.25-06, why not more popular

Rename it 25 Creedmoor and they'll buy all of them you can make it seems.

Classics wax and wane it seems. 30-06 is a great round but gets little love from many now.

My Father could have hunted with many different things but the 25-06 was what he always used and he knew his firearms.

May be better choices now but I still think it is a solid one within its (and the shooter's) limits.

someguy2800 said:

Mine is in a Tikka T3 lite, which is also 22”. My standard hunting load is a 120gr right at 3000 fps, which is a mild load by most people’s standard, so I don’t know, I guess yours is just picky?

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I think Tikka used to make the .25-06 with a faster twist. Do you know the twist in yours?

wombat13 said:

I think Tikka used to make the .25-06 with a faster twist. Do you know the twist in yours?

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1:10

I think yours is probably the anomaly. Most of the bullets and factory ammo is in 117 or 120 grain and they are careful not to put out stuff that won’t work in the majority of rifles on the market. It’s not good for bussiness to produce something that the consumer isn’t going to have good results with. Most ammo that uses a heavier than standard bullet is usually marked on the box with the required minimum twist, such as 75 grain 223 Ammo will say 1:8 twist or faster on the box.

I have been on the 25-06 train for about 8 years now. During a bout with cancer I gave most of my rifles to my sons . When the man upstairs decided to keep me around for while I decided I wanted to start shooting again. Rather than listen to my sons whine to their mother about giving my rifles back I started buying new rifles and trying new to me calibers .
I thought the 25-06 might be interesting. It shoots crazy flat at 300 , and only drops a little at 400. I don't reload , but 117 grain Sierra Gamekings are like the hammer of Thor on Whitetails , pigs too. While I have been hunting with the Quarter bore I have had one deer move from where she was shot . It was a doe who made it about 15 ish feet away. The pigs don't fare any better.
Now my sons are philabustering over who will get my 25-06 . Their both out of luck because my 12 year grandson finds the recoil of the 25-06 very easy to tolerate. . A 90 grain bullet moving at around 3300 fps is wicked Yote medicine.
......hope you enjoy your quarter bore......Tentwing

redneck2 said:

Too bad someone hasn’t thought to size it up to .30 caliber. Then you might have something

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30-06. Might just catch on.

Forgot to mention it in my earlier post, but I gotta friend in South Dakota who loads his own and he uses a Barnes 100 gr TSX ( I think that's right) on speed goats and even Elk. I am not confident enough in my shot placement to go much over 200 yards, but he thinks nothing of a 400 yard shot.
In my neck of the woods( north GA and east TN) most shots on deer are from 60 to 80 yards. That being said two years ago I took whitetail with a shot over about 160 yards of soy beans. The bullet struck right where the crosshairs were placed on the deer, and he lay right where he was struck. The 117 grainers do a fair share of exit wound damage , so place your shots accordingly .

Riomouse911 said:

Velocity won’t matter if the bullet is too long to be stabilized by the twist.

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Stability is caused by the rate of spin, or rotation, which is created by both the twist rate of the barrel and the velocity that the bullet transits the rifling. The faster the bullet traverses the rifling, the greater the spin rate.

http://www.accurateshooter.com/technical-articles/calculating-bullet-rpm-spin-rates-stability/

You are correct, increased velocity will also increase the rpm of a bullet in a given twist rate. I should have said you probably won't be able to reach the velocity required to get the RPM's needed to stabilize the bullet if it's too long for the twist rate of the rifle.

Stay safe!

Just wonder what the barrel life is with a 25-06 rifle. Not that it matters as no one is going to use it for target shooting, so the barrel won't be pounding 200 to 400 rounds a month, during the shooting season. Barrel life is very important for target shooters. You want a barrel to be at peak at the Nationals, not before, and not post peak during the Nationals. You also like a barrel that lasts for several shooting seasons, as gunsmiths tend to sit on your projects, once they get to know you. And, rebarreling is not cheap, about $300 for the blank, and $300 for the chambering job.

Whether a 25-06 offers much of an advantage over a 257 Roberts is one of those Narcissism of small differences that are used by marketing departments" to prove " the superiority of essentially identical cartridges over each other, and thus create sales. The sales pitches always include kinetic energy comparisons and trajectory drops at distances, at which, the average shooter won't hit a barn, never mind the barn door. Might not even be able to see a barn at those distances, but never mind. None of the pitches really show valid lethality comparisons, that is, what is the bullet expansion and penetration difference of the rounds would be, in ballistic gelatin at distance. Those would be interesting numbers. If the bullets traverse completely through and make identical holes, then what is the real advantage? Does a larger muzzle blast translate into a quicker killing cartridge? Must be, based on the number of thunder sticks on the market.

