.25-06

blackwater1987

Anyone have any experience with the .25-06 think about getting one for a bit of target shooting and for deer..

It wasn't me!

I use one for deer and it's excellent for that. However, while I can buy hunting ammo (I use the Federal 117gr soft points) at a price reasonable enough to practise with them, there's no widely available target-shooting ammo, so if you're looking to shoot targets seriously, it's possibly not the best choice. Great round for deer though.

blackwater1987

cheers ya it will be mostly for deer.how much are those federals then?

Kinzig

It wasn't me! wrote: »

I use one for deer and it's excellent for that. However, while I can buy hunting ammo (I use the Federal 117gr soft points) at a price reasonable enough to practise with them, there's no widely available target-shooting ammo, so if you're looking to shoot targets seriously, it's possibly not the best choice. Great round for deer though.

how many deer did you kill with the 25-o6, would you put it that far ahead of a 243?

Jonty

Kinzig wrote: »

how many deer did you kill with the 25-o6, would you put it that far ahead of a 243?

She'd be well ahead of the 243. She'd be just shy of a 270. Remember that the 25-06, and 270 are cousins of the 30-06.

It wasn't me!

blackwater1987 wrote: »

cheers ya it will be mostly for deer.how much are those federals then?

I'm getting them for €125/100 as far as I recall (Been a couple of months since I bought any).

Kinzig wrote: »

how many deer did you kill with the 25-o6, would you put it that far ahead of a 243?

I don't know how far ahead of a .243 it'd be really. It's a much bigger case and has the capability for bullets up to 20% heavier than the top end of a .243's standard fare. With 100gr bullets, which is where they overlap, it's got about a 200fps advantage, and to be honest, in terms of recoil, there's really not a lot more. Given the greater bullet weight and velocity, it's still very mild. Never killed a deer with a .243 though, but I've known a good few people who used them extensively and never saw any reason to change. With those Federal soft points I recovered one this year just under the hide on the back of the offside shoulder, having clipped the spine pretty hard and then smashed the shoulder. Mushroom was nice and the core was still sitting in front of the expanded jacket. That's decent bullet performance. If I had a good .243 and was killing deer just fine, I wouldn't see any reason to change for one perhaps, but that's the rifle I found (lefties are thin on the ground second hand) and I'm quite happy with it. As Jonty says, it's probably a bit closer to the .270 win than the .243, 117gr bullet in the .25, 130 in the .270 and 100 in the .243, all at around 3000 fps in factory loads.

blackwater1987

Thanks for that @ it wasnt me ..must try and find one now for myself

declan1980

@IWM, you didn't answer the question fully. How many deer have you shot with your 25-06

It wasn't me!

Just a couple.

declan1980

It wasn't me! wrote: »

Just a couple.

So then in 3 or 4 years of owning a 25-06, you say you've shot 2 deer. This would indicate to me, given your limited personal experience of taking deer with your rifle, that you are not the best source of information for anyone to be getting information from on caliber or bullet selection.

4gun

several years ago when I got into deer stalking I had my head set on the .308, still absolutely love the round but given the versatility of the 243 and seeing what some of my mates can do with with it both with custom and non custom rifles I'd go with that.
what I am really saying is dont set your mind on any one calibre until such time that you are absolutely certain its the one for you. What suits some one else may be no good for you, the gun must fit you, also I believe many recoil issues that lads hark on about are nothing to do with the size of the calibre but more so an unsuitable gun and not having it under control.
is any calibre better than any other, it often down to the shooter.
A good shooter will take deer at longer distances than a bad one, the good shooter in humility will claim its the gun, the bad one will in desperation do like wise

blackwater1987

@ 4gun . ive had a .243 for two years now havent a bad word to say about it just fancy a change heard good things about a .25-06 so jus said id ask on here was told to stay away from .270s and dont fancy a .308

alan270

I wud get the 270, it's better on long distance shots and it will hold up better on the windy days, the 117g is a bit light on long shots. The 270 has a better selection of bullets 100g, 130s, 140s and the 150s. A lot more power too and a mild recoil if that's any help.

Tommy87

blackwater1987 wrote: »

@ 4gun . ive had a .243 for two years now havent a bad word to say about it just fancy a change heard good things about a .25-06 so jus said id ask on here was told to stay away from .270s and dont fancy a .308

Why dont you fancy a .308??

blackwater1987

Tommy87 wrote: »

Why dont you fancy a .308??

