25-20 bp loads.

[Bantti]

I'm new to forum so please forgive me for instantly making new thread.

I recently got myself Winchester 1892 in 25-20 and also the vintage reloading tools for it.
Ive been loading all my shots for couple years now but never have tried loading with black powder.
Its incredible difficult to find any reloading recepies to this caliber since i'm from Finland and there's only couple
books available.

I'm very interested to start loading my winchester with bp and i was wondering is it really that simple that
25 means the .257 bullet and the 20 means black powder in grains.

Hodgdon powder are very hard to find in Finland and theres only couple receipes available with Vihtavuori powders wich are common here.

[jrmartin1964]

i was wondering is it really that simple that
25 means the .257 bullet and the 20 means black powder in grains.

Yes, it really is that simple. However, in modern solid-head cases you probably won't be able to get quite 20 grains of Black Powder into the case. I don't have any personal experience loading the .25-20, but I would expect that only something in the range of 15 to 18 grains of BP will fit into the modern cases.

Jim

[Baron von Trollwhack]

Advise you check some of the black powder folks here who shoot bottle neck cartridges. It would be likely that some of the same loading and related techniques would help you with the 25-20.

Second, VV powder company publishes a great reloading guide to their powders and they show a really good burning rate chart. It is most helpful for powder substitution.

Bvt

[Nobade]

And RCBS makes the correct bullet for that. The 25 caliber cowboy bullet has big lube grooves and works great with black powder.

-Nobade

[martinibelgian]

Basically you fillthe case to the bottom of the bullet when seated into the case, insert a card wad (or not) between bullet and powder., seat a bullet lubed with a BP lube and you're done. Yes, it's as simple as that. Afterwards, you can try increasing the load and compressing the powder a bit, but normally you'll find a decent load somewhere around the above point. I'm doing same for my 30-20, and find it does work quite well - I use 16.7 Swiss no.4. Never tried a 25-20 though.
Use a bullet with good lube capacity and a black powder lube, 2 important points. Also, you will need to do some fouling management at some point, as accuracy will suffer because oft he fouling at some point. Also, the heavier the bullet, the cleaner the burn (higher pressure).

[missionary5155]

Good morning
Depending on what is available to you I have had good use from 3F Goex in my BP cartridges. Burns clean and gets the job done in the smaller quantity of powder that our modern cases will hold. Have used 3F in my 32 WCF 1873 right up through a replica 50-95 with no issues.
Mike in Peru

[LtFrankDrebbin]

Get your self comfortable. Have a big cup of coffee on hand sit back and enjoy all you need to know about loading the 25-20WCF

http://www.marlinowners.com/forum/reloading/26002-25-20-reloaders.html

once you get over the information overload your going to have a ball. [smilie=s:

Can I ask what your intentions are for this brilliant little gun cartridge combo in Finland?

Oh yeah welcome to the forum

[Bantti]

Thanks for warm welcome and great advices.

I'm hunting black grouse and capercaillie with my winchester. The lands/woods i own are quite dense so the shooting distances are quite
short. Also theres houses quite close to my hunting grounds so it would be unwise to use big bores when shooting birds from treetops. Mainly the reason i bought that rifle was just that i like to cast my own bullets and hunt the "hard" way and use the so called traditional equipment. If the hunters could get by with them in late 1800- and early 1900- why shouldnt i.

My requirement for birdrifle is that i hit soda can to 120 meters with it and that winchester does it easy.

[JeffinNZ]

Can I recommend, for the sake of your sanity, that you consider duplexing. I load my .310 Cadet for BP competition and drop 3.8gr of H4227 on the primer then compress 14gr of Swiss 3Fg on top. The load shoots wonderfully well and so clean the barrel is shiny in the bore after every shot.

Shooting straight BP in your .25cal might drive you mad due to fouling.

[LtFrankDrebbin]

Personally for me (as much fun as black powder is) I just don't want to go there. Cleaning and fouling just plain turns me off.
Equivalent ballistics to the old BP loads can be duplicated quite easily with 2400 or 4227.
According to my chart that opens up N110 and N120 as powder burn equivalents.

For lighter quieter loads small charges of fast pistol powder work well. W231 has been good to me in the past possibly substituted with N320. Word over on the Marlin owners group there is a group buy on a NOE 257-60gr PB bullet brewing right now. Should be a very good option for light loading your 92 if it has an original 1:14 twist barrel.

I have been getting very good results with the Lyman 257-420 cast of water dropped COWW launched by a full case of 4198@ 1850fps.
Again looking at the chart N130 is in that burn rate.

Check out the link I put up if you haven't already. It is an education. It's become my bible.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Thanks for warm welcome and great advices.

I'm hunting black grouse and capercaillie with my winchester. The lands/woods i own are quite dense so the shooting distances are quite
short. Also theres houses quite close to my hunting grounds so it would be unwise to use big bores when shooting birds from treetops. Mainly the reason i bought that rifle was just that i like to cast my own bullets and hunt the "hard" way and use the so called traditional equipment. If the hunters could get by with them in late 1800- and early 1900- why shouldnt i.

