25-20 still not shooting..

[NHlever]

Well, I've been shooting my Marlin 1894CL in 25-20, but haven't had very good luck yet. I've tried both sized (.258), and unsized Lyman 257420, and 257312 boolits cast from wheelweights. I've used Unique, IMR 4227, and Aliant 2400. Factory j word bullets shoot just OK (under 2"at 50 yards usually) The chamber is very large, enough to require extra lube when resizing, and I sure think that is part of my problem. I'm thinking about seeing if Marlin will rebarrel this gun, but perhaps there is another path you all can suggest?

[runfiverun]

try to only neck size ,and a harder boolit. i use h-322 or 2230. and water drop for my winchester.
i also run them at 259-60

[FromTheWoods]

I'm not up to speed with what the problem is. If it is accuracy, this may help.

You might want to try adding a bit of filler on top of the powder when you load for this rifle.
For our old Winchesters that will not shoot a bullet straight each time--wide and erratic shots, key-holing.
We use Original shot buffer: http://www.midwayusa.com/viewproduct/?productnumber=695248.

My youngest son's .32-20 has a horrible bore, but with this, it shoots extremely well.

When loading with a low or midrange charge of powder, add just enough powder to fill the case to approximately 1/3 to 1/4 inch from the mouth. It is best to use a powder in which the powder takes up more room in the case than does the filler.

Shooting these buffered rounds will do no harm to your rifle.

PS: We use AA1680 in his .25-20. (Not a typo; he does have both calibers.)

[3rptr]

Neck size only and use Red dot for a paper punching load.

[NHlever]

Yes, my problem is 3" + grouping at 50 yards. Thanks for the quick responses so far, and keep them coming. The chamber is oversized enough to leave noticibly bulged cases upon firing, and I do think that is part of my problem. The gun is scoped, and I would like to be able to outshoot my iron sighted .44 Mag 5 1/2" SBH with it.

[26Charlie]

Mine also wouldn't group well, and the jacketed 87Gr. factory loads showed tipping. I sent it back to Marlin with the evidence targets, and they fixed and returned it with some cryptic job ticket, which I think showed a rebarreling. Anyway, it is now fine, grouping properly with the 87 gr. plainbase Lyman bullet and others of lighter weight.
The 90 gr. GC Lyman still has problems, but truthfully I have only tried one load so I can't judge it. The RCBS 85 gr. plainbase "cowboy" bullet shoots poorly in any .25 I try it in and also won't feed well at all. I'm ready to sh*tcan that mould.
The chamber does seem a little generous in dimensions.
Still & all, it is a sweet little rifle.

[dubber123]

Yes, my problem is 3" + grouping at 50 yards. Thanks for the quick responses so far, and keep them coming. The chamber is oversized enough to leave noticibly bulged cases upon firing, and I do think that is part of my problem. The gun is scoped, and I would like to be able to outshoot my iron sighted .44 Mag 5 1/2" SBH with it.

Have you tried another scope?

[beagle]

Think I'd see what Marlin would do toward a rebarreling job if the cases are noticeably bulged.

I use .259" bullets in mine.

I shot the heck out of my Marlin when I first got it (NRA Commemorative) and was never satisfied with the way it shot and also I was dissapointed with the tendency to keyhole with the longer bullets such as the 257312.

This went on for several years and finally, I bundled it off and had a 24" Douglas Supreme barrel put on it with a 1-12 twist and also added a full magazine.

Now, it shoots all of the normal .25 bullets just fine with good accuracy and the keyholing problem went away. The added magazine capacity makes it a nice little farm gun for pests.

So, see what Marlin says. We don't have to be happy with the crap they push off on us. /beagle

[runfiverun]

aa-1680 is a good powder also but it has become hard to find in my area but the others i have on hand and like the slower end for full velocity cast loads.
reminds me i need to try the cast in my roberts.
dang it, another project for the list.

[insanelupus]

AA-1680 was the powder that did it for me, but I was using the 75 grain JSP from Speer, Remington brass and WSR primer.

[FromTheWoods]

NHlever,

Would you like me to send you a sampling of cartridges?
Jacket and lead, various weights? Some with filler, some without?

[Baron von Trollwhack]

I've been shooting my classic since the 80s when they first came out. The 86 Remington jacketed, ww-748 @ 14.5 grains with a Remington 6 1/2 or CCI br usually keeps 10 well within a quarter at 50 yards. I modified the lifter to work with an OAL of 1.648+ so that the case was hard against the bolt face and the bullet moderately engaged the rifling.

