No contest! 25-06 wins as the .270 isn't a proper calibre...........:D
2506 just was never really advertised or pushed here.
270was a culler caliber so stands to reason stronger following even if it is no better or worse.
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If I recall correctly Graeme Sinclair of fishing fame used one in his early hunting years. A bloke I know has a wooden Sako 25/06 and shot 13 deer all recovered last week. All shot in the rain which in southern HB was miserable.He swears by it although he also has a super expensive 7wsm.
How come I cant access any posts beyond post number #87 on this thread?
That's what I use to , or for a bit more thump the 120 corelokt work wonders on Tahr , iv never played around with mine much I got an accurate load using the 117 & 120 so just stuck with it zeroed 3inches high at 100 , always toyed with the idea of trying the 70gn just for kicks maybe on some pesky goats or something but then that would be like starting from scratch figuring out a load & rezeroing so maybe not , anyway its a good cal & used to stand out a bit from the likes of a 308 with less recoil ,but you don't notice it much these days with suppressors .
Had a Ruger Hawkeye in 25 06 for a while, it worked well shot a few deer with it out past 300 yards using the 110 gr Accubond at about 3100 fps. Nothing argued with it. Sold it as the rifle was a bit heavy for bush hunting I thought.
because we already had the mighty poohseventy and the humble twoforfree to cover anything it could do just as well if not better.....
Thinking about it a little, North america has quite an assortment of critters. Bear, deer, beavers, coyotes, alligators, to name a few.
I suspect the 25/06's claim to fame was that it was versatile enough to zap most animals.
Oddly the thread showed unread and 7 pages when I last posted but page 7 was not accessible and my post appeared on page 6 :wtfsmilie:
6.5x55 Swede, all you need.
(And maybe a 6'2" 32dd, blonde Swede )
Anyone else ever see that Geoff Thomas hunting video?
Roars up a red stag (his guide did), he shoots it at about 10m.... then remarks "the 2506 is really flat shooting at that pace"
Cracked me up
If a 100 grain 6mm bullet is touted as being suitable for 90% of NZ game, what is a120 grain 25 calibre bullet capable of? I would say easily just as much.
All you really need is the rifle you have in your hand and more TIME to hunt with it!
Always wanted one but never got one. If a 130gr 270 is ok cant quite see why a 117 25 cal at similar speed wouldn't be acceptable. If a cheap one came up I'd have it.
One of my cousins husband,who does a crap load of shooting and gets a lot of deer went to a 2506 years ago from a 270.
His first decent trial was 3 deer nearly 400m away. Got them all. he was pretty happy with it
6.5-06 would be good.
I've had the 25-06 it's a very capable caliber you can't compare it with the 270 as the 270 has more grunt and shoots 130gn projectiles but I would say i'd own a 25-06 rather than a 243 and I've owned both the 25-06 is a comfortable caliber to use I used it for wild dogs, pigs all ferals even wild cattle but with the cattle shot placement was vital I found it was a very flat shooter and deadly accurate and reliable I made my own ammo I used a 100gn projectile and I found it would kill just as good as a 117-120gn projectile probably the speed factor (hydraulic shock) I've never shot deer but i'm pretty sure the 25-06 would handle the mid range size deer or even the larger ones one of the reasons I see with the 25-06 not getting a leg up is there are too many calibers that can be tinkered with to mimic the 25-06's capabilities by souping the loads and projectile weights but for a standard caliber with no frills it is a very good caliber I have pushed it like the other calibers and man can you get them performing but I found it perfect as it was ''standard''
I needed a bigger caliber for the wild cattle and I couldn't afford to run an extra rifle so with a heavy heart I traded the 25-06 in on a 7mm mag and I can tell you I still miss that rifle it's a caliber amid calibers but unfortunately it can be mimicked by other calibers and that's what people like to do these days but you'll find the older shooters will stick to the standard calibers not as much mucking around trying to hone things in. just my 2cents Cheers
Had one when they became available in NZ late 1960's I think, only could get 120 Rem Core-loc , worked like a solid, straight thru on light deer. Later used the 100 core-loc, worked ok. Later went to the 257 Roberts and hand loads, that's a real 25 cal. Now have a 250 Savage that I'm playing with.
Well, I’ve had two of them and shot several hundred critters with them including: roe, muntjac, red, fallow, whitetail, foxes and coyotes. All seemed to be as dead as when shot with anything else.
I suspect they aren’t really popular because of the limited supply of higher BC projectiles, availability of off the shelf ammo, and the wide variety of other chambering son the market.
