Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters John Wooters & .25 Copperhead

One of my favorite gun & hunting writers for many years was John Wooters. The last Wooters article that I read was his explanation why he had sold his little ranch near the Texas-Mexico border. With all the folks on this site interested in wildcat cartridges, I'm surprised that there aren't more postings about general purpose small game rounds such as the .25 Copperhead and the .257 Kimber and general purpose small game centerfire rifles such as the .25 Copperhead Mannlicher-style carbine that former gunsmith Jess Stark built to Wooters' specifications on a small SAKO action. Surely we rifle loonies have better ideas than factory rimfires and factory centerfires in .17, .20 and .22. My excuse for not putting my money where my mouth is: lack of money. Still, I'm curious.

How about the new 6.8 round?

It is hard to not like the whole 222 family when it comes to shooting called varmints and since they all work so well, why bother with niche cartridges like the 25 Copperhead and the 257 Kimber. I think that if there was consumer demand, somebody would make them.

I used to have a Marlin 62 in 256 Win Mag that was also fun to shoot called varmints with. I sold it for some reason and replaced it with another Marlin 62, but this 1 is a custom job in 218 Bee.

Jeff

260 has it pegged - lack of demand. There just aren't many who'd have real use for such a versatile round as Wooters' Copperhead. I still remember reading that article for the first time, and thinking what a neat rifle that was, and how versatile that ctg. was.

Somebody's got to keep the custom die boys in business, though, so ..... all is never lost. If I ever find one of those little Sako actions when I've got the $$$, I very well might try to make up my own version of Wooters' rifle. He shot a fair number of deer with that one, didn't he? It really IS "where you hit them."

The great thing about wildcats is that you can always build one. I recall reading aboout the 25 Copperhead, this was around the late 60s. In 1971, I built one on a Vixen action with a 22" barrel and used it extensively as I began calling coyotes in earnest. It was topped with a 3X Lyman PermaCenter and performed as Wooters had said with minimal pelt damage which was important as I sold any quality pelt.

Its a quiet cartridge, easy to handload and very effecitve. With the advent of light Barnes X bullets in 257 caliber, the rifle proved a good choice on javelina, Coues deer and mule deer. Alas, those great bullets have been discontinued.

My rifle is now on its third barrel and is still one of my preferred choices for many calling situations. Several friends have witnessed the wunders of the little rifle and have chambered custom rifles for themselves. Admittedly, it isn't going to be a popular chambering, no factory will offer one, but that diminishes not one whit how enjoyable the round has been and will continue to be.

Wooters wrote that his short, light, fast-handling and accurate rifle based on the SAKO L-461 action, topped with a 3X Leupold telesight, was to be his general purpose rifle for everything up to and including coyotes. It was intended to be used during most of his outdoors time, when big game seasons were closed. With mild cast bullet loads, Wooters wrote that the .25-222 Copperhead worked fine for small edibles such as squirrels and rabbits. He intended full loads with jacketed bullets for varmints and fur bearers up through coyotes.

To the best of my knowledge, Wooters never did not try to make a deer cartridge of the .25-222 Copperhead, though both Sam Fadala, with his wife's 6mm-222, and Wayne Blackwell, with his .25 x 47, did intend their wildcats to be successful on deer. Sam Fadala wrote at length in the tenth edition of Handloader's Digest about his entire family's successful use of the 6mm-222 on deer and pronghorns out to 200 yards.

Handy versatility was Wooters' chief goal, and mild lead bullet loads were an integral part of his definition of versatility. Because Wooters admitted that he couldn't consistently make good cast bullets in diameters less than .25, he chose the .25 caliber. It should be noted that Wooters started his .25-222's range of intended game with rabbits and squirrels and ended it with coyotes, whereas Fadala and Blackwell started with varmints and ended with deer and pronghorns out to 200 yards or so.

260Remguy may be correct in his suggestion that the new 6.8 mm Remington cartridge may be versatile enough to provide a factory equivalent to the .25-222. A titanium and stainless Remington Model 7 in 6.8 Remington, when Remington decides to offer it, would probably cost less than a custom-built .25-222 on a Remington Model 7 or a CZ Model 527 action. Maybe CZ will do something interesting if the new Remington blue steel Model 7 sells well.

Versatility fans, our time may be at hand!

My 6.8 is probably going to be built on an Interarms Mini-Mauser action. Now all I need is a mannlicher stock, a barrel, brass, dies, and bullets!