The Lyman 257420 of WW with a bit of tin for casting quality cast at .258 and the gas check set in place on a Lyman sizer shoots very well at 50 and 100 yards, with 100 yard groups at 1 1/2" off sandbags with a good bench. Same physical cartridge recipe. The bullet is tumble lubed after setting the gc with thinned LLA. An M die is used, cases are frequently annealed, and the slight neck bell is simply straightened in loading. CONSISTENT NECK TENSION IS CRITICAL AND YOU FEEL IT WHEN SEATING. DIFFERENCES MEAN INACCURACIES.

AA 1680 around 14 grains, AA 2200 at a bit more are the go to powders for 1850-1950 fps with very good accuracy for my rifle. A Speer jacketed 75 can be directly substituted with the same accuracy. The group buy mould I have throws bullets at .259, and I size them to .258 and treat as above, They weigh 83 grains and I use the same AA powders and nearly the same weights of charge for the same results. I only neck size about 75% of the neck length with a RCBS F/L die. As with a .22 Lr, clean when accuracy drops off, shoot a couple of foulers after cleaning, or between strings. As might be expected these loads are devestating on small game, and a scope is good for 75 yard head shots on gray squirrels.

My rifle has conventional 6 groove rifling and I distinctly remember a Marlin tag indicating a 12" twist, although I know other shooters say 14" twist. I did recrown a little too.

BvT

[NHlever]

Have you tried another scope?

I mounted a different scope today, and loaded some of the 257420's with Red Dot per another suggestion. Tomorrow, or the day after I'll give it another try.

[NHlever]

Thanks for the help Beagle, I'll see the dealer I got it from tonight, and see if he can call Marlin for me....... I'm hearing disabled. I also have used 1680 in a .22 Hornet, and may try that.

Lots of good info from all of you here! I sure have some more things to try now! For one of my Hornets I did open the necks up to .25 and then size them in a Hornet die until they would just chamber to tighten up headspace....... one more thing to try with this one.

[NHlever]

NHlever,

Would you like me to send you a sampling of cartridges?
Jacket and lead, various weights? Some with filler, some without?

Thanks for your generous offer! I just may take you up on that if I run out of things I have available to try. I do have quite an assortment of goodies around here... :Fire:

[dubber123]

I mounted a different scope today, and loaded some of the 257420's with Red Dot per another suggestion. Tomorrow, or the day after I'll give it another try.

Very good! I have a .270 that sat unused for years because I KNEW I had shot out the barrel. I finally changed the scope, and it was as accurate as ever. :roll:

[35remington]

I think it would be most illustrative if you would do a chamber cast.

In so doing, you may find the chamber dimensions are such (usually overlong neck, and no throat) that cast bullet accuracy will be difficult to obtain.

Unless/until you do this, you really don't know what you're up against. At least, with a chamber/throat cast, you know if there's any shortcomings, and whether you want or need to do something about it.

This advice comes from a guy who couldn't make his 25-20 shoot any better than yours does; when I did the chamber cast, I knew what needed to be done. (Mine was a T/C barrel from Fox Ridge, TC's custom shop. Their reputation for poor throating is legend; I had to find out after paying for it). Many levergun chambers are no better.

You can bang your head endlessly against a poor chamber/throat job and NEVER, EVER come up a winner using cast bullets.

Despite what some claim, not every barrel is going to shoot well with cast, nor is endless load development gonna help. In fighting a poor 25-20 barrel for years and many thousands of rounds, there was literally nothing I didn't try - and still nothing helped. So save yourself some time, and check that chamber.

The fact you can't do any better than 2 inches at fifty with jacketed doesn't bode well for cast at all.

My only suggestions would revolve around neck sizing, shooting a maximum diameter bullet (.260" if you can manage it) and trying loads of around 5.5/2400, 6.5/4227, or 6.0 IMR SR 4759 and seeing how that does. The first two are around 1300 fps with an 85 grain bullet and 1350 with 4759. The 257420 will exceed that by about 50 fps. Seat to touch the front band on the rifling if possible; ignore the crimp groove for now to see if you can get a longer than normal round to chamber and shoot.

