You are right a .25/06 needs a 26" barrel I have had a 23" and was only getting .257 Roberts performance my current .25/06 barrel is 26.5" and is an entirely different animal, I have done some load development with a Tikka
T3 .25/06 with a 22" barrel very accurate but a lot slower than mine, a .257 Weatherby is faster but uses 6 grains more powder for the same velocity the rifles are hard to find ammo and cases are expensive and hard to find the
barrel wears out faster,
The .25/06 cases can be made from .270 .280 .30/06 if you can't find the real thing, two powders to get are RL22 AR2217,
If you can find a shot out Tikka T3 in .308 cheap enough just change the mag and bolt stop and rebarrel it, there are some second hand .270 Winchester M70's on TM for not a lot of cash one of them would be my choice
if I was after another .25/06.
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