Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 25/06 is not happy with Hornady Superformance rounds

Very disappointing last few weeks with the 25/06

I decided to switch up to a 117 gr hornady sst bullet out of my 25/06.. Bought some components and loaded up about 60 rounds...

Bought some hornady factory superformance also with the 117 gr sst

maybe a 3-4" group and shots 4 and 5 can get wider than that..

shot my handloads first and thought maybe it was a me issue, nope, same problem with the factory loads.. stopped at wally mart on the way to the range and picked up a box of 100 gr core lokts - psp..

MOA or right about, didn't measure it but darn close.. i shot up all my nosler BT's last year (100 gr, or 105 don't recall)
gun shot great with them..

not knocking the Hornady ammo, load the same bullet type in 7mag for my son and also have some factory hornady ammo and it's a moa or better gun out of the box..

darn 25/06 just does not like that 3100 fps 117 gr boolit...

pulling bullets tomorrow i believe and backing down the powder charge a bit.. see what that does..

shooting core lokts on Weds it would appear... Peak deer hunting time here in MS and AL - bucks are chasing hard and i have 5 days of hunting lined up.. killed 8 over the same time period last year..

i hope the failure of the superformance in your rifle is not a hint of what is to come for my son. i bought him a box for his 7mm rem mag as one of his Christmas presents. i sure hope his rifle likes em' nothing wrong with core-lokts for deer though.

Have had great accuracy with 117 sst ammo in a savage 25-06 1-10 twist barrel
Also 120 partitions. Have a 270 that I have had to dig thru all kinds of bullets to fine the right one., u will fine the right load. Keep a lookin!

Some 2506's seem finicky with heavier bullets. I tried the 117gr SST and when I got best accuracy I was also getting extraction marks on the casehead. They are also not a bullet to shoot into heavy bones, as they will come completely unglued. I switched to the 100gr BT. Been years since I've used the 2506 on game.

Kaiser Norton

Try standard 117gr BTSP over 52-53gr H4831. SST bullets and super performance ammo is very inconsistent.

Accubonds and Reloader 22

In a hurry this fall, I bought some Superformance GMX 150g 30-06 for a Weatherby Mk V SS that had shown some impressive accuracy potential with cheap silver box Winchester stuff - most better than 3/4" with that light barrel. Well, the Hornady stuff had a big price tag, and an even bigger pattern. Lucky to get a 4" group. I will finish the rest of it off in another '06 down the road...curious to see if it does any better.

That has been the case in a few of the rifles I tried it in.

The Light Magnum line was the same way.

Yeah, but you cheated. You used a Savage.

OldRook, try the Federal Fusion 120 grain load. 5 shot groups at an inch with boring regularity in several different rifles.

Good luck this year! Tom

I have been hearing occasional mentions of the superperformance ammunition being spotty as far as accuracy for a given rifle is concerned.

Try the Federal. I too have had very inconsistent results with the Hornady ammunition. When in doubt, try the Fed blue box cheap stuff. I've had surprisingly consistent accuracy with it, more so than any of the premium ammunition.

Noticed in Hodgdon data that Superperformance is used in loads for light or medium bullets, but not with heavy for caliber bullets. In .30-06 I find 150, 165, and 180-gr loads. Not 200-gr or up. I think a scan of the calibers where Superperformance is used show the same trend.

I do not find .25-06 data with Superperformance at Hodgdon's site, at least, not in the area where you put in the caliber and get a list of loads. Considering that .25-06 is popular, that could be a sign that Hodgdon did not find good loads, either. They even have SP data for 6mm Remington.

I had a custom shop KS in 280 that was literally a one ragged hole shooter with proper handloads, When fed Federal High Energy ammo 140 grain TBBC it reverted to being a scattergun.

I shoot 44 gr AA4064 with Speer 120 gr HPBT and have sucess in the .5" range consistently....this same gun did NOT like the Hornady 117s though with H4831....(win m70 25-06), but my Tikka t3 in 25-06 eats virtually anything

I have tried three boxes of Superformance. None shot better than 2.5 MOA. I wouldn't waste money on a box. It was all bought by friends wanting to find a faster pony. I took it and shot it up to no avail. 25-06, 30-06 and 7mm Rem Mag.

My 25-06 didn't like the Hornady 117 SSTs either. I shoot Winchester Supreme Elite 110 gr accubonds in it and get 1/2" or better 3 shot groups. I had it chopped from 26" to 24" about two months ago and it seems to shoot even better. I guess I need to see if the Hornadys shoot any differently out of the 24" barrel.

appreciate all the feed back guys! Been at hunting camp and out of touch..

As i said earler the Boy's 7 mag loves the superformance, moa performance..

turns out i did not have to use the darn core lokts on a bunch deer after all and that was a disappointment..

My son and I hunted hard in the 60-70 degree weather and only scratched one buck apiece.. i killed an anemic 8 pt mgmt buck and he killed a pretty nice 11 pt about 5 minutes before dark on the the last evening oft he hunt.

Same time period last year we killed 13 between us, but the weather was much, much cooler...

we had opportunities to shoot a basket rack buck or two each day as they did move some.. Saw very few does also

good time spent with the boy however and I'm glad he punched out on the much better buck..

He'll be heading back to school Friday or Sat and we won't see him again til March.. Good time spent together and Momma came down to hunting camp and hung out with us so she did not miss out on much time with him either..

you guys out there with young kids had better make sure you spend as much time with them as you can.. Before you know it they will be three states away in college and you only see them occasionally...



These darn deer did not move until just before dark in this heat..

Been using Hornaday superformance SST 139gr in my Ruger Hawkeye 7mm-08 with great results. Less than 1 inch 5 shot groups @100 yards all day long.....
Love the performance on the 5 whitetails I've shot this season...all one shot DRT kills.

Haven't tried them in my 25-06 yet.