It's really popular here in Texas. It's a good combo of speed and light recoil, which works well for our smaller deer.
+1 It's a fairly popular round in Texas.
I don't own one because I like hunting with a 22" barrel rifles and usually the 25-06's have 24" barrels because they are basically magnums without the belt. I feel like if you lop the barrel to 22" your defeating the purpose for a 25-06.
with all that said I still want a cartridge that is way more over the top and overbore.... a 257 wby.
I have two 25-06s with a 22" barrels, a Marlin XL7 and a RAR-Predator, and one with 24" barrel, a Remington 700 SPS. All three are accurate shooters and when shooting the same load over a chrony the 22" barrels run about 60 fps slower. I can live with a small loss of velocity, but the muzzle blast seems more pronounced in the 22" barrels.
For a sub-$300 rifle, the Marlin has proven to shoot whatever you squeeze the trigger on very well. I loaned it to a friend and suggested that he buy the factory ammo that is was already zeroed in with, but he opted for the least expensive factory ammo that he could find, the PP 90 grain hollow-points for about $14 per box of 20. HGe rezeroed the rifle with them and he and his son went on to punch their tags with that rifle and ammo combo.
