25 stevens rimfire

[Chev. William]

I agree, I have seen photos of 'used' extractors that even have a long groove leading down the firing pin side of the extractor, my guess is to clear other firing pin tips from some old repairs.
The .32 Long RF conversion to CF requires a 'plug and re-bore' activity to position the firing Pin Tip where it needs to be. I suspect some of these were done by making the firing pin tip a long rectangle rather than a round pin.

Best Regards,
Chev. William

[Chev. William]

There have been reports by several people who have made adapter cases for .25 Stevens RF using .22 Blanks for 'primers'. The original RF firing pin has been used ('Wedge' end or 'round' end both) with the adapter's 'primer centered, it still is hit by the firing pin tip. The adapter 'rim' usually needs to have enough 'relief' to allow for the firing pin hit to crush the blank rim to around .030" thick from the .045" or so original thickness. IF these adapters are to be loaded as normally done, the 'relief' should be on only a portion of the adapter rim, with the remainder left thick enough to protect the Rim Fire 'primer' in the shell holder. An inadvertent ignition from bullet seating or crimping forces would not be good for your day.
Many are using reformed .22 Hornet cases as adapters (drilling out for the .22 Blank)while some are machining adapter cases from brass rod stock.
Best Regards,
Chev. William

[Chev. William]

Back on forming .22 hornet cases for use as basis for .25 Stevens/.250ALRx Basic cases.
Currently have 200expanded, and resized, 50 to be expanded, and of the Resized ones 100 have been trimmed to 1.125" long for use either as .25 Stevens or .250ALS cases after turning the displaced Brass roll off in front of the Rim.
I have ordered Lee Case Trimmer gauges with 1.050" and 1.250" lengths for trimming .250ALR and .250ALRM cases.
I have received my .22LR "Freeland" Chamber reamer from Midway Supply so now I have the tool to ream Adapters for .22 Blanks.
and I have on order 4 packages of Grade one PTL Blank loads for my Experiments.
Best Regards,
Chev. William

[Reg]

Chev,
Whats the latest on Hollywood Engineering ?

[Chev. William]

As far as I know, they are still trying to figure out whether to rebuild the Shop or to sell off the Property.
I have completed running the dies and parts Joe asked me to clean through my Vibratory Tumblers (using up two and now running on the third).
Joe has some parts and pieces for the Presses and some of the Dies may be suitable for sale.
Joe is strongly against taking out a mortgage form past experiences with Banks, from what he has told me.
For the time being they are living on his wife's wages, I believe.

Best Regards,
Chev. William

[Chev. William]

I received an order of Grade 1(one) Grey PTL Blanks in .22 Caliber 'short' cases with a Star Crimp.
These will be used for experiments adn testing .25 Stevens Adapters and .32 Long adapters with Lead bullets.
Best Regards,
Chev. William

[slumlord44]

I just got 100 .258 50 grain soft cast bullets from Carolina Cast Bullets made for the .25 ACP. $21.15 delivered. One box of .27 Ramset # power loads for $9 per 100 from Home Depot. Lubed the bullets with Bore butter from my muzzle loader and pushed the bullet in until it hit the riffling with a wooden dowel. Fired 2, 5 round groups at 25 yards to see how it would work. A little gas escaped and one case seemed to rupture. The extractor would pull the case out to the limit of the extractor travel but had to tap it out the rest of the way with a cleaning rod. Rifle is Stevens 44 with double set triggers and Stevens windage tang sight and flip up front sight. Accuracy seems to be pretty close to the Canuck factory ammo. Need to dig out the chronograph and see where velocity is. Point of impact was lower than the factory ammo by a half inch or so at 25 yards. A little slow and cumbersome but it seems to work. Still looking for a source for 70 grain lead bullets.

[Chev. William]

Good Report and Nice Rifle.
A half inch low compared to factory ammo at 25 yards seems to indicate slightly less velocity in spite of the lighter bullet (50 grain s versus 56-70 Grains).
Perhaps a trial with the .27 Caliber Grade 4 PTL blanks would be useful in your rifle.
With the 60 Grain bullets taht might rais e the velocity enough to hit the same area as the Factory loads.
Also please remember you are shooting a "short" cartridge in a "long" chamber as the .25 Stevens is nominally a 1.124" long case.
Best Regards,
Chev. Wiliam

[slumlord44]

I want to chronograph it and see how fast they are going before trying different power loads. Still looking for a source for 70 grain bullets. Heavier ones are available but so far no 70 grains. The 50's are only available from the one source. The gap between the power load and the bullet does not seem to be an issues. Breach loading target shooters have been doing this for over 100 years. The gap was not as large though. The slight undersize of the .27 round concerns me but does not seem to be a serious problem yet. I will continue to play with this one as time allows and would appreciate it if anyone has a source for 70 grain bullets. I really don't want to buy a custom mold and get in to casting my own bullets yet.