[NHlever]

Thanks for your complete response 35Remington. I did do some more research tonight, and I did look at that bar of cerrosafe that I have, but was too tired to set up to do the chamber cast tonight. I did confirm that the barrel has a 1-14" twist. I also slugged the bore and found it to be .2567 though there is an area in the middle that is just a bit larger. Not as much as I've seen in some other lever action barrels, but firelapping might help if the chamber is salvageable. I also checked the forend cap since I've found those to be a source of trouble on other guns I've tinkered with. Sure enough it was putting a lot of pressure on the barrel, and was binding on the magazine tube enough to have removed the blueing. I relieved both the barrel contour, and tube openings where they were binding enough so that all the screws went in freely, and I couldn't feel interferrence. I also checked the mag tube length since I've found some that were really tight between the receiver, and the stud on the barrel, causing a lot of stress there. So, some progress. I may have time in the morning while it is cold (supposed to be zero) to load some long rounds as you suggested. Even if I have to single load them for now it's worth a try for sure.

Tnanks again everyone for your help. Things have been a little tough for me lately, and I guess I just got a bit over anxious on this gun. All the input has made me slow down, and take things one step at a time....... more shooting that way anyway!

[NHlever]

Well, Red Dot did provide the tightest groups with boolits so far. I got a couple of 5 shot groups that were about 2". I loaded the 257312 long to touch the rifling ahead of 5.5 grains of Unique, and it sprayed them the height of the target paper, while all the holes showed tipping. Looks like I don't have to modify the carrier anyway. :) I guess working on the forend cap did help the general accuracy since factory loads shot about 1 5/8" today. Although I have components to load j word bullets, I bought this for a cast bullet gun and have cast lots of boolits ( over 1000), mostly with a single cavity mold so I'm a little disappointed. Most groups today were still on the order of 2 1/2"-3+" at 50 yards. I was also shooting a CZ 527 .223 with the Lyman 22596 boolits, and at least the Marlin worked as good as that combo did! The CZ has a 1 in 9" twist barrel and it sure didn't like those boolits, especially with Red Dot! ( I have shot some groups with that boolit, and IMR 4227 that look promising though) My .308, and 30-06 were hanging right around an inch or less at 50 so it wasn't all me.

[35remington]

Let me say that two inches at fifty is, well......absolutely worthless for small game. You'll wound more than you kill, especially on squirrel, save that the 25-20 has a lot more punch than a rimfire and you may get away with a little poorer accuracy and still get clean kills despite more marginal hits. However, 2 inches is in no way adequate. I won't accept anything larger than an inch at fifty for rabbit and squirrel.

I'd hold off on further load development and organize the chamber cast. If it's as bad as I suspect, you've got an uphill pull.

Save yourself some time. I'd also abandon the fast shotgun/pistol powders in such heavy charges (5.5 grains) and try something slower. Others have indicated that the 1-14 twist is a little marginal for the 257312, especially at lower speeds.

[jwhite]

I had my 25-20 cl out for some load testing today and one load that stood out was 11 grains of Data 68 with a Lyman 257420 cast out of 50% W-W/50% pure lead, water dropped and tumble lubed with a mix of paste wax and Lee alox. This load gave an average of 1486fps, if you don't have any Data 68, Accurate Arms 2015BR is supposed to be the same. For a faster load with the 257420 give 8grs of Lil'Gun (1800fps) or 12gr of IMR 4198 (1845fps) a try as both of these work well in my Marlin. Good luck.

[FromTheWoods]

Before you get too much farther into it, the buffer might be your answer.

For our old Winchesters that have poor bores, spraying--and in two of them--tumbling lead bullets, we added a poly filler, and with very little load development brought the shots in to reliable, tight groups. These rifles shoot jacketed just fine, but lead--only with buffer added.

[NHlever]

Yes, my .22 lever actions easily out shoot this 25-20, and I'm more comfortable with their accuracy for small game hunting. I started out with IMR 4227, and AA 1680, and moved to the faster powders when those didn't work out so well. Perhaps I should have moved in a slower direction instead. I haven't tried a filler, but will do my chamber cast today. All the cases that I fired yesterday were only partially sized.If the chamber cast doesn't look good I'm afraid this one is going to hit the road. My 30-30 with the 3118 cast boolit, and 7.5 gains of Unique shoots under an inch consistantly at that range, and will serve just fine. Actually I have shot better 100 yard groups with that combo than the 25-20 is doing at 50.