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.