[Chev. William]

Would you consider Buying a Custom mold and providing it to a Commercial Bullet casting operation? I did it with my 311090A Accurate Mold which I provided to "Matt's Bullets" along with permission for him to use it to sell the bullets to others interested in the .32 Long or Short Colt and the similar RF Cartridges. There are several people working with the old RF cartridges, using CF cases modified to take PTL or other Blanks. the latest one is Ndnchf with his Remington rolling ?block in .32 Extra Long RF. W30wcf has also been working with the .32 Long RF and has had good success.
Best Regards,
Chev. William

[too many things]

i know its old post but I played with a steavens favorite . You can take a used 25 rim fire case. cut the head off just to where the 27cal ramset/hilit power load will fit just snug.
the 25 cal bullet dont seen to work as well as a number 3 buck __{sharpshooters mold} and drop of bee wax keeps the ball on top of the power load. and it does good enough at 25 yds to kill a bird or a ground tree rat
he will make the no 3 for you . if bore is bad slug it and give hime the size and he will do that too
one thing I did find
you need to keep bullet/ball on top of power load for it to work

[John Boy]

Might want to chamber ream the 25 Stevens RF with a 25 Hornet reamer:
25 Hornet Measurements:
Case Length - 1.38
Head Dia - .299
Rim Dia - .350
Neck Dia - .273
Rim Thickness - .065

Then modify the rimfire firing pin to be longer and insure you have a strong main spring.

Down load the reloads with 3gr Unique or 11gr FFg powder and go have fun

[slumlord44]

Chev William, I have talked to the guy at Western Bullets and he suggested that I do this. Not sure if I want to spend $80 + for a mold to do this or not. If I could convince him that there were enough demand I could be possible to convince him to buy it? If someone here has a mold and would be willing to loan it to Western he would cast the bullets. Anyone have a mold?

[Chev. William]

Slumlord 44,
$80 for a mold sounds like a Single or Dual cavity one, not necessarily a multiple cavity one suitable for production use.
The one I Bought and sent to "Matt's Bullets" was a 5 cavity one so he could get useful commercial production rates out of it.

As to Getting Western Bullets interested in footing the bill for the mold, we must acknowledge that 'Western Bullets" is a Business and as such Must conserve it's Capitol for investments in product that will return profit on the investment. A .250" bullet of 65 to 69 grains unless designed with deep lube grooves to allow as cast diameters o f.258" to .260" to be sized down to at least .250" without erasing the lube grooves, would possibly fit that billing as it would also be salable as a .257" for the various .25 Rifle cartridges still in existence, a much larger sales base.

You might price a 5 or 6 cavity custom mold for two different designs: one to cast a .255" diameter bullet fo 67 grains nominal; and another to cast a .260" diameter bullet of the same weight with deep Lube grooves as noted. An offer to foot part of the cost of the Custom mold with
"Western Bullets" might be more favorably received.
At the moment, I am not in position to either offer to share costs nor to commission another custom mold like I did, I have had no Work since the End of 2013 so do not have the "Discretionary Spending funds" to use for such a project.
Best Regards,
Chev. William

[slumlord44]

Found a Lyman Dual cavity 257420 65 grain mold for $72-$73 shipped. Thinking seriously about biting the bullet so to speak and buying it and casting my own. Been thinking about starting to do some casting. That's how I ended up on this website. Should I go for it?

[Chev. William]

If it is within your "Discretionary Funds Spending Range" I would say 'go for it'.

You could always consider having Western Bullets do he Casting if you decide later you don't want the added headaches.

Also, I opened five of the Grade one (Gray) PTL blanks and weighed the powder charges as a group then divided and the average charge came out to 1.31 grains of a medium gray semigloss flake powder of wide variation in flake size from 'fine' down to 'tiny little bits' that looked almost cubical.

Best Regards,
Chev. William

[slumlord44]

The Lyman 257420 is a gas check bullet. Do I have to use a gas check? How would this bullet work with black powder if I decided to use it in something like a .25-20 Single shot? Would I be able to use it without a gas check or would I need the gas check?

[WILCO]

The Lyman 257420 is a gas check bullet. Do I have to use a gas check?

Stickies man, gotta read the stickies.

Check this out: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...-the-gas-check

[Chev. William]

Update on Hollywood Engineering:
Received a call from Joe Mueller of Hollywood Engineering asking me if I knew anyone looking to buy some of his machines and / or tooling. He has several Warner & Swasey (sp?) Production type Engine lathes, a few 'Bridgeport type' mills and other machine tools for sale as his wife and daughter have voted to liquidate the business and property and buy a house with the proceeds.
Joe stated he is asking about $1000 for each machine and the buyer would be responsible for Transporting them.
Looks like an end to this manufacturer of heavy duty reloading presses and dies started with the shop fire last year.
Best Regards,
Chev. William

[Chev. William]

Hollywood engineering will be selling the remaining Machine tools to a salvage outfit Friday this week so if you want anything give them a call tomorrow.

Best Regards,
Chev. William