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Originally Posted by Philip B. Sharpe
.25 G&H and Niedner-Roberts

The .25 Griffin & Howe and Niedner-Roberts cartridge is the one originally known as the .25 Roberts. Throughout this book, however, it is being designated under the above full name, as it is entirely different from the .257 Roberts cartridge sold commercially. The .25 Roberts cartridge was never manufactured by any firm and was the original Roberts development designed by Ned H. Roberts of Berlin, N.H. Major Roberts began experimenting with the .25 caliber back around 1909, cooperating with Dr. Mann and A. O. Niedner. Since that time he has been playing with it continuously and has had coutless different barrels and bullets and cases made to his specification. The original .25 Roberts was the 7mm cartridge necked down to .25 caliber but having a long sloping neck. Also, at least two times, the length of the neck was altered slightly, so that the Niedner Roberts and the Griffin & Howe Roberts were somewhat different.
...
It should be thoroughly understood that loading data for the .25 Roberts and .257 Roberts must not be interechanged. ... Most of the loads given for the .257 Roberts can be used in the .25 Roberts , but one can by no means reverse the procedure. Maxiumum loads in the .25 would cause extremely dangerous pressures in the .257 due to the sharper angle or slope of the bottle neck.
...
The .257 Roberts was originally designed by the Reemingtons who were experimenting with the .25 Roberts cartridge in an effort to produce it commercially. The long slender taper of the shoulder, however, did not appeal to them because of its manufacturing complications. Accordingly, they changed the angle entirely so that the .257 cartridge cannot be shot in rifles chambered for the .25 caliber Roberts. It was first produced as the ".25 Roberts", but Captain E. C. Crossman insisted that to release it that way would be to invite severe complications. He suggeste the change in name to .257 Roberts, which Remington immediately accepted.



I find the highlighted section to be suspect. If there are pressure differences, volume differences will account for them.

Charlie Sisk did an experiment with a single barrel first chambered to 300 H&H, then to 300 WSM. The results were similar capacity + similar loads = similar pressure. And those two cartridges were dissimilar in shape to a greater degree than the 25's discussed here.

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Have a gunsmith check it for headspace. If the standard 257 checks out you are good to go.
If not..you can fire form a case by seating a bullet into the lands for headspace..and send that fire formed case to have dies made..

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But what cartridge case would I fire form?

---------------------------

Good information on the .25 Roberts:

http://iaaforum.org/forum3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7464




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JD_Zincavage-

Your link to the IAA information supplies most of the necessary background for working with your rifle. I can add that the article by Ned Roberts describing much of the development is found in the January 1925 issue of The American Rifleman. Below I've linked to one of his photos included in that article.

To make ammunition for a rifle chambered for the Niedner .25 Roberts, I would do as Ned Roberts did and start with 7x57mm brass. The 7x57 cases should be sized in your full-length .25 Roberts die, using a really good case lube like Redding's Imperial Case Sizing Wax. Depending on the resistance you encounter, proceed gently. You are going to have to move the case shoulder back, and increase the taper of the whole case body, as well as reduce the diameter of the neck.

The cases that emerge from the FL sizing process should fit the chamber of your rifle. If not, check the cases against your chamber casting.

The problem you may face is determining the overall case length. When you scrunch the 7x57 case to the .25 Roberts form, you will be moving a fair amount of brass, and it is likely to make your cases longer than they should be. In the 1935 article, Roberts wrote that one of the reasons Griffin & Howe proposed their version of the .25 Roberts was that it decreased the amount of neck trimming required on the formed cases. Since you evidently have the shorter-necked Niedner version, you will probably have to trim the formed cases to avoid the problems of a too-long neck. You might contact the maker of your dies to find out what are his recommendations. Hopefully he will have the length dimension of the .25 Roberts Niedner version, and not the .25 Roberts G&H version. (Roberts wrote that the G&H case is about 1/16-inch longer than the Niedner case.) If he does not have a max cartridge length measurement in his files, you might contact one of the knowledgeable IAA persons.

It's possible and even likely that the cases produced by FL sizing of 7x57 cases may not require fire-forming of any kind. After trimming, the cases may be ready to load, just like factory brass. However, until you're sure of this, some initial trials using the cream-of-wheat forming technique may be advisable. If you happen to make and fire a case with a too-long neck, the c-o-w method doesn't produce the possibly dangerous pressures that may occur with a bullet in place.

