The little 25/20 - Obsolete??

[cwtebay]

Try and find some of the WW 60gr HP bullets!!! Used to shoot those in my '92. Have a few 60gr FP and have shot some 75gr spire point bullets too. 25-20 was my first centerfire rifle.

I have hoarded 250 of the little hollow points for years. I have an insert from a box of Winchester HV cartridges that had load data for the loading. Factory HV is 2250fps consistently, reloaded I am around 2050. Definitely need to adjust the sights for those! But rockchucks and ground squirrels are in trouble out to a heck of a lot further!

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[iomskp]

Have you called Bertram Brass in Seymour

[clum553946]

I wish starline would just make 25-20 Winchester brass. I’ve emailed them several times and they always say maybe down the road. I have some resized 32-20 that I would use in a pinch, but I own several rifles in both 25-20 & 32-20 & don’t want to run into an ammo mix up with resized brass as my eyes aren’t as young as they used to be.

[badgeredd]

218 Bee brass is available from Sinclair International which can ship down under.

[cwlongshot]

Speer offered a dandy lil 75g FP for the 25/20 about the time Marlin released there Classic line chambered for the Bee and 25 & 32 20’s.

I do not know if they discontinued them or not (my biggest “problem with Speer) But last summer I was able to buy a couple boxes at a small shop in Vermont. They also make a 22 version in 46g for the bee and I just bought some of those from midway.

But as we are CB and CB’s are nearly perfect for everything these lie calibers where we are set for fodder as long as we can keep the brass going!

CW

[moosemike]

Had a Marlin 1894 Classic 25-20 that I wish I had never let go of. But somebody had stamped the number 7 all over the darn thing.

[Good Cheer]

Gangit. Didn't know the brass was getting hard to come by.



Mine really loved the old Remington flat points.

[Greebe]

I really like my Marlin 1894 .25-20. As others have said, you can form cases from Starline .32-20. I like to have a quiet "critter gitter" load for around the homestead and have been loading it with Trail Boss and an 85gr cast lead bullet. I can get around 1100fps and a load that is as quiet as a .22lr in a rifle. I can also get in the neighborhood of 1200 reloads on a 9oz jug of Trail Boss which comes out to around 75 cents per 50 cartridges. This makes for a very cheap cartridge to shoot when you cast your own bullets. For the cost of primers and powder, I can reload 50 cartridges for only $2.25, you can't even buy .22LR for that any more.

Here is how I do it.

First I start with a .32-20 case and true the mouth with an expander to make it perfectly round, then I run it into a 6.5x55 Swede die with a homemade riser made from a .30-06 case with a steel insert in it, once this is sized I have a rod I made to tap it back out, then the case is annealed, then I neck size in a .25-20 neck sizer, then it is run into a full length .25-20 sizer which forms and pushes back the shoulder while sizing the body at the same time.

The sequence can be seen from left to right. After this you just expand the neck and load it up. It is a lot of work, but it is a fun little cartridge that is cheap to load once all this is done.




(L to R) .32-20 case, - sized in 6.5 die with riser, - annealed, - neck sized in .25-20 neck sizer, - and sized in .25-20 full length sizer



The slight ring you can see near the base of the finished case is from the first batch of 50 that I made with a factory Lyman FL Sizer. This dies squeezes the brass more then I liked so I opened it up and do not have this problem any more. I think that this die is a little tight to begin with and also .32-20 brass is a about 5 thousands larger then the .25-20 which makes the problem worse.

[cwtebay]

I really like my Marlin 1894 .25-20. As others have said, you can form cases from Starline .32-20. I like to have a quiet "critter gitter" load for around the homestead and have been loading it with Trail Boss and an 85gr cast lead bullet. I can get around 1100fps and a load that is as quiet as a .22lr in a rifle. I can also get in the neighborhood of 1200 reloads on a 9oz jug of Trail Boss which comes out to around 75 cents per 50 cartridges. This makes for a very cheap cartridge to shoot when you cast your own bullets. For the cost of primers and powder, I can reload 50 cartridges for only $2.25, you can't even buy .22LR for that any more.

Here is how I do it.

First I start with a .32-20 case and true the mouth with an expander to make it perfectly round, then I run it into a 6.5x55 Swede die with a homemade riser made from a .30-06 case with a steel insert in it, once this is sized I have a rod I made to tap it back out, then the case is annealed, then I neck size in a .25-20 neck sizer, then it is run into a full length .25-20 sizer which forms and pushes back the should while sizing the body at the same time.

The sequence can be seen from left to right. After this you just expand the neck and load it up. It is a lot of work, but it is a fun little cartridge that is cheap to load once all this is done.




(L to R) .32-20 case, - sized in 6.5 die with riser, - annealed, - neck sized in .25-20 neck sizer, - and sized in .25-20 full length sizer



The slight ring you can see near the base of the finished case is from the first batch of 50 that I made with a factory Lyman FL Sizer. This dies squeezes the brass more then I liked so I opened it up and do not have this problem any more. I think that this die is a little tight to begin with and also .32-20 brass is a about 5 thousands larger then the .25-20 which makes the problem worse.

