??? was the Old 25 25 Stevens a BP cartidge...

[Russ in WY]

A friend has a 3 barrel one of which is 25 25 Stevens. He is looking for some ammo or MT brass. Any body got some info on ammo or brass sure would appreciate any data that U mite have Russ.

[MT Chambers]

It was a BP cartridge that fell out of favor because of it's excessive fouling, folks came to prefer the .25/21 and .25/20 single shot, for serious target work. I have experience with both of the later rounds and believe that the 25/25 would require alot of playing around to get good accuracy with either black or smokeless. The 25/21 of mine shot better with BP and fixed ammo, the 25/20 with smokeless and breechseated. Cases for the long round have been hard to come by and/or expensive.

[uscra112]

.25-25 brass is indeed very hard to come by, but it can be had. Bertram in Australia has made some. Midway and Grafs list it, (at a price that will knock your socks off). Huntington's lists it as "unformed brass" at a better price. http://www.huntingtons.com/cases_bertram.html They also can supply dies, and again they won't be cheap. Bertram is marginal quality IMHO, but beggers can't be choosers.

There was another company called Rocky Mountain Cartridge that machined it from solid. Dave Casey sold the business back in August. Here's the new web site: http://rockymountaincartridge.com/ I don't honestly know if they have any to sell or not. I did not have good luck converting RMC .25-20SS to .22 R2 Lovell, but that was probably due to my aggressive reforming, not to any fault of the RMC product as made for its' intended use. It is very accurately made, but a bit too hard for necking down and blowing out.

Funny thing - I had a full box of new UMC .25-25 nickel plated cases up until a few months ago, but sold it to a fellow ASSRA member. You might luck onto some on Gunbroker, but be prepared to pay collector prices.

All of the rifles I've ever seen chambered for it have been Stevens, and all of those have been 44 1/2s. When you say your friend has a 3-barrel set, I'm wondering if it's a Maynard maybe? That would be interesting indeed!

All three of the long Stevens quarter-bore rounds can be very accurate when properly loaded. My .25-21 (44 1/2) likes a load of 6.5 grains of AA#9 with an 86 grain plain base boolit, loaded as fixed ammunition. S.D. in the low teens is typical. I use Remington #1 1/2 primers only for these loads. My barrel is an original and not very smooth, but it still shoots under 2 MOA With that load off bags, using a 12x Fecker scope, and that's with an awful trigger pull of about 12 lbs. (!!!). The .25-25 might want another tenth of a grain. The other modern powders I've tried were 2400, 4227, and Lil'Gun. None even came close. I have not yet tried breech seating. I've put off further work with the .25-21 until I fix that trigger. I do not shoot black powder in any of my antiques.

You might scan the ASSRA forums. http://www.assra.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl These ancient crocks are a little better known over there. Somebody who has dies might be able to help you out.

[John Boy]

If one is thinking about trying to reform 25-20's from a Parent Case ... forget about it. There is none

Nominal Cartridge Parent Caliber Neck Shoulder Base Rim Rim Case

.25-20 25-20 Winchester Centerfire 32-20 Winchester 0.257 0.274 0.329 0.349 0.405 0.065 1.33


.25-25 25-25 Stevens No Parent Case 0.257 0.282 None 0.323 0.376 0.052 2.37 1.86

[Don McDowell]

You might want to contact Jamison and see how close their 2520 single shot cases will be http://www.captechintl.com/products.html

[uscra112]

The .25-20 Stevens is much shorter than the .25-25, which the case alone is 2 3/8 long! Wish Captech could be stimulated to run some .25-25 basic brass. It might not be too much to ask, since the base diameter is the same as .25-20. I'm totally sold on Jamison - I have used their .25-20SS to make .22 Lovell, and found it to be excellent stuff. I'd love to have Jamison cases for my .25-21. Right now all I have is a batch of Bertram.

@John Boy - you're confusing .25-20 WCF with the much earlier .25-20 Stevens. The three Stevens cartridges all have about the same base diameter. .25-20 examples run .312" to .315", depending on the rifle and the dies. My .25-21 gives a fired case at .302". Barnes lists the .25-25 as .323, I know, but the new UMC cases I mentioned above did not agree. They were about .315", which is within the variance I've found for original examples of .25-20 that I have. I'm guessing, but the .25-25 basic case may have just been a .25-20 that was drawn out a few more times? Probably nobody will ever know now.

As for making the .25-20 Stevens, the parent case is the .223 Remington, but the operation requires a hydraulic press to swage the body to .315", right down to the base. Then you use a lathe to trim off the remaining fillet. And even then the rim isn't right. I dare you to ask me how I worked this out!

[nanuk]

a friend of mine showed me a 25-25 years ago.

he had a cartridge collection and an old rifle that I did not recognize, that fired the 25-25.

looked more like a broken pencil than a cartridge!

[uscra112]

Buffalo Arms claims they have the .25-25 Bertram in "ample stock".

http://www.buffaloarms.com/Detail.aspx?PROD=156939

[.22-10-45]

Hello, Russ In WY. I bought my .25-25 Stevens cases from Rocky Mountain Cartridge LLC. These are turned from solid bar stock on CNC lathes. I too have read many times of the "excessive fouling" problems with this longer case..I just wonder if any of these guys have actually had any experience with it or are just repeating what has been written before?
A couple of years ago, I purchased an original Ballard No.3 that had been re-chambered/bored to .25-25 Stevens from it's original .22 rimfire. Since this was a cast action, I decided to use only real black powder...3FG Swiss. The twist is 1-12", I am using Ideal bullets around 100grs. cast from original moulds. Lube is SPG.
Fired cases drop from chamber with no sticking. For target accuracy, I have been running 1 barely damp patch thru after each shot..firing next thru damp bore. 3/8" groups at 50yds. with vernier tang & windage adj. front.

[w30wcf]

.22-10-45,
Thank you for that report. 3/8" @ 50yards. That's great! Neat that you are using bullets from the original molds in a rifle from the same era.

Awesome!
w30wcf

[.22-10-45]

w30wcf. As I was testing this rifle, I had loads worked up using a SPG grease "cookie"...I used 1/16" dental beeswax wad under SPG to keep lube off powder..on some, I placed dental wax wad over cookie as well. .03" veg. fiber wad under bullet base. Using a blow-tube, fouling was nice & soft..muzzle star nice and greasy. Accuracy was around 7/8" to 1"..good hunting accuracy. I forgot to mention I am using nickled Pope style re-de capper for priming & original nickle Ideal no. 3 .25-25 dbl. adj. chamber tong tool for bullet seating. At range, after firing, the re-de capper is used to remove primer & case dropped into soapy water for trip home.