On a snowy November morning in 1914, two hunters walked along the Soo Line out of Danbury, Wisconsin. After his friend shot a deer, young Jim Jordan cut a buck track that brought him back toward the rails — just as an approaching train flushed several whitetails from a patch of brush. Jim’s three shots failed to drop the buck. He trailed the wounded animal and killed it with his last .25-20 WCF (Winchester Center Fire) bullet, fired across an icy river.
In Danbury, the buck drew a crowd. Its body and antlers were huge! A taxidermist offered a shoulder mount for $5. Jordan paid. Then the antlers vanished. Forty-five years later, they turned up in a second-hand store, selling for $3 to Bob Ludwig, a distant relative of Jordan. Shown the rack, Jordan said it was from his 1914 kill, a claim promptly contested.
In 1965, the Boone and Crockett Club listed the deer as the world’s record typical whitetail, killed by an “unknown” hunter in Minnesota. Its provenance was still debated when in 1968 Ludwig peddled the antlers for $1,500. In 1978, B&C accepted Jordan’s claim. Two months after he was acknowledged as the hunter, Jim Jordan died.
That twisted saga may be the longest and most entertaining of any triggered by a .25-caliber rifle! Jordan apparently used a Winchester Model 1892, possibly a Marlin 1894. Both short-action lever rifles arrived as blackpowder gave way to smokeless. So did the .25-20 WCF.
The .25-20 WCF is a pipsqueak among smokeless .25s, with a 60-grain load for small game. Its 86-grain bullet, launched at an anemic 1,460 fps, brings 400 foot-pounds of energy out the muzzle, 270 to 100 yards. Its arc is steep. Observed one shooter: “You must judge range accurately beyond 75 yards.” The .25-20’s defenders point out that it is kind to turkey meat and coyote pelts. It ranks among the most feeble of deer cartridges. The mid-length .25-35 WCF, developed for Winchester’s lever rifle of 1894, has a huge ballistic edge, its 117-grain bullet at 2,230 fps packing 1,230 foot-pounds of punch. At 100 yards it still has 900 foot-pounds.
The .25-35 WCF may have inspired the .25-36 Marlin, unveiled in 1895 for the company’s superb 1893 lever rifle. While .25-35 loads can be fired in .25-36 chambers, it’s worth noting the .25-36 was loaded to low pressures to pamper weaker actions. Incidentally, when Theodore Roosevelt embarked on his 1909-1910 African safari, his 15 crates of rifles and ammunition included an 1893 Marlin in .25-36, presumably for light plains game.
By then the world was awash in useful 6.5mm cartridges firing .264-diameter bullets. The 6.5x54mm Mannlicher-Schoenauer and 6.5x55mm Swedish were as popular among hunters as with armies. Rimmed 19th century .25s were ill-suited to bolt-action repeaters, clearly the infantry rifles of the future. Hunters had few choices in rimless .25 cartridges and bullets. Also, .257 and .264 bullets are very close in size. So as 6.5s prospered, quarter-bores did not.
The First Notable .25s
The 20th century’s first notable .25 stateside was the .25 Remington, essentially a rimless .25-35. Introduced in 1906, it served the company’s Model 8 autoloading rifle and later slide-action Model 14. The Stevens 425 lever action chambered it, too. While these repeaters had merit, they sold best in .30 and .35 Remington. The .25 and .32 struggled. The .25 was gone by 1960.
Leading expeditions in wild places for the American Museum of Natural History, Roy Chapman Andrews might have picked a huskier cartridge than a .25. But he chose the .250 Savage, newly minted in 1913 by brilliant inventor and wildcatter Charles Newton. Its bullets were half the weight of the .30-06’s. But Andrews found them effective. Recoil was light even from Savage’s handy, short-action 1899 rifle. While Newton had envisioned his .250 pushing 100-grain bullets at 2,800 fps, Arthur Savage insisted on 87-grain bullets at 3,000 fps, calling attention to that eye-popping velocity by naming the cartridge the .250-3000 Savage. Because Savage 1899 rifles had a spool magazine, not an under-barrel tube like other lever-actions, the .250 could use pointed bullets. That would prove a big advantage as scopes became popular.
Favored as a saddle-rifle in the West, the Model 1899 (re-labeled the Model 99 in 1920) excelled for predators and deer-size game. In 1953, climbing a ridge in Arizona’s rugged Santa Rita Mountains, Ed Stockwell flushed two Coues’ bucks. In a blink they were gone. Despairing, Ed turned back. Then motion behind some oak brush caught his eye. A buck stepped clear at 60 yards. It fell to Ed’s .250, a Savage 99 with metallic sights. Its massive antlers would top B&C charts. They still do.
With the .250 Savage I’ve taken game as big as elk, but view it as marginal for elk and heavy black bears. A friend with access to wildly productive elk country has taken more than two dozen bulls with his .250. “It’s adequate,” he says, “if you’re careful.”
For decades, Winchester and Remington have offered only 100-grain loads for the .250. From the 23-inch barrel of a Cooper rifle I had for a while, they clocked very near the claimed 2,820 fps. Accuracy, though, was mediocre. Fed handloads with 87-grain Sierras at 3,060 fps, that rifle drilled half-inch knots! Unlike the .30-30 clan, the rimless .250 is comfortable in bolt rifles. Winchester chambered its Model 70 for it. More recently it appeared in Ruger’s 77 and Remington’s 700. Custom gun-makers have built .250 sporters on short Mauser actions.
