Thread: 25-06 why hasn't it achieved fame and success in New Zealand?

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?

Originally Posted by chainsaw

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?

Shush you... you'll wake up 25/08Imp and his 25 Creedmore you missed mentioning

I'm awake need more high bc pills first but it's still in the back of my mind.

Sent from my CPH1903 using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by Gibo

Necrophiliac

Yup. Eight years later and it's still a loud barky shit bullet shooting throwback to when Germans wore spikes on their helmets (why?) and Americans were wishing like hell they hadn't killed all their buffalo.

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.