Very nice explanation! I like the cost breakdown, but especially like the completeness of your process - thank you for sharing this.

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[Greebe]

Very nice explanation! I like the cost breakdown, but especially like the completeness of your process - thank you for sharing this.

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Your welcome! Glad to show the process and hopefully inspire some other people to try the .25-20 as it is a pretty neat cartridge.

[Reverend Al]

I still have some .25-20 WCF brass and a set of RCBS dies left from my last '92 Winchester. At some point it would be nice to have a single shot in .25-20 WCF, but I already have a Maynard single shot in .25-20 SS (Single Shot) and a Stevens 44 single shot on the way to me also chambered for .25-20 SS, so another .25-20 WCF in a single shot won't happen in any great hurry since I'd likely have to re-barrel a single shot action to build one. And believe me, .25-20 SS brass is even tougher to find than .25-20 WCF brass!

[Kev18]

I saw someone mention GAD. Stay away if you can.

[Ajohns]

My son and I shot some three to four time reloaded rounds this weekend out of my model 92. He did pretty good for a nine year old that had me holding the forend up for that 24" octagon barrel. Got some in the bullseye trying out the new to me Redfield receiver sight I put on Friday. But, those rounds found to be a lot of split cases. Better start looking to anneal soon if I keep using old brass like that.

[gunnie]

I hear ya there BAW!
Picked up the Mod92 last week, and its an interesting item in its own right. So had begun the chase for brass. I tried the re-size from 32-20 as I have a bag of new Remington brass. Yeah it works, but prefer the brass to match correctly.
So my only option was factory ammo. Geez, sell you liver & first born! Order one box of Remington factory 85gn jacketed & began to prepare myself for the pain in the wallet. It still smarts when I remember the wallet coping a ***-whooping for $176 !!!!!
I then lucked onto a contact who managed to get me 3 boxes of factory at a far better price. But then again, thinking about it, $140 a box of 50 is still a belt to the face with a 1 pound hammer!

Oh well, at least I'll have a stash of 100 while I play around with the first 100.

I'll be chasing you up for some 257cal pills BAW.

[Bad Ass Wallace]

I'll be chasing you up for some 257cal pills BAW.

You just caught me in casting mode; I just made 250 CBE 80gn boolits for another AHN'er. Guess I can fire up the furnace and make some more!
Over the past 3 weeks I've cast about 6000 pistol & rifle boolits in total.

[cwtebay]

I hear ya there BAW!
Picked up the Mod92 last week, and its an interesting item in its own right. So had begun the chase for brass. I tried the re-size from 32-20 as I have a bag of new Remington brass. Yeah it works, but prefer the brass to match correctly.
So my only option was factory ammo. Geez, sell you liver & first born! Order one box of Remington factory 85gn jacketed & began to prepare myself for the pain in the wallet. It still smarts when I remember the wallet coping a ***-whooping for $176 !!!!!
I then lucked onto a contact who managed to get me 3 boxes of factory at a far better price. But then again, thinking about it, $140 a box of 50 is still a belt to the face with a 1 pound hammer!

Oh well, at least I'll have a stash of 100 while I play around with the first 100.

I'll be chasing you up for some 257cal pills BAW.

I just confirmed, Load X still has properly headstamped cases for sale.
707-579-0990
And they are nowhere near what you are paying!
I think we're on load number 6-7 on the first 250. Yes they were annealed, and yes I crush a case here and there.

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[M-Tecs]

Do they ship to Australia?

[Bad Ass Wallace]

Do they ship to Australia?

Probably not! Our gummint thinks all shooters are towel-head terrorists going to commit violent acts with a 120y/o rifle and near obsolete boolits

[cwtebay]

Probably not! Our gummint thinks all shooters are towel-head terrorists going to commit violent acts with a 120y/o rifle and near obsolete boolits

I have directly ordered from Bertram before, I'm unsure if the reverse is possible.

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[gunnie]

For us folk in the land of Down Unda, importing firearms, parts, ammo & components is heavily restricted. Not impossible but requiring import permits, B709A. The biggest hurdle is finding a supplier in the USA who has paid your govmnt the necessary fees/licenses etc as predicated by ITARs. There are some that will but a lot won't!
For example, Numerichs was my port of call for several parts for a Remington Mod788 I have. First order went through no problems. Put a second order in a year later & ITARs had hit. So no go, 'sorry but we will no longer be selling parts outside the USA'. Well that screwed that eh!

If i can find a supplier who will export, I then have postage fees which can often be more than half the value of the item purchased! So it gecomes a case of 'is it really worth it? Am I saving over buying locally?'

Sometimes I wish this country of mine would pull it's head out of it's backside & stop pandering to the idiots.

Anyway