.25 Hornet

[Jumptrap]

I assume somebody has blown out the Hornet case to take a .257 bullet and I want to know where there is printed data on this cartridge with line drawings and load data.

[Scrounger]

I assume somebody has blown out the Hornet case to take a .257 bullet and I want to know where there is printed data on this cartridge with line drawings and load data.

Here is what I could find:

http://www.loadammo.com/product/cartridgelist.htm

http://members.shaw.ca/cstein0/riflelist1.htm

Personally, I prefer the Hornet opened up to .270, the .270 Ren.

[Bass Ackward]

I assume somebody has blown out the Hornet case to take a .257 bullet and I want to know where there is printed data on this cartridge with line drawings and load data.

Jump,

The 25 Hornet is listed in Quickload.

[floodgate]

Jump: My increasingly shaky memory dredged up a .255 Dean on the Hornet case; I think it was in one of Papa Ackley's books, but I can't find it in any of the copies I have. BUT, Donnelly's "Handloader's Manual of Cartridge Conversions" shows a .25 Hornet on p. 201. Case length 1.38", rim dia. .350", case head .299" with straight taper to .273" at mouth. He only lists one charge: 3.5 grs. Unique "semi-smokeless" (the old version) with 75-gr. cast bullet @1343 fps. Should make a nice plinking / rabbit load! floodgate

[Bent Ramrod]

Jumptrap,

Clymer's makes reamers for the .25 Hornet. I missed out on one one time when they sent me a list of sale items and I dithered instead of diving on it. I'm still annoyed.

Ackley's Handbook for Shooters and Reloaders has the following:

60 gr bullet 8 gr 2400 powder 1525 ft/sec
11 gr 2400 powder 2035 ft/sec

86 gr bullet 6 gr 2400 powder 955 ft/sec
10 gr 2400 powder 1675 ft/sec

Standard Twist: 16"

Simmons' book on Wildcat Cartridges has a long treatise on the .25 Centerfire Longo or Hornet, developed by Herbert R. Longo. He said Longo wrote him that the shell would take 13 grains of 2400 with the 60-grain bullet for 2367 ft/sec at 29,600 "fp" (sic) pressure. Longo did not recommend anything over 25,000 lbs as he envisioned the .25 Longo as a centerfire version of the .25 Stevens rimfire.

He started out with a #5 taper on the chamber but found it would not quite clean up a .25 Stevens chamber, so went to a necked-up .22 Ackley Hornet, which gave the case a slight bottleneck and totally eliminated the .25 RF chamber.

Simmons also mentioned a Walter Oakey who was working on a .25 Hornet and wrote up his work in the October 1941 American Rifleman.

Floodgate, the .255 Dean is an extreme improvement of the .25-20 Repeater cartridge case, according to Simmons' book.

[Jumptrap]

Bent,

Thanks for the information.....which brings me to the realization that I yet, need more books.......books, books, and more reference books!

How does Barne's "Cartridges of the World" stack up as a reference book?

I gave up on P.O.'s books as being too dated for anything but a glimpse in the past and entertainment.

I'll do a search for Simmon's book....wonder what the latest edition is?

[NVcurmudgeon]

Jump, I have COTW, and consider it an essential reference book. It doesn't
pretend to be a complete wildcat book, but it has a section on wildcats. (No 25 Hornet.) Everything else is there:

Current American rifle cartridges
Obsolete American rifle cartridges
Proprietary cartridges
Handgun cartridges of the world
Military rifle cartridges of the world
British sporting rifle cartridges
European sporting rifle cartridges
American rimfire cartridges
Shotgun shells Factors limiting velocity and pressure
Sporting cartridges for long range shooting
1873: the great year of the cartridge gun
DWM cartridge numbers
Revolutionary bullet designs
Military ammunition 5.56 mm to 20 mm
Cartridge identification by measurements
Index to cartridges

You probably need this one. mine is the ninth edition, 2000.

[Trailblazer]

Somewhere around here, I have an old Handloader magazine with a write up on the 25 Hornet in a Contender IIRC.

[Bret4207]

Jump get the Hanloader compilation of "Wildcat Cartridges". Also "Small Game and Varmint" cartridges has something I think. F.C. Ness "Practicle Dope on the Small Bores" has a bunch, although dated (50's). There's a bunch of info out there but I'll have to look to see if I can find some more. Most is dated as the 25 Hornet was big in the 30's, 40's and 50's, right up till the 222 killed off pretty much everything else. You have to go back and research the time period when the .222 came along to believe what a huge impact ir had. It just plain wiped out everything else from the Hornet, Bee, Zipper, Wasp on up through the 25/20, 250-3000 adn Roberts. Back then woodchuck and crow hunting was big and the 222 just took over.

[Jumptrap]

Bret,

My pal beagle is from that era and he still rants over the .222. Yes, it surely had an impact and my 27 year old son has the prettiest Sako 222 you ever laid eyes on.....I'm just ashamed to ask him to sell it to me, hate to let him know it's my turn to envy HIS guns....har har har!

Back to the 222 and it's impact...fast forward a couple centuries...er, decades..and during my young days, the 22-250 was legitimized and it was Boss Hog. Everybody wanted one, including me and I have had 6 or 8 of them. All good rifles but 2 and they were shot out. I managed to shoot one out myself and regret so much for not having it re-barreled. Lo, those halcyon days are behind me now and I find myself watching groundhogs instead of blowing them in half.

I spend more time thinking about shooting and hunting than actually doing it and when reality sets in, I ****can the whole thought of doing another gun as there 60-70 sitting around here doing much of nothing and I swear, I sometimes find one and forget that I even had it! That my friend, is BAD!

I have much more time to sit and read now and good reference books are a pleasure to peruse. I have so many books now crammed away in boxes....it's hard to justify adding to the pile. I just run across many of my old philosophy books from college and felt my brain cells revive at just the thought of diging into Kant again!

[drinks]

Jump;
You got CRS or Old Timer's?
I am on the verge of at least one of them, if not both.
Tempus fugit, especially when you are having fun!
Don ;D

[Jumptrap]

[QUOTE=drinks]Jump;
You got CRS or Old Timer's?


Don,

I forget.

HAR!

[Bent Ramrod]

Jumptrap,

Simmons' book is long out of print. It occasionally surfaces in the lists of sporting book dealers. I hate to think of what I paid for my copy.

Cartridges of the World is kind of a standard. I have the 8th edition, and it is about the first thing I grab when a question comes up. Doesn't have everything, but it's a start. Ackley's book is valuable for wildcat cartridges. Ness' books are pretty good sometimes, and Sharpe's handloading book has a fair amount of data on some early wildcats. I also like Landis' books, although they are pretty much limited to the .22 caliber.

I do recall that there was a .25 Hornet article featuring a Contender pistol in a Handloader magazine. I think Frank De Haas also wrote an article on something he called the .25 Junior, either a Hornet or a shortened Hornet, in an issue of The American Rifleman.

The wildcats that allegedly break speed records or have the maximum muzzle energy are the ones that get all the press. Specialty items for squirrel hunting or modern Scheutzen shooting hardly get a second mention.

[moodyholler]

Paul Shuttleworth will make a Stevens 44 1/2 repro in 25 Hornet. Moodyholler

[7br]

Bret,

I just run across many of my old philosophy books from college and felt my brain cells revive at just the thought of diging into Kant again!

Kan To