I used 100 grain TTSX, 100 and 115 grain Nosler BTs, 110 accubonds, and 117 SSTs over the years in mine. I think the 115 BTs were the best all rounders. TTSX were good close in, but terrible past about 250m. 100 BTs were too destructive.
.25-06 relies on speed to do its work and I found mine to be poor at anything beyond 300. Two wounded reds with long follow ups in Scotland taught me that 250 should be my personal limit.
Blackjack in the US have a high BC 131 grain projectile, but it needs a fast twist barrel to stabilise, so isn’t likely to catch on here.
I have moved on to bigger chamberings since I moved over here as I’m generally after reds and tahr now and although .25-06 can handle them, prefer something larger with heavy for caliber projectiles.
I knew some people brought many 22-250 in North isaland. They thought this should do as they expected, but eventually it was not.
1/4 bore unfortunately was always relegated to 'good enough' for hunting duty.
With some real projectile development, and barrel twist rates improved, i dare say it would be hard to equal for game and def in the hunt for some target duty.
My RIP chum used to exclusively use one for Roosavelt Elk, and he never failed to take one with 1 shot.
Great choice for NZ game
Necrophiliac
I can just see it coming ...... 25PRC or 25Nosler. Hornady will need a mew high BC pill to add to their list and drive their next marketing spin. The 6.5 fad must just about be thrashed to death now?
I'm awake need more high bc pills first but it's still in the back of my mind.
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Interesting read.
I will just stick with my 308. The saying "Jack of all trades, master of none" comes to mind with this cal.
Is it fair to say of the 25/06 that maths just isn't running in it's favour the way it does for 243 /7mm?
I wouldn't go out to buy one but wouldn't turn my nose up at one either. Probably its hey day was a super varmint or deer rifle before reliable dialling scopes with its long MPBR
It’s always good to revisit a thread like this. Reminds me how far we’ve come in recent years. Humour aside the simple fact is that the old .25-06 will flatten deer within normal hunting ranges and there isn’t really anything wrong with it.
Apart from the fact it’s a long action case that needs too much powder for the performance, it’s too loud, it needs a long barrel, has a rubbish bullet selection and if for some reason you wanted one that wasn’t shot out, you wouldn’t be able to find one.
.25-06 fans get their ardent admiration for the cartridge from their grandfathers. Luckily my grandfather had moved on to short action modernity as he was a bit of a flash git, so when it was my turn there was none of this antique cartridge business.
But I’ll say this, the one and only time I have ever hunted with a .25 aught six, I pointed it at a medium-ish antelope, it went BANG and the animal fell over right in front of my very eyes. My abiding memory of that moment was just how loud the bloody thing was, and the fact that it had a set trigger which I had not been educated on how to use properly. So I got a big surprise. But nonetheless, the old quarter bore sealed the deal, and I will always remember that moment very fondly. So much so that I’ve always thought that if I was to buy an antique cartridge in a timber and blued steel hunting rifle, it would very probably be the .25-06.
call me a hypocrite. You’d be correct.
My last long term 25/06 was driving 115 VLD (G1 .483) at 3200 with a case full of 2217. Killed like lightning. The various 25/06's I've had tended to kill faster/more decisively than 6.5 Swede/.308/7mm08 et al.
It's an old fashioned past it antique? and .270/3006/7x57? they aint exactly modern, and the 25 is younger than them.
Just what would that compare unfavorably with?
But I'm just a silly old prick who still old fashionedly kills big animals with a .243.
Yep that’s pretty much exactly what the .25-06 shooters always say, and they would be right. It’s got just enough more speed and just enough weight to deliver a noticeably faster “shock” killing outcome than some of the standard short actions running in the high mid-2000s. That’s assuming you put it in the right place of course...
Somewhere I’ve got an Excel spreadsheet with “terminal whack” graphed at 200yds for a whole bunch of cartridges up to the .308 / 165gr, and the .25-06 compares very well.
Bottom line is that it works, simply because it is able to throw a roughly 120gr bullet at the same amount of fps more than 3000 then most of the rest of them can manage below 3000. This is the difference between the parent cases of course.
But it’s not like it’s the only one that can do that. But it is interesting that as time has gone on the market seems to have settled on slightly less powerful short action derivatives, leaving the more powerful long action cartridges in similar calibres in the hands of the wildcatters or some of the very rare “magnum” 6.5s. I wonder why this is? It can’t be action length alone. I haven’t really thought about it before but I suppose there is just a sweet spot with short action cartridges throwing 100-140gr bullets between 2700-3000fps.
Oh well maybe I shall ponder that one as I go to sleep which is going to be in about three minutes...
I've got one for sale 24 inch barreled Ruger going cheap, rings, scope dies brass etc great shooter with 2217 and 120 spears.