There's also the question of whether the headspace of cases formed by the FL die is correct. (I recently worked through a problem of a FL die headspace mismatch to the chamber, which produced case head separations.) Some c-o-w firings may reveal any difficulties here.

Good luck.
--Bob
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Great, many thanks. This is exactly the how-to-proceed kind of information I've been looking for.

One other interesting bit of data from http://www.jouster.com/forums/showthread.php?41802-25-Griffin-amp-Howe-built-by-Niedner-on-o3-action:

"Many of the Niedner chambered rifles have what is called a Mann-Niedner chamber which is a very tight chamber so you must use a little caution when loading for it if that is a the case. Most Mann-Niedner chambers are so tight that the case never needs resizing."


But my rifle was barreled by Sukalle, so it shouldn't have the Mann-Niedner chamber, I think.

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Bob, you obviously are an expert loader. I haven't been loading in decades. I'm buying 87 and 100 grain spitzer-point bullets. Could you recommend a powder or two?

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JD-Zincavage-

Two powders with which to start reloading your .25 Roberts? IMR-4064 made the original users of the .25 Roberts happy in the early 1930s and 80 years later, current loading manuals show it still to be still very useful in the standard .257. Alternatives to 4064 are Alliant RL-15 or Accurate 4064. Another useful starting powder would be H4350. If it should be unavailable, IMR-4350 or Accurate 4350 would be OK too.

It's evident and commendable that you're doing pretty thorough homework in preparation for shooting your piece of history.

--Bob

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Thanks for the powder recommendations, Bob. It will take about two weeks for all the rest of the necessary reloading crap to arrive.

Ken Waters' "Pet Loads" (1990) came in last night. He has an article on the .257 Roberts which appeared originally in Handloader, November 1966. It says, in part:

"N.H. Roberts was one of the bright stars in the company of notable American riflemen. One of the relatively few in that select group to bridge the entire span of years from muzzleloaders to autoloaders, Ned was a man of diverseskills: rifleman, professor, writer, student of ballistics, and of course, cartridge designer.

Many of our readers are familiar with the historical fact that Ned Roberts, assisted by his friends F.J. Sage and A.O. Neidner, designed the .25 Roberts cartridge, later to become the .257 Roberts. Perhaps fewer of you know about the original cartridge without the "7" in its headstamp, but how many of you know that there were three different .25 Roberts cartridges? Most present day sources will tell you there were two, but shooters contemporary to the years 1930 to 1935 may remember the story as it actually happened.

The old .30-40 Krag case having already proven to be about the right capacity for necking down to .25 caliber, Ned selected the 7X57mm Mauser as a rimless case having about the same capacity. Perfectionist that he was, there followed years of trial-and-error testing which involved the making up of literally dozens of barrels for his .25-caliber wildcat, with different chambers, groove dimansions and rifling twists. Colonel Whelen once told the writer that he doubted if any man ever spent so much time perfecting a cartridge as Ned Roberts did with his .257 (or .25 Roberts, as he originally called it).

Early in the experiments, Roberts and Adolph Neidner were advised by Colonel Whelen and Mr. L. C. Weldin, ballistic engineer of the Hercules Powder Company, to specify a shoulder slope of 15 degrees for their new cartridge in order to hold down pressures with the rather fast-burning powders of those days (late 1920s). This suggestion was adopted and the 7mm vase necked down, formed to the new long-sloping shoulder, and trimmed approximately 1/16". A.O. Neidner then proceeded to make up barrels for the new cartridge with his usual close chambering.

These barrels, along with their hand-formed brass cases, were known as the ".25 Roberts" and were all that was available for the first couple years."

Then Griffin & Howe advocated leaving the case untrimmed, and you got version number 2.

Then along came Remington in 1934.

The Neidner stamp on my rifle is the stamp used 1920-1929. So it's clear that it has to be the original .25 Roberts.

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You are discovering part of the fun of playing with the older Wildcats. I have had a few old odd balls myself including 30 Belted Newton, 348AI, 22 Kilbourn Hornet, and often hunt with a superfast 338 Wildcat of my own making.

To answer a question you asked, you can form cases rather easily from 6mm Remington, 257 Roberts or 7x57 Mauser. Any will form down and be useable with just one pass through the correct 25 Roberts Die.

