Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Going with the 25-06

Amen!

A .25-06 will work well......

With a stoutly constructed bullet, I'm sure it will kill big critters. Keep in mind that our northern neighbors used to kill everything up there with surplus .303 British rifles.

Never a bad choice!

I kicked ideas around for a week or two about which way to go and late today a #3 shilen quarter bore showed up at the door. It was close to being my first Roy but I have decide it will be my fourth 25/06. Far to easy to on barrels and have a nice diet for powder. They are hell on crow and groundhog and rough on deer. Wife might get to turn coyotes a flip with it too.

I absolutely love my 25-06........just tried for the first time the Nosler Ballistic Silvertip 115 gr. bullet in my Sako 75 and the rifle shoots them brilliantly ! I can�t wait to try them on game next fall. Here is a 3 shot group at 100 metres.

I've done the same thing with the 7mm-08 but have not yet thinned the herd

In this Day and Age of exceptional barrels and uniform boolit jackets,everything shoots exceptionally well and that is a given. That being said,Precision is but a single facet of the beeg picture...though there ain't too many folks who like Precision more than I.

There's no way I'd drive a 25-06 over a 243Win today,due simply to the disparity in their respective boolits. The 6mm's are far more slickery,will slip conditions better and do so in a shorter action,burning less powder and with lower ES/SD(vertical),while happily housed in a 2.8" box.

Though in fairness,I cain't know anyone with more 25's in their larder,than I...but it's 243 for the win.

Hint.

Stickys back LMAO

You forgot to mention a fast twist barrel is required to stabilize the high BC bullets needed to achieve such an advantage. Very few factory guns have the ability to stabilize a dtac, vld,amax, etc. Not saying some can't, but majority...likely not. Apples to apples, I say advantage 25-06.

The funny thing is that the Rem 700 .243 Win is one of the factory barrels that will stabilize the AM and other slippery bullets, and I'd say there's a fair few of those kicking around

Exactly,.. factory 700's in 243 have always been twisted 9-1/8" which will stabilize at least a 105 AMax. I had one of the VLS's albeit in 6mm and it shot the 105 AMax into small groups at 300 meters.

It's not hard to find 6mm bullets that stabilize in factory barrels, that walk away from the 25s in BC. Mind you if your shooting is on this side of the quarter mile line that's more theoretical than practical.

At the risk of being redundant, this is a factory 700 .243 barrel that has been reamed AI and re-crowned:

If we're talkin' target rifles here, sure, sign me up with a .243.

If you're lookin' for velocity enough for expanding a hunting bullet, there isn't a nickle's worth of difference in a .25-06, or a .243 of the best stripe (might be an advantage for the .25 caliber in fact - with the Weatherby). One eats a little less hay, and requires a slightly smaller blanket. That advantage goes to the .243's.

I'll drink to the 25-06.

The .25-06 works great on game. I love the cartridge. It just doesn't have the LR prowess that the .243 does, simply because bullet manufacturers hamstring anything .257".

To recommend one cartridge over another based on bullet availability seems foolish. Bullet availability can change in a hurry.

And the OP was referring to Texas hunting,anyway. Pretty hard to beat the 25-06 for that.

LR may not be a large consideration for the use of this particular rifle, but bullets don't change fast enough when there are none, and you'd have to be a fool to recommend that a guy chamber a LR rifle in a cartridge for which there are no good LR bullets available. Just sayin'.

A Kimber Montucky in 25-06 is about as good as it gets, that's a sweet package!