I was looking for a gun i could go foxing with at the start and thought a .308 was a bit much but i think ill just keep the .243 for that so any advice on calibres are welcome:D

4gun

blackwater1987 wrote: »

@ 4gun . ive had a .243 for two years now havent a bad word to say about it just fancy a change heard good things about a .25-06 so jus said id ask on here was told to stay away from .270s and dont fancy a .308

As a second rifle absolutely, didnt know you already had a 243
wasnt promoting the 308 either really,
What I was saying was to be absolutely certain you're listening to the right people when you ask peoples opinion here,

Other users have put too much faith in the wrong people here and gone on to regret it. Ask people you know personally what do they know about it.
Its not a calibre I am interested in so I personally could tell you nothing.
many of these threads end up with users squabbling over their preference calibre,

I do have to admit that my next gun will be a Blaser R8 professional in 300wsm......mmmmm yum yum.
It will be in 4 or 5 years time

323

alan270 wrote: »

I wud get the 270, it's better on long distance shots and it will hold up better on the windy days, the 117g is a bit light on long shots. The 270 has a better selection of bullets 100g, 130s, 140s and the 150s. A lot more power too and a mild recoil if that's any help.

Agree, shot a lot of deer and vermin as well as a few some hogs(on the light side for those) with a 25-06 had years ago. Great cartridge, but at the time could only have one center fire rifle. So moved to a 270 because came across a commercial 98 action i liked, not because of the cartridge, never looked back.
As you said, better bullet weight selection available, also 156g (my preference) and 160 grains available.
Maybe in my mind, although still quite mild, my 270 recoiled more than the 20-06 (Remington 700BDL), probably due to being a bit lighter.

blackwater1987

@ 323 having owned both a .25-06 and .270 which would u recommend it will be mostly for fallow deer the odd red and a bit of 5 to 600 yard target shooting but its mostly a hunting gun .. any other lads wanna give there two pence worth work away cheers

DR6.5

I have used the 25-06 for the last few years, was using a 6.5/55 before, since getting the 25-06 i hardly use the 6.5.

all my stalking is for sika and hybreds on the hill and the 25-06 is a brilliant round for this type of shooting. I use 85 grain ballistic tips they are a savage round, very flat. Have also shot a good few animals with the 100 grain ballistic tips again damage was acceptable and performed very well.


Two other lads i stalk with use the 25-06 both swear by it, one changed from a .270 to the 25-06 and does not regret it.

If i were you if your shooting predominately fallow the 25-06 would be an ideal choice.

I cant recomend the 25-06 enough, if you have any other questions fire away.

dr6.5

323

blackwater1987 wrote: »

@ 323 having owned both a .25-06 and .270 which would u recommend it will be mostly for fallow deer the odd red and a bit of 5 to 600 yard target shooting but its mostly a hunting gun .. any other lads wanna give there two pence worth work away cheers

With the most common loadings, 25-06/117grain and 270/130grain, don't remember the paper ballistics but same performance on game, never considered shooting at any deer with lighter than these.
Loved the 25-06 but thing the 270 is more versatile for same reasons mentioned by alan270 plus you will get ammo for it anywhere.
Never shot target seriously so can't really comment, both are capable of excellent accuracy, but would never have considered either as target rounds.

EWQuinn

.25-06 is one of the more popular old wildcats based on the .30-06. It caught on big and is very popular in US for deer, antelope and used by more experienced hunters for elk. You can't go wrong if you were to chose it for deer hunting.

patsat

I have a .25-06 for a few months now and have shot a good few deer with it since the start of the season!

Recoil is mild with it, I have seen the bullet strike every deer I have shot so far, although this is more down to the set up of the rifle an not the caliber. It's a t3 lite in a Pse stock, Kaps 2.5-10x50 and atec maxim. It's a very light rifle but its so well balanced its a joy to shoot.

Previous to that I had a .270 for 2 seasons and it worked very well! In an ideal world I would have a .270 in the identical set up as my .25-06 but the .25-06 was on sale at the time so I went with that!

That being said you would not regret buying a .25-06 for deer in Ireland!

dev110

Keep it on topic guys.

Some good information here. No point derailing the thread.

FISMA

It wasn't me! wrote: »

... there's no widely available target-shooting ammo, so if you're looking to shoot targets seriously, it's possibly not the best choice. Great round for deer though.

If you could shoot a box of "whatever," what would it be?

It wasn't me!

In .25-06? I had a box of 115gr Nosler Partitions a while back. They shot well (and really consistently) on paper but I never shot game with them. They have a really good reputation though, would be interested to check them out and see whether they perform noticeably differently than the Speer HotCor bullets Federal load in their blue box stuff.

rowa

http://www.ballisticstudies.com/Knowledgebase/.25-06+Remington.html