It is fun watching you go through the learning and understanding phases of this cartridge like I have done with a few rounds in the past. Enjoy the whole ride, sir. These kinds of rifles and experiences do not come along so often these days.


LOVE God, LOVE your family, LOVE your country, LIKE guns and sports.

About 2016 team "R" candidates "We definitely need a crew with a sack of balls the size of hot water bottles, bloviated estrogen leaking feel-gooders need not apply." Gunner 500
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Originally Posted by JD_Zincavage

I would have preferred to have just gotten the chambering modified so I could buy ammo, but I asked for opinions on several gun discussion boards and got about 20+ replies telling me that it would be sacrilege to change the chambering. Not one reply was in favor of modifying the chambering. Sigh.


You should have to wear a hair shirt as penance for even thinking about that!

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Thanks for the powder recommendations, Bob

-------------------------

My penance consists of having to buy a few hundred bucks worth of loading books, a few hundred more worth of loading tools, and then! discovering that, not only is there a nationwide ammo shortage, there is also a nationwide powder shortage and a primer shortage, and to buy a $21 container of 4064, you have to pay $14 shipping and a $26 hazard fee. Arghhh! I was right to quit loading.

I've found two out of three powders I wanted. Now, if I can only find some primers...

<mutter>

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I find it interesting this Niedner rifle has a W.A. Sukalle barrel, since both Orville & Carlyn Behrmann made exceptional barrels for Niedner rifles in his Dowagiac, MI shop.

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"One rifle I know about has a barrel marked A.O. Neidner Dowagiac Mich. On top and W.A. Sukalle Tucson Ariz. On the bottom without a Niedner or Sukalle barrel number. You figure that out."

-Michael Petrov, Custom Gunmakers of the 20th Century, 2005, p. 84.

----------------------------
Did Petrov possibly know about my rifle, or is there another (pre-1930) Neidner-Sukalle? Who knows?

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If a standard Bob case will chamber tightly run those. Using a Lee Collet Neck Sizer you won't need to worry bout a FLS.

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A standard .257 Roberts cartridge will not chamber in this rifle. I'm planning to resize 7x57 Mauser cases. Presumably, once the new .25 Roberts rounds have been fired, only neck sizing will be necessary.

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Originally Posted by JD_Zincavage
A standard .257 Roberts cartridge will not chamber in this rifle. I'm planning to resize 7x57 Mauser cases. Presumably, once the new .25 Roberts rounds have been fired, only neck sizing will be necessary.


You are correct. Glad to see that you are going to load for and shoot this fine old rifle! I am very interested to know how the old girl shoots! Best of luck to you!


LOVE God, LOVE your family, LOVE your country, LIKE guns and sports.

About 2016 team "R" candidates "We definitely need a crew with a sack of balls the size of hot water bottles, bloviated estrogen leaking feel-gooders need not apply." Gunner 500
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My FFL dealer who is a gunsmith & target gun builder looked at the bore and said it was pristine.

I have sent roughly $100 orders to Midway, Graf, MidSouth, & Cabella's. On Monday or Tuesday, I will be driving to a gun store in search of powder & primers. I'm starting to think of arbor presses & benchrest matches. It's a disease.


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Originally Posted by JD_Zincavage


It's a disease.



YEP! But a HAPPY one! Best of luck with this rifle, I will be anxious to hear more about it!

Did you ever calculate the twist rate so that you will know which bullets to try first?


LOVE God, LOVE your family, LOVE your country, LIKE guns and sports.

About 2016 team "R" candidates "We definitely need a crew with a sack of balls the size of hot water bottles, bloviated estrogen leaking feel-gooders need not apply." Gunner 500
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Not yet, but I did buy the traditional 100 gr. and 87 gr. bullets. I'm buried currently in sleet and snow, so I'm not yet driving 1 hr. to buy smokeless powder.

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Originally Posted by JD_Zincavage
Not yet, but I did buy the traditional 100 gr. and 87 gr. bullets. I'm buried currently in sleet and snow, so I'm not yet driving 1 hr. to buy smokeless powder.


Icy roads here, too and no bucks for studded tires so rifle testing is months away here, as well.


LOVE God, LOVE your family, LOVE your country, LIKE guns and sports.

About 2016 team "R" candidates "We definitely need a crew with a sack of balls the size of hot water bottles, bloviated estrogen leaking feel-gooders need not apply." Gunner 500
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