25 Hornet varmint rifle

[Jedman]

I picked one of these Uberti baby rolling blocks up last summer at a gun store new in the box last year for a great price and like a dummy sold it before even firing it because I was offered $ 200 more than I paid for it.
I don’t know how they do it but they chamber these in 45-70 and that would have to be brutal to shoot with the brass butt plate. 22 Hornet would be about right , I have owned at least 4 rifles in 22 hornet now and never fired a one of them because I pick them up dirt cheap and flip them, I have a bunch of 22 centerfire single shots already and loading the hornet never excited me into buying dies and brass. Maybe I am missing something ?

Jedman

[marlinman93]

The Hornet is too hot for a 44 Stevens action. You should either go the CPA route, or find a 44 1/2 action if you want to build one based on .25 or .22 Hornet. Both are 40,000 cup cartridges.

[uscra112]

Since there's no commercial ammo at all for the .25 Hornet, and never has been, a 44 ought to be safe enough if he understands the limitations.

You can easily get 1400 fps. out of the .25 Hornet (86 grain cast) with bolt thrust the same or less than the .25-20 Stevens, owing to the smaller case head diameter. A good small game load and fairly quiet, too. Drop the bullet weight to 65 grains, and the thrust is considerably less. And a nice. mild small game rifle is what he's after.

[Nobade]

Exactly. Kind of like my Remington #4 takedown chambered for 32 H&R mag. Of course a full power round would wreck it, but it's been doing great for years loaded with 90 - 110 grain bullets and black powder. A nice little 5 pound squirrel rifle. I do wish I'd made it a 32 short or even long since it's a bit hard to load but I had the mag reamer...

[richhodg66]

I wonder about this kind of thing. I have one of the smaller rolling blocks in .32-40. Not original, obviously, you have to look hard, but the rifle has been relined at some point. I've been told by guys on here smarter about such things than me that this size action is not strong enough for .32-40. That's fine with me, I know that and load light stuff for plinking at short range, but I really need to tag it somehow as being a "don't shoot" with factory equivalent for whoever owns it next.