Jeff

I have played with some .222 brass. ( Necking it up to .243, .257 and .264) It makes up a cool looking little round.
A few years back I had T/C Contender made up with a 25-35 Win. barrel. Killed two bucks with the Barnes 85 X-bullet and the original 90 gr. Barnes SP at around 2,600 fps. Worked as well as any other cartridge. Range was inside 100 yards.

I'm wishing Remington would hurry up with the 6.8 SPC

I have a friend( really , I do!) that has been shooting Silly wet for years with a 7mm/.222remmag.
he loves it!
Claims it drives a 140 grain bullet to 500 meters with more than enough energy to smack the rams!
He shot some deer with it also, but uses a 7/08 for that, mostly.
But , ofcourse being a rilfe looney he may just be shooting something else now!<img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/crazy.gif" alt="" />
catnthehat

I haven't tried the Copperhead yet, but always liked the idea. My thinking now tends more toward the .257 TCU. Even have a barrel blank waiting for one or the other.

I too had a sillywet shooting friend that swore by a (relatively) pipsqueak 7mm cartridge - the 7TCU. He had it set up for "no size" reloading. The necks were tight enough so that after firing and neck springback, there was the correct tension on the bullet to hold it for the next shot.

Regards,
Scott

I enjoy the whole genre of articles that explore the necked up cartridges based on the 222/223 family of cases. I think they are much more powerful than one might expect, if you don't ask too much of them. My first hand experience has been with a 6 TCU on a mini-Mauser and a 7TCU on a Contender for silhouette shooting. The 6 TCU was able to shoot 85 grain partitions at 2600 fps, which was good enough to kill my son's first whitetailed doe at 125 yards. If the action is small enough, these guns can easily come in at about 5 pounds, pre scope.

I still have the original Wooters/Guns & Ammo article around here someplace on the Copperhead. It took us 15 or maybe 20 years from that article but Dad and I finally built one, biggest change being we put ours on a sporter stock instead of the mannlicher. Not sure much of anything but 75gr HP, either Hornady or Sierra, has ever been through the barrel but woe be to any varmint inside 200 yards. Mine carries a Leupold 2.5-8.

Comment above about it being a neat looking little round is dead on. Always reminded me of a miniature "Whelen". Sort of hits like one too.

Yea it does favor the .35 Whelen.

I use to load the 75 gr. Hornady HP out of a .250 Savage for practice rounds but never hunted with them. How are they for toughness ?

Have you used this round on deer ?

I reckon there's good reason that the little round looks like a miniture Whelen, the 222 Remington is a scaled down version of the 30/06 that Mike Walker of Remington design dept. came up with. Kimber came out with the .257 Kimber, offered briefly in the Kimber of Oregon models back around the 70's somewhere. The idea,based on a 222 Remington Magnum cartridge case necked up to 257 and blown out a bit like an Ackley improved didn't catch on. As I recall it could launch a 100 grain bullet at 2700fps (based on a foggy memory). The CZ 527 mini Mauser ought to be an ideal available rifle to cobble up into a similar rig these days. The 6.5 Grendel cartridge fits the little CZ 527 perfectly, and offers 308 punch at long range,with a flatter trajectory. Yet it is a very usable varmit round with lighter bullet weights. The Grendel, by the way, whips the Remington 6.8 in every catagory. Brockman's gunsmith specializes in rebarreling the little CZ rifles to the Grendel round, which was designed as the maximun power cartridge that would fit the AR rifle platform, in a bolt gun it is better yet since working pressure can safely be elevated into the 50-55,000 psi range.

I shot a 6X47 in benchrest matches in the days before the PPC cartridges were born; that cartridge is the .222 Rem Mag necked up. This with my love for 6.5 mm cartridges probably explains why I needed to have a 6.5 TCU. Mine is a T/C Contender that spends most of its time hiding in the safe.

I have looked over two of Jim B's Chay Zed M527 rifles set up for the 6.5 Grendel, and they are a very "sano" package.

jim

A 1-8" twist 223 (or AI version) is the definition of versatile. Not much 75gr bullet usage in that cartridge when he did the Copperhead.

Steelhead makes a good point.

Maybe just for the hell of it, though, the 6.8 appeals to me.

Now & then a grin is worth the extra effort.

Small game hunting for edible game has declined over the decades and the varmint hunters have taken over. The factories a century ago made guns for loads like 25-20, 32-20, .25 and .32 rimfire. You could shoot something with one of those and have something left to eat. When the .22 Hornet and then the Bee and the Zipper and the Swift arrived in the 1930s that era ended.

Not to hyjack a thread, but does anyone have a set of 25CH dies available?

Has anyone tried out the 25-45 Sharps?

I enjoyed his work!