I think there was no need for a 243 Win as long as there are 257 Roberts around, and it is questionable whether a 25-06 is all that much of an advantage over the 257 Bob. I am pushing a 100 grain bullet at 2800 fps with a 257 Roberts. That ought to be good enough to kill the average 80 to 120 pound deer in this area, particularly at the 60 yard distances that are so common in woods. Don't know the pressures, certain it is less than a 243 Win, I hope it is less than a 25-06, because my barrel life would be longer. Would like to keep this all original for a few more years:

rbernie said:

Stability is caused by the rate of spin, or rotation, which is created by both the twist rate of the barrel and the velocity that the bullet transits the rifling. The faster the bullet traverses the rifling, the greater the spin rate.

http://www.accurateshooter.com/technical-articles/calculating-bullet-rpm-spin-rates-stability/

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As I am remembering from some of Bryan Litz’s books, the faster you go through the air the more stability you need, but you get that because the bullet is spinning faster, so it washes out in the end and you can generally equate barrel twist to bullet stability regardless of velocity.

The "quarter bores" have been out of fashion for decades. The .25-06 is just one example. It's not like many .257 Roberts or .250 Savages or .25-35 WCFs are going out the door these days either.

I don't think the .25-06 makes much sense regardless of fashion. It's got deer terminal ballistics with a western hunting case capacity. Most people who hunt out west at least consider elk a possibility, and the low-SD .25-06 is a less than ideal choice. Yes, people do it. Often it works fine. Sometimes it doesn't work where a larger round would have.

The recoil is less than most adult men can reasonably tolerate, giving it a reputation as a women and children rifle - somewhat deserved.

The smaller quarter bores made a lot more sense back east.

Slamfire said:

Just wonder what the barrel life is with a 25-06 rifle. Not that it matters as no one is going to use it for target shooting, so the barrel won't be pounding 200 to 400 rounds a month, during the shooting season. Barrel life is very important for target shooters. You want a barrel to be at peak at the Nationals, not before, and not post peak during the Nationals. You also like a barrel that lasts for several shooting seasons, as gunsmiths tend to sit on your projects, once they get to know you. And, rebarreling is not cheap, about $300 for the blank, and $300 for the chambering job.

Whether a 25-06 offers much of an advantage over a 257 Roberts is one of those Narcissism of small differences that are used by marketing departments" to prove " the superiority of essentially identical cartridges over each other, and thus create sales. The sales pitches always include kinetic energy comparisons and trajectory drops at distances, at which, the average shooter won't hit a barn, never mind the barn door. Might not even be able to see a barn at those distances, but never mind. None of the pitches really show valid lethality comparisons, that is, what is the bullet expansion and penetration difference of the rounds would be, in ballistic gelatin at distance. Those would be interesting numbers. If the bullets traverse completely through and make identical holes, then what is the real advantage? Does a larger muzzle blast translate into a quicker killing cartridge? Must be, based on the number of thunder sticks on the market.

I think there was no need for a 243 Win as long as there are 257 Roberts around, and it is questionable whether a 25-06 is all that much of an advantage over the 257 Bob. I am pushing a 100 grain bullet at 2800 fps with a 257 Roberts. That ought to be good enough to kill the average 80 to 120 pound deer in this area, particularly at the 60 yard distances that are so common in woods. Don't know the pressures, certain it is less than a 243 Win, I hope it is less than a 25-06, because my barrel life would be longer. Would like to keep this all original for a few more years:

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I have something like 1500 down the tube of mine and the throat and leade are gone. I have an rcbs guage for measuring the distance to the leade and I’ve been checking it and writing it down for years. Accuracy is still top notch, .6 moa or so, but the writing is on the wall or so they say.

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someguy2800 said:

I have something like 1500 down the tube of mine and the throat and leade are gone. I have an rcbs guage for measuring the distance to the leade and I’ve been checking it and writing it down for years. Accuracy is still top notch, .6 moa or so, but the writing is on the wall or so they say.

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Your barrel is doing good for 1500 rounds. I will say based on experience, a high mileage barrel will still shoot good groups out to 300 yards, but the further you go out, the worse it gets. I had a M1a 308 Win barrel that was close to 5 k rounds, and it held the X ring of the 600 yard reduced target at 300 yards. There was one match were range conditions did not allow the match to be conducted at 600 yards so we shot the reduced 600 yard target at 300 yards. However, at 600 yards, that barrel would not cluster. It also radically changed zero after a through copper cleaning. It would take two rounds minimum, sometimes three, before my 200 yard standing zero would stabilize after a JB Bore paste session. I would make my call, and up would come the target with the spotting disc somewhere else. I don't remember if it shot high or low till it fouled, but it shot different. I have talked to many Long Range shooters and barrel life is highly variable, and by cartridge. I knew a fellow whose 264 Win Magnum barrel keyholed at 100 yards with 800 rounds +-. I knew another shooter who was replacing his 243 target barrel every 700 to 800 rounds. He pushed all rounds to the max, at all distances. He could afford this as his RV cost over a million dollars, and the guy had his own machine shop. The more powder that is pushed down a tube, and the smaller the tube, the sooner the throat and rifling washes out. I was squadded one day with a shooter who was using a 22-250 as an XTC rifle. He claimed that his 600 yard windage was next to nothing compared to a 223 at 600 yards, but, barrel life was awful. If my recollection is right, he had a barrel replaced at 1000-1200 rounds and there was no rifling for a foot in front of the chamber! I think a 25-06 pushes a lot of powder down the tube, at 60,000 kpsia pressures, and the bore is small. That is a guaranteed predictor of a short barrel life.

