Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Question for the oldtimers

Many years ago I read an article on the most popular rifle ctg. choices in Alaska,the one that stood out to me was the 25-35 Winchester. The author said it was popular for Seal hunting mainly. He stated that every store that carried ammo usually had a good supply of 25-35 ammo. My question is how many still use it.

seal hunters I knew when I lived there all swore by Sako rifles in .222
Not sure when that cartridge came into play.

The 25-35 predates the .222 by many years as it came out in 1895 with the 30-30. The article I read as probably from the 40s or 50s.

Yes, I meant I was not sure when the .222 came into existence. the seal hunters I knew hunted in the 1950s and beyond.

link to old thread here

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbt...-hunting-rifle-and-caliber-used-by-inuit

but this thread deals mostly with Native hunters

Various cartridges have been widely favored over time in remote parts. Any mild recoiling/reporting centerfire was excellent in the beginning. That was probably one of the things that made the 22 Hornet popular. Of course good hunter and bullet placement helped as well. (Asked a buddy how the 200 Partition loads I gave him worked when he shot a big bull with his 300....."Oh, I shot him at the base of the skull with factory 150s....." The old techniques die hard! )

The 222 was very common and well regarded until cheap (surplus) 223 (and the Mini-14) made inroads.

225 Winchester probably had more popularity per capita than in any other place prior to that.

ARs in 223 are currently well-regarded.

When I was flying commercially out of Bethal in 1980 I was waiting at the village store in Emmonik and noticed they had a shelf full of old Peters and WW 25-35 fully jacketed ammo. It was priced at $4/box and I asked how popular it was and was told it was highly popular for seal hunting. And that it worked just fine for polar bears and walrus too.

Ok then,,,,, Well, here is my .25-35, it was my Granddads and then it was mine, that was 1963, I was 13 yrs old, I carried that Rifle everywhere, even to school, it stood in the corner next to the Wood Stove, it was a 1-room School House, there were 5-of us in the 7th & 8th grade.
LJ

That’s cool.

As a youth, my wifes father used his .25-35 on most any 'fur' he could , for Wolves, Fox, Otters, etc, up to, and including Polar Bears. He really like the round, but he eventually found others.

Familys from here would take the 11 day mush up to the Beuford Sea to winter trap Arctic Fox, Polarbears, Wolves, etc., and he would camp by a dead whale or Walrus, and flay out a seal, then drag it in a 20 or so mile circle out on the Ocean as a bait trail for the predators to follow.

The trail lead back to his tent, and a couple loose, trained dogs would alert him if anything showed up while he slept. During the day he checked his traps and his trail, and he would place Baleen ''traps'' for the animals to swallow , and then track down the dying animals and dispatch them.

He used dogs to slow and distract the Bears while he place a ''temple shot''. He did this till the 1929 stock market crash made the furs worthless, and he stopped going up the road North.

Most local folks here have always had a variety of guns to choose from for specific hunts, but , for sure, you hunt with what you have.

Interesting that the stock market crash killed the price of furs here. My grandfather made a killing during the great depression on a fox farm in Canada. He was a silent partner and fox prices were astronomical. I wonder if it was more about killing the infrastructure rather than fur prices?

That's a nice looking Winchester. I get lectured about using my 55 in 25-35 Winchester for deer. (usually by someone using a big magnum of some sort with an equally oversized scope) even use a 32-20 now and then.

''Interesting that the stock market crash killed the price of furs here. My grandfather made a killing during the great depression on a fox farm in Canada. He was a silent partner and fox prices were astronomical. I wonder if it was more about killing the infrastructure rather than fur prices?''

To be clear, the Polar Bear skins were the fur that became ''worthless'' and since Fox and others could be caught much more closer to home, thats where he stayed. Im not sure how that played out, but its what he said he did.

Kotzebue Sound/ChukChi sea was quite the place to hunt Polar Bears back in its day, but competition makes for a fur hunter/trapper to seek such else where, and Joe's family had gone back and forth in his youth, so he knew the ''grounds'' up that way and had an established line.

Joes first cousin, Art Fields guided the Hunter Who shot the worlds record Polar Bear out of Kotzebue, back in 1964.

I have one of Joe's old Winchesters, let me look for a picture ....

Thanks for the clarification, sort of what I guessed happened. Those were some tough people!

Here in SE Alaska my dad used a 220 swift for seal. There used to be a $3.00 bounty on seal around here when I was a kid. You would be shoooting out to over 300 yards at a target that is only abouty 4x5 inches when they raise there head out of water. My dads personal best was 300 seal in oneweekend. He hunted with a partner to help with the skinning. For the bounty you only had to scalp the seal.I still have the model model 70 220 swift and one other onee from a well known seal hunter it is a heavy barrel model 70 in 220 swift also.There still is too many seal around here.

I remember reading Wayne SHort's books about SE, they all used the Swift then for bounty rifles I recall.

I do have that rifle that was in that book. Cliff Kilkenny was a friend of my dad.

Moved to Nome in winter of 58/59. Was there for a year before our family moved to Fairbanks. I cannot remember what the rifles used by the locals were but know my father was always asked to “organize” the problem polar bears since he owned the largest rifle around, his 30.06 Springfield. Believe he took care of 8 or 9 of them...

I enjoyed his books, they are keepers on my bookshelf.

I have killed everything from gophers to grizzlies with a 25-35. It is the original “fast twist” rifle, nearly 100 years ahead of any 223AI or Creedmoor...