My requirement for birdrifle is that i hit soda can to 120 meters with it and that winchester does it easy.

Yes, I guessed at that sort of use, since a Finnish friend told me you don't have rabbits. A black powder .25-20 should be fine for even the capercailzie, although bullet placement would be important. As has been said, the biggest problem with modern cases is their reduced capacity due to thicker walls.

I don't believe a card wad would be either very useful or necessary at this sort of performance. What would help if needed, would be a sandwich of a tenth of an inch or so of grease or wax between two card wads, and that is adding up to more loss of powder space. For this reason I would prefer a mould to which copper gas checks are attached, and must be crimped on place by pushing the bullet through a special bullet-sizing die. Several companies make these, usually under the name G H and I die, which is used in a machine which also injects lubricant into the grooves and then pushes the bullet out again in the reverse direction. Lee make a much simpler and cheaper device for someone who only wants to do it for one rifle, but at present they don't appear to do it in .257in. diameter. You could make one just as good from any block of steel. A 6.5mm. reamer would leave you to enlarge the hole just over a thousandth of an inch by polishing, but I think you could get by more cheaply by drilling it first with a 1/4in. drill, then a 6.5mm. drill on which you have rounded off the corners. Perfection would be the American letter F drill or reamer size, at .257in., and although these would probably be unavailable in Finland, they may be available on eBay.

If you have doubts about even a flat-nosed bullet expanding, you could make a device to drill hollows in the noses. But this needs to be done very accurately indeed

This photograph shows a gas-check bullet from a mould made for me by CBE in Australia, to fire in the .255 Jeffery, made from /25-20 cases. But this isn't the shape of bullet you need. Birds are lightly built, and it wouldn't expand on hitting. The danger of a pointed bullet igniting another primer in the magazine isn't nearly as great as it is with more heavily-recoiling rifles, but it isn't entirely absent. For both of these reasons you need a flat-nosed bullets, and the mainstream mould-makers offer those without the delay and expense of a special order.

That is good advice about a duplex load. If you put a little smokeless powder in first, it will give only a little extra power, but it will make the black powder burn more cleanly. Fouling of the bore isn't going to be a desperate problem with this rifle - how many capercailzie will you see in a day - but it is best minimized. Shotgun powder would be fine for this, and if necessary you could get enough for quite a few .25-20 cartridges by dismantling one shotgun cartridge.

Black powder can be a little finer than you would use in larger rifles, but don't tae this to extremes just because it is small. The time the powder has to burn in, before reaching the muzzle, will be much the same. You can use some sort of wood or metal rod to compress the powder, to get as much as possible in, but try to do so as consistently as possible. You could also mix a very fine black powder with a coarse one, to fill the air-spaces between the coarse grains. But don't do this in a canister or powder measure hopper, or they will separate out. Measure and mix a little of each for one load at a time.

[Baron von Trollwhack]

It would be easy to substitute FFFFg in the 25-20 to increase velocity/energy a bit if needed, so that you can continue using black powder. A thin card wad under the bullet is advised.


BvT

[martinibelgian]

I can relate you my experience with BP in it's cousin, the 32-20. 1st of all, the fouling won't drive you mad (I know, lots of internet lore claims it will, but not for me). I just blowtube a partial single breath between shots, and she'll shoot X's all day long. If I do my thing, that is... Of course, I'm shooting a single shot, and accuracy is my game - not how much shots I can fire before getting accuracy or other issues.
I use plain-base lead bullets, cast in 1:16 alloy - pretty hard.
FFg will work fine, Swiss 1 1/2Fg is marvellously accurate - another one debunked (small calibres require fine-grained powder? forget it - there's a 20+ inch barrel to burn the powder, better use it). Just use a bullet with ample lube capacity, a good BP lube and go out and shoot.
This is what mine will do at 75m (disregard the .22 holes, I'm cheap) - prone, sling, no support:
135337
The high 9 is a double .22 hit, not one of mine BTW

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I don't believe using a very fine powder would give any better velocity, if indeed so much. It would increase peak pressure (not, I think, dangerously with such a small cartridge in the 92, and better brass than the rifle's designers knew.) But pressure would fall off rapidly, nd it is average pressure along the barrel's length that determines the velocity reached.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

The .25-20 might foul marginally more rapidly than the .32-20, since much the same charge deposits its solids on a slightly smaller bore surface- those it deposits, anyway. The OP is also less likely to use a blow-tube in the woods. The old jokes about an inflatable gun must be about worn out by now. But unless those Finnish woods are really quite something, he isn't going to be firing continuous ten-shot strings either.

[Bantti]

Amount of information in so short time is astonishing. Ive been reading your link FrankDrebbin and had to write it down to be sure not to lose it.