Muscle-Bound Competition
The .250 soon had competition. Surely necking the .30-40 Krag to .25 had occurred to wildcatters during the 1890s. A.O. Neidner and F.J. Sage did it; I have a Winchester 1885 single shot so chambered. Even in the day of the Krag and British SMLE, however, focus had turned to rimless cartridges. In 1925, bullets from Winchester’s new .270 flew as fast and flat as the .250s, and hit harder. But the .270 begged a long action. In 1934, Remington adopted the .25 Ned Roberts had fashioned on the mid-length 7x57mm case. E.C. Crossman called the Roberts a “Super .250” and urged using groove diameter in the name to distinguish it from other .25s. Remington listed its Model 30 bolt action in .257 Roberts, also the later 722 and 700, and the slide-action 760. Winchester sold the Model 54 in .257. It was a charter chambering in the Model 70.
The Roberts holds more powder than the .250 Savage so can be loaded to send bullets faster. But some factory loads show 117-grain bullets reach just 2,650 fps. One reason: To fit in short rifle actions, bullets must be seated deep in .257 Roberts cases, trimming the capacity advantage. Now most commercial .257 loads push 117-grain bullets at 2,780 fps. “Plus P” (+P) ammunition drives them to 2,950.
The .257 Roberts was modestly popular for deer. Some sheep hunters hailed it. But like Newton’s .250, its bullets didn’t fly accurately enough to suit varmint hunters. Warren Page, a bench rest shooter, was a critic. Jack O’Connor held a sunnier view: that by 1950 the .257’s versatility and light recoil would make it a hit. He was wrong. In the mid-50s, Winchester’s new .243 arrived for short-action rifles. It sent 100-grain bullets as fast as, or faster than, the Roberts and all but buried it at market.
In that day, choices in .25-caliber bullets were quite limited — typically to 60-, 87-, 100- and 117-grain weights. In some lines, the 117s were round-nose only. The .250 Savage, .257 Roberts and later .25-06 Rem. had to wait for 110-grain grain spitzers: Nosler’s AccuBond and Hornady’s FTX and ELD-X. These fly faster and flatter than 117s and deliver the energy and penetration to down most big game, trumping the 6mms in that regard while giving up nothing as predator loads.
Enter the Magnums
The .25 with the most zip is Weatherby’s .257 Magnum, birthed in the early 1940s. Commercial loads became available in 1948. It is based on the .300 H&H case, shortened to 2.50 inches, blown out to reduce taper and given Weatherby’s radiused shoulder junctures. It has the capacity of the more versatile .270 and 7mm Weatherby Magnums. Roy used it on antelopes and a hyena on his 1948 safari. The high-velocity hits pulverized flesh. This magnum drives Norma-loaded 87-grain bullets at over 3,820 fps, 100-grainers at 3,600 and 115s at 3,400. Called “one of the best long-range varmint/big game cartridges,” it is also loud and violent, a poster-child for “overbore” cartridges with big powder charges and small bullets.
The only other .25 magnum worth noting here is the Winchester Super Short Magnum, unveiled in 2004. At 1.67 inches, its fat, rimless case is shorter than the Roberts’ hull, shorter even than the .243’s. It does not feed as smoothly as these cartridges or its ballistic twin, the older and much longer .25-06.
Since Model T Fords were new, many shooters have necked the .30-06 case to .25-caliber. But for some time no standard chamber dimensions existed. Shooters chafed. Then in 1969 Remington added the .25-06 to its cartridge roster.
In a gun shop long ago, a Weatherby Mark V rifle in .25-06 caught my eye. It had the trim six-lug action still new to the series and a walnut stock. Some seasons later, it was in hand when a whitetail buck appeared against a pale dawn on a distant ridge. I committed to a hard climb toward a high pocket, where I would relieve him of earthly cares.
My route, charted to keep a cross-wind, added time. On top at last, I caught my breath then crept stealthily ahead, eyes on the pocket’s brush as it edged into view. Then a deer blew — not in the draw but from shin-high grass beside me! The buck bounded down the slope I’d just climbed. With no wish to fire at a running deer, I let him go. Half a mile he sped, then slowed. In brush along a creek he dropped into cover. Bedded! An hour later, on hands and knees, I shed my pack to belly through grass and low bushes toward antler tips barely visible.
The deer lay still, head up. But I couldn’t see it. If I lifted mine to peek, he’d be gone. He had to stand; but I was close enough that a wiggle of wind, even my pooling scent, would give me away. “Hey, buck.” My voice was soft, low. “Hey, buck.” The ears moved. “Hey, buck.” The antlers swiveled. Eye to the scope, sling taut, I spoke once more. The buck didn’t stand or jump up. He lunged off, like a rocket. But for a heartbeat I caught shoulder behind the reticle. Clipped weeds sifted to earth in the wake of the blast. The buck lay still behind them. That .25-06 has a favored spot in my gun rack.
Unknown by many hunters, wildcat .25s abound. Among my favorites: the .25 Souper, a child of the late ’50s. It’s simply the .243 necked to fire .257 bullets — essentially a .257 Roberts for short actions. I brooded without one for years. Then ace gun-maker Charlie Sisk chambered a 24-inch Lilja barrel with 1-in-10 twist and screwed it to a Remington 700 action. He trued the bolt, receiver face and barrel shank, lapped the locking lugs and added a thick recoil lug, bedding the steel with Acraglas in a Hi-Tech stock. “Dad plugged a radiator leak on an old Farmall tractor with Acraglas,” he said. “It’s held for 20 years.”
With a Timney trigger and Swarovski 3-9x36mm scope in Talley rings, this 7-pound rifle is a delight. Cases are as easy to make as .243 hulls are to re-size. Handloads with 87-grain Hornadys clock 3,330 fps with no signs of untoward pressures; 100-grain Sierras and Noslers easily reach 3,100. These loads, and 110-grain Berger bullets at 3,145 fps, have all shot into .85-inch. A better predator/deer rifle is hard to imagine!
