:12" - after messing with the project for a couple of seasons, even after investing in "properly" twisted barrels, Roy decided there was no usable advantage to the BC gain, and went back to whipping us with is trusted 30x47s.

I believe that Larry Feusse ( sorry if I butchered the spellun', Larry!), purchased the 6.5 dies from Roy, and for a while, did fairly well shooting in both group and score events - I'm certain Larry opted for the just right twist rate relative to the bullet length(s) he was using. I have been out of touch with Larry for some time now - don't know where he went with the 6.5s.:confused:

Long winded rant - quality jackets, matched to the correct twist rate, equals precision. The only negative attribute of larger calibers is more recoil to deal with.
RG
 
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