Ive been making some test loads to rifle with N110 powder and some old SP-bullets i have for it. With little help from QuickLoad program i've been getting some good results.

I'll start to make BP-loads when i'll get that rcbs mold for it. Prices of cast bullets are skyhigh in Finland. Ive stocked with about 300 factory rounds for it and even they cost approx of 4,2euros/piece but i got that 300 round bulk in reasonable price of 350euros.

Finding the mold has turned out to be struggle since Midwayusa wont ship to Finland and neither will almost anybody else.
One shop in Sweden might have it but ive been sending requests to American shops of their shipping policies since its cheaper to buy it from there and pay the tolls and shipping than it will be anywhere in Finland.

Most of my casting supplies i've bought from USA even most of my reloading tools are from overseas.
Reloading really isn't that big of an thing here.

Long post short, fouling the barrel wont be the problem since my usual hunting day is over when i have couple birds to take home.
I'm not intending to overhunt the population ive been feeding and taking care of for so long time.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I don't believe there is any US law against exporting bullet moulds. Buffalo Arms seem pretty well informed.

http://www.buffaloarms.com/Content.aspx?PAGE=Shipping Policy

I bought brass shotgun cases from them, when they are legal to export, but rifle and pistol cases require special licencing.

I believe NEI and CBE would also export, and you can often buy bullet moulds on eBay.

http://www.neihandtools.com/

http://www.castbulletengineering.com.au/

[Gunlaker]

i also recommend trying Buffalo Arms. I'm in Canada and have dealt with them quite often. They are a very good shop, and their moulds are very well made.

chris.

[4060MAY]

Bannti
There is a member here called finn45, I checked and he hasn't logged on for a year or so
you might be able to email him, he shot a lot of cast and he lives in Finland
might be worth the effort to find him,,he knows how to get the things needed for cast bullets

[martinibelgian]

What I do currently (I live in Belgium) is design my own bullet, and have it made to measure wherever I like. There are even good european mould makers - Jan Nielsen in Denmark makes a pretty good mould. I've also used Boomer's in Canada, Borton-Darr, Accurate moulds,... CBE in Oz. is pretty good too for factory moulds. No issues in getting it here. For a 25, I'd recommend using Tom at Accurate Moulds, he has an extensive catalogue. Only limitation is the flat nose - but then you need a flat nose in your rifle.
Buffalo arms specializes in the bigger calibres I believe, don't think they make something .25.

[Patrick56]

As an owner of a Winchester 65 in 25-20W I have been using N340 and N110 Vihtavuori powders behind Meisters cast bullets. Got some nice results with the N340 despite my rifle throws jacketed bullets all over the target. My rifle is very sensitive with the powder charge. I recently used foam to remove tombac from the bore. As the weather improve, it shall be interesting to see the result. I have also a Winchester brand mold but can´t remember the weight of the bullets at the moment. Have to check my records. I have used Midway and Grauwolf ( in Germany) as providers for the cases.

[Patrick56]

Ballistics in Scotland, your Finnish friend was wrong. There is a lot of urban rabbits in Helsinki, at least in the City Gardens.:razz: To tell the truth, we hunt brown hare and a smaller hare, much like your mountain hare. The 25-20W is great for this purpose.

[Good Cheer]

What? No one paper patches BP loads for the 25-20?!

[Ballistics in Scotland]

Ballistics in Scotland, your Finnish friend was wrong. There is a lot of urban rabbits in Helsinki, at least in the City Gardens.:razz: To tell the truth, we hunt brown hare and a smaller hare, much like your mountain hare. The 25-20W is great for this purpose.

Like urban foxes in the UK, people are probably quite unreasonable in the matter of shooting them. The very people who campaigned to ban foxhunting with hounds some years ago, are now outraged because the government or somebody is allowing foxes to endanger their babies. (There is more foxhunting now than ever before, since it is legal to use hounds after a man has fired a shot, and they forgot to say it has to be fired at something.)

I don't believe the .25-20 (large bore for its capacity) is usually very sensitive about powder charges. One possibility is that you have a slightly oversized bore, and one charge gives an abrupt enough impact to make the bullet expand to seal the bore.

[Patrick56]

Like urban foxes in the UK, people are probably quite unreasonable in the matter of shooting them. The very people who campaigned to ban foxhunting with hounds some years ago, are now outraged because the government or somebody is allowing foxes to endanger their babies. (There is more foxhunting now than ever before, since it is legal to use hounds after a man has fired a shot, and they forgot to say it has to be fired at something.)

I don't believe the .25-20 (large bore for its capacity) is usually very sensitive about powder charges. One possibility is that you have a slightly oversized bore, and one charge gives an abrupt enough impact to make the bullet expand to seal the bore.
As I said, "my rifle". I found out that a modest charge gave the best result with cast bullets. It is possible that the barrel has some defects. Have to slug it later to see.