Revisiting the .25 Stevens Long

[fatelk]

When my wife and I were first married, her dad gave me a little Stevens Favorite in .25 Long. It's been in the family for nearly a century. It's in rough shape, but still functional.

I shot one round through it. I had three, but two were duds. Over the years I've thought about having the barrel lined into a .22 LR, but never did. I have so many .22's, finally decided maybe it was best to just leave it as-is.

SO- I've read about all the various methods people use to shoot these old guns, such as .27 nail gun blanks, and experiments with .17 WSM brass. I found a pile of WSM brass at the range and have been tinkering again. I have everything but bullets.

I annealed and necked up the .17 brass to .25, and trimmed it slightly. I cut off the base of the brass, leaving about half of the rim. A .22 LR case fits perfectly into the .17 case. It slides in like a really tight chamber. I tried several primed cases, and they fire every time.

My thought is to find the right charge for a light load, charge the primed 22 LR case, topped with tissue or something to keep it in, and load it into the WSM case behind a bullet of the right size. What do you all think?

This is a "someday" project since I don't have the right bullets or mold yet. I was just tinkering with it to see how the .22 case would fit and if it would fire reliably. Coincidentally it fits and fires perfectly.

304458

[Bent Ramrod]

This is a very worthy effort! I’ll have to scrounge a few .17HMR shells next time I’m at the range.

You might try black powder loads for starters, especially if your test bed is a Favorite. Annealing the shoulders and case mouths of the .17 empties might spare you some neck splits.

I used breech seated boolits, mostly the Ideal 257420, but the nailgun blanks left plenty of chamber room. You might need to make up a blank with Cream of Wheat to get the necks expanded up enough to seat a boolit.

Hope this helps.

[Kosh75287]

Your ingenuity is commendable, but I wonder if there might be a simpler way.
I have heard of kits that are used for reloading .22 LR cases. Apparently, the primer compound is applied in drops to the bottom of the case from the inside and becomes active when it dries. The propellant supplied, while likely optimized for .22 LR, might give reasonable results in a .17 HMR case necked up to .256 (perhaps a ".25 Stevens Intermediate"?). If the propellant supplied in the kits for .22 LR gives disappointing results, remember that VV3N37 started life as a rimfire cartridge propellant and might give tenable results. If you elect to stick with black powder in deference to the old rifle, I totally get it.

[fatelk]

The problem with the 17 WSM case itself is that it rim is very thick, to contain the high pressure of the high performance round. The little Favorite won’t even close on that thick rim; there’s no way it would be able to dent it enough to set it off.

I thought about black powder, but I’d much rather go with smokeless. For one thing I’m concerned that compressing the powder would push the 22LR case out the back.

[uscra112]

The problem with the 17 WSM case itself is that it rim is very thick, to contain the high pressure of the high performance round. The little Favorite won’t even close on that thick rim; there’s no way it would be able to dent it enough to set it off.

I thought about black powder, but I’d much rather go with smokeless. For one thing I’m concerned that compressing the powder would push the 22LR case out the back.

There's been several threads on the .25 Stevens, another "favorite" of mine. I've reformed .17, but it takes the hammer blow of a Model 44 or a Model 83 bolt action to fire it. Other approach has been to swage down .22 Hornet brass, and machine the rim. Modify the gun for centerfire and you can reload it indefinitely. Boring the center out for a 6mm acorn blank lets you leave the gun alone, but there's so little left of the rim that I had to make a special tool to let me press the acorn blanks in, else the rim would collapse. Works in the boys' rifles just fine. Hadn't thought about modifying fired .17 brass the same way, but now I'll have to try it.

BTW my load for the reformed .17WMR would be about 1.7 grains of Bullseye if I were using the acorn blanks. In your case I would use low-end .22 nailgun blanks with no extra powder. It may be difficult to punch the expended ones out, which is why I use the acorn blanks in all my rimfire adaptors as well.

[fatelk]

What bullet/mold do you use for this round?

[uscra112]

Not being able BUY the NOE 63 grain mould, I had Bullshop (who already has one) cast a few hundred for me. 20:1 alloy, sent as-cast, didn't cost much. Owing to health problems this summer, I still haven't tested them.

[jreidthompson1]

https://youtu.be/kcnoS4FxTHQ

Shows using 22 hornet. 17 wsm. And .27 caliber blanks as the cartridge. Bullet is 49 gr airgun bullet hunters aupply. He has video showing how he makes offset primer cases also

Sent from my SM-G781V using Tapatalk

[fatelk]

Interesting video. I think I've read about most of those methods already. I'll be curious to try my method once I find or make some appropriate bullets. I have a feeling it will work better for me than altering hornet brass. I wish I had a little lathe, maybe someday...

This is just a future project for when I get around to it. The gun has been sitting in the safe for a couple decades already, so there's no real hurry. My wife's going in for hip replacement surgery in a few days, so that's the focus right now.

[uscra112]

Don't get fooled into using that .251 diameter airgun bullet. I've collected half a dozen rifles chambered .25 Stevens, ranging from an 1892 sideplate Favorite to a mint 1938 Model 83 bolt action, and all of them slug .257 groove diameter, more or less. I think the old wives' tale about them being .250 must come from the erroneous entry in Barnes. I fell for it, too, back when I first started messing about with reforming .17 WMR. Bought a box from Hunter's, only to find that they almost fall through the bore under gravity alone when inserted in the muzzle.

I'll just mention that the .22 Hornet route is fairly easy - but it does require a small lathe and a sturdy reloading press. I have the details of my process written up, because at my age I forget stuff. P/M me for a copy - it's too long for a post. The tooling I used will work just as well for modifying fired .17 WMR.