None of the articles you read about new cartridges ever inform readers about barrel life, that is a number that ought to be out there, but I wonder if it is necessary. It could influence a buyer but few owners ever shoot more than box or two of rounds after they sight in their rifle. At least the hunter crowd, the rock and roll types go through ammo boxes in one day, and they burn out barrels given time. But given the number of sporter hunting rifles out there with mint barrels, that date back prior to WW2, hunters don't shoot all that much. I suspect more hunting barrels are rusted out than shot out.

Llama Bob said:

The "quarter bores" have been out of fashion for decades. The .25-06 is just one example. It's not like many .257 Roberts or .250 Savages or .25-35 WCFs are going out the door these days either.The smaller quarter bores made a lot more sense back east.

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I once had a choice between.25-06 and the Bob. I got the .257. But I'm a sucker for oddities.

And I live as far east possible before fishing is my only option.

I remember reading an article written by a barrel maker (don’t recall who) about 300 win mag barrels they were supplying for marine corp sniper rifles. He said something to the effect that accuracy in that application did not degrade until like 2000 rounds and the first several inches of rifling would be gone.

I think a big reason mine is still doing well is that it never gets shot till it’s hot. It is a hunting rifle and I don’t compete with it so I’ve never had a reason to push it. Plus my loads are not burners. I have shot a few loads that were hot but most are pretty mild.

someguy2800 said:

the first several inches of rifling would be gone.

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Plenty of freebore. You’d have to get long bullets to seat to the lands

I am very happy with my 25.06 with my reloads it will shoot 1/2 at 100 yards all day. I always load in the middle so my loads are not hot loads.

A consideration is trajectory and wind drift.

Within what I consider maximum ethical range, 300 yards, the 100 grain bullet at 3300 FPS gets there very quickly and gets the job done

The nicest thing about handloading is that it can spread the range of bullet weights/loads of most cartridges to make them more capable for a wider range of uses, whether for varied game at extended ranges, target use, etc. I pity the non-handloader who owns guns having much-restricted factory bullet weight cartridges. When a teenager, a bunch of us used our '06s for woodchuck hunting, using 125 grain Sierra handloads that were devastating to chucks, but easy on the shoulder. I almost miss those days.

Nobody's writing about the .25-06 right now, but manufacturers are still making them, ammo makers are still loading it, and I don't think you'll encounter many people who say they used to own one; we tend to keep them forever.

.25-06 is 90 year old. After WW1 '03s were going for $5. The 30-06 was necked down everything from .22 up to .45. the only ones viable were: .25, .270, .338,. 35. For $5, and a $20 rebarrel you could have, west of Mississippi a legit pronghorn (.25) or elk (.338,.35) rifle. East (.270, 338, .35) for deer, bear, moose. They sold untold thousands.
Modern powders and bullets have been kind to these old warhorses.
Twist rates under 1:10 would allow Better BC bullets, imagine a 130 gr .25 VLD.

tactikel said:

Twist rates under 1:10 would allow Better BC bullets, imagine a 130 gr .25 VLD.

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Or. You could just size up .007 (the thickness of a couple sheets of paper or two human hairs ) and get one in 147 grain. Maybe size down the case a smidge to add to barrel life. After all, a 10% decrease in powder only cuts velocity by 2 1/2% but increases barrel life.

By the way, it’s already factory ready.

This thread caused me to remember a couple of .25-06's I've had for decades and haven't been shooting for a long while. So I got them out to look them over again and remember some great hunting experiences I've had with one of them. One, that dates back to the 1970's, is a Rem. 700 Varmint Model, from that era. It is the only one of of the medium heavy varmint weight barrel, which, as I recall, is the only caliber of Varmint series offered on a long action. I added the Fajen laminated stock shown in photo, and mainly used the rifle for testing various .25 cal. bullets and loads as it was especially accurate and a reliable test vehicle. The other rifle is a .25-06 built on Pre-64 M-70 Winchester action with custom barrel and beautiful English walnut stock by ace custom gunmaker Bob Winter. It was my #1 pronghorn and coues deer rifle for several seasons and about perfect for that type hunting..

My .25-06 is also a 700 VS from 1978. You don’t see very many of these.