Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats What's the best powder for a 25-06?

.......... Same with me since about 2002. RL22 with 117 gr. Sierra Pro-Hunter ( I think they discontinued that bullet but I have a bunch of 'em.).

I'm short on 4350 and 4831. Actually have some Rel 25.
My old deer guide Russell Thornberry recommended the the 25-05 and the 100g NPT to anyone who would listen.
Hard hitting, flat shooting, light recoil, the 100g NPT will drill through a big whitetail from any direction.... Don't know why I waited so long.......
The gunsmith recommended the 115g nosler BT.
Dave

25-06
54 gr IMR-4451 115 gr Nos bal tip moly 3.275"

I just started playing with a 25-06. I have a decent load for a 100gr BT w/IMR 4350. I have saw a lot of love for the 110gr Accubond so Im going to be trying those next. I will give them a try with the IMR 4350 and some R22. I do have some 115gr BT to give a whirl after the 110 AB so am keeping an eye on this thread.

Good luck with yours.

The 110gr Accubond worked great for me with RL22.

They aren’t super slick but man, out to 400 they get there in a hurry!

I’m looking forward to the write up Dave. I’ve got a 70 Classic that is a gang buster shooter but has been neglected more than it should be.

I,be been messing with the 26 Nosler. taking the lazy way and running factory ammo. My spot this year could very well be screwed. .. So I built a light wright bump and run gun. Might have to be a bit more mobile. This season...
I'm a paint job away from having it in my hands

Dave

IMR's 4350 & 4831 have been my go to for the 25. Hodgdon in both never helped with velocity.

Plan to try the newish Hornady 110 ELD-X. A bit better numbers on paper than the 115 BT.

That's impressive..

Dave

That’s pretty damned cool. I still reread you fast 270 write up from awhile back.

I believe my 70 25-06 will get an EDGE filled Bridges before too long. Lightening it up a skosh it’d be a honey for carrying.

That was my idea to lighten things up some. And I had all the parts. I was looking at the 25-06 AI... I passed...
I run hot and cold on ballistic tips. Used them for years. Great accuracy but had alot of dead deer running type situations.
Mashburn. Ran 150g BT... Had two deer run over 150 yards. Switched out to a 168g hunting Berger.
Without a dought the biggest mess I've ever seen.
Disgusting. Bullet exploded. Never seen anything like that.
Switched out to the 26 Nosler and accubond. Worked well.
The 270 STW. Was a fun project. Very hard on barrels.
Dave

RL 22 works for me.

The Ballistic Tips have worked great for me on deer in a few cartridges but I’d bet the 150 7mm and 150 270 act more like a heavier bullet. They have killed fine just in a more traditional fashion.

I can’t imagine the Berger hitting up close, I’d bet that was fairly graphic.

The 100 grain Ballistic Tip was pretty good at even at under a 100 yards in mine and my cousins 25-06’s a few years back. I used RL22 for those and guess I was around 3300 if I recall. Those were like a light switch for a handful of deer. I switched to the Scirocco since but only cause I wanted to, not cause the BT didn’t work. The Scirocco is like a BT that exits. If that makes sense.

Good luck. Can’t wait to see what you come up with.





58 and 58.6 shoot pretty well in mine.

Now looking at my targets, I really need to get this one back into the fold!

I had a 25-06 in a Sendero that I shot in the 1000 yard Benchrest stock class at Pella, Ia.

Set the range record with a 4.XX" group using 115 Bergers, H-4831-SC, Fed 210's, and Lapua brass.

aalf
Nice.
Had the guy next to us at Ridgeway on the 1000 yard silhouettes bangen away with the 25-06 and the 115g berger. He did pretty well. Was the only gun he had
Dave

Winchester 760 shoots tighter groups than I can these days in my .25/06 using 100gn bullets.
The rifle prefers 100gn Partitions or TTSX.
Although I have used a lot of other powders, it was really to design consumption loads for the days of retirement as I'd like to leave an empty powder shelf.

Fed 215's, Ww brass, most 120 gr bullets , max dose H870 allways works for me.

I ended up going with RL22 and 115 NBTs in 2 different rifles.
One a Sendero and the other a Marlin XS7
Both are 3300 FPS and damn accurate.
Three deer so far, all bang flops.

IMR8133 looked good too but at the time I couldn't get my hands on any of it.

My rule of thumb has always been to find the powder that gives the best (not necessarily the fastest) velocities with a case fill as close to 100% as possible. A little bit of compressed load doesn't bother me, but I've never liked hearing an audible crunch when seating bullets....
For me, H4831 always worked best in the 25-06 and gave good velocities and outstanding accuracy. RL 22 is very close in burn rate to H4831, so it stands to reason it would work well in this cartridge. My favorites were always Nosler 115 and 120 Partitions and now the AB's . Haven't had a 25-06 in a while since I burned out the barrel and had a Hart barrel put on the action opened up to 25-284.

Most of the 25-06 loads I tried in the heavier bullets were a perfect fit to the mag and chamber/leade, but I found the lighter bullets I tried to load for varmint work wouldn't come close to the leade with sufficient bullet in the neck for tension... so I gave up on varminting with it unless I wanted to use the 115/120 bullets for varminting, which work fine BTW....

Bob