Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors 225 Winchester

Anyone have any experience with this round? I know it is like a 22-250, just curious if anyone had this caliber? Exploring calibers LOL

Back in the day I had a woman customer who hunted white tails with one. It was a Savage 340 with a straight 4X Bushnell scope Swore by it and the pictures didn’t lie. We always kept a box or two on stock just for her She was the only person who ever asked for it SSK uses the case for the 6.5 JDJ so you can get cases from them at least you used to 22-250 killed it off but they are balilistically close

It is an obsolete cartridge, so both factory ammo and component brass is less common and harder to come by than 22-250. Winchester/Olin treats it as a seasonal run item, so they make a run of ammo and component brass every couple of years. If you get a 225 WIN and see either ammo or brass, you should probably not hesitate to buy it, otherwise you'll probably wish that you had.

I traded into a reworked Martini-Henry in 225 WIN a few years back, but never liked the rifle, so it went down the road. I sent around 140 round of factory ammo and once fired cases with the rifles, but I still have three or four boxes of NIB Winchester/Olin brass around somewhere.

If you want to pay a premium price in terms of money and aggravation to get close to the same performance as the 22-250, the 225 WIN might work well for you.

It was always a good alternative to the .22-250 for folks building single shot varminters, and who didn't want to attempt setting up an action to extract rimless brass, and who were looking for a factory alternative to the .219 Donaldson Wasp. I myself would rather have a .219 Wasp, for the panache if for no other reason.

Personally I never saw the point to the cartridge when so many alternatives existed. I think it was a lame attempt by Winchester to take a swipe at Remington and the .22-250.

Thanks for the input appreciate it.

I too had a 225 win in a model 70, which never achieved the precision I expected (...hence, "had"). It's hard to beat the 22-250's performance and versatility and accessibility.

One of our founding fathers had a 225W built on a 99 action, but it was just a high speed curiostity..., that couldn't compete with a 99 in 22-250, in my humble opinion.

The .225 Winchester is the .219 Zipper Improved with a .30-06 sized rim. It is almost the equivalent of a .22-250 and is a fine cartridge for bolt action or single shot rifles. I have one built on a Martini Cadet action, which I load to .223 velocities in light of the relatively thin chamber walls where the threads are located. The action is strong enough, but running the cartridge at full pressures tends to cause the chamber to swell a bit and leads to extraction issues. Holding it down to the smaller cartridges velocities keeps pressures low enough to avoid that problem.

I've never seen or shot a rifle chambered in .225 Win, but have alot of fine thoughts about it. Recall as a teen back in the the mid-60's reading about it in current outdoor mags written by the gun writers of the day. Always thought "Boy I'd like a 225 Win". Of course never bought one, but did buy a herd of Sav 99's and Rem 81's chambered in what are thought of now as obsolete or unproductive calibers (by some), the 250 and 300 Savages.

If I could get ahold of a rifle in good shape and bore in 225 and a good supply of brass, I wouldn't have a problem working up loads and shooting one. Always like the challenge of it. Be a good coyote killer. Since the OP posted the start of this thread, I searched and read alot of fine and excellent reviews on the 225.

The 22/250 Rem may have been faster and had better promotion, the 225 Win doesn't have to take a back seat. Agree with 'gnoahhh' that Winchester may have been trying to compete with Rem's 22/250, just as Rem's 6mm round tried and failed to outdo the Win .243. My 250 Savage Ruger 77 can do anything the guys shooting the 'Glam' calibers do-marksmanship enters into alot of it to.

Bear in mind too that a "vintage" .225 will have what we "moderns" consider a slow twist. Fine if all you'll shoot is traditional varmint-weight bullets but if heavyweights (for extra long range or deer hunting) are in the cards you'll be SOL. If starting from scratch, a wise guy will opt for a 1-9" twist minimum.

I just stuck with the 220 swift !

I have 340's in 222 and 223, figured I'll pick one up in 225 eventually just to have a set. Only real reason I'd probably buy one.

To that end you better get a .22 Hornet also, not to mention a .30-30, but I think you have one, no? Best plan on one of the super rare 340's in .470 Nitro Express while you're at it too.

Doesn't everybody have 340's in 30-30 and 22 Hornet? Well, technically I have a 342 in 22 Hornet..

I have them all except a 30-30. Maybe some day if the right 30-30 comes along at the right price.

Lee

Good point 'gnoahhh' ref the slower twist, but for my purposes lack of being able to hunt deer in Iowa with bottle neck cartridges would make it unused for that. If'in I could do so, my 250/300 Savages would get the nod--pretty small diameter bullet anyway for deer size, even though the right hit could be a killer. The lighter varmint size bullets would fit my needs, but truth is I'll probably never get a 225 Win (but have said that for other caliber's in the past). See Gun Broker has four Model 70 Winchester's for sale, all in the $1000 plus range. What were the twists on 'then' produced 225's, all the same or differed depending on manufacturer?

Yes, i have had a M70 in 225 Win since 2018 that fortunately, came with 2 boxes of reloads.

Up front, no one loads ammo for it or makes brass. When you can find brass, it's $2+ ea and loaded ammo is $3+ ea; very expensive.

As for the cartridge and rifle, mine is accurate. As i look at my notes, i have 6 loads that are .75 in but have not settled on any one load. I don't shoot it much because the brass on hand has been shot many times and I'm not willing to fork over the $ for "once fired" from someone else. A Winchester does have a 14" twist. Im not sure about the Savages. Standard Win model 70s have a 22" bbl and the varmint model had a 24" bbl. Win factory load was a 55g PSP at 3650 fps. I have not been able to do that in the limited loading i have done. Closest was 3566 fps with a 52g Nos CC. But, i am not pushing my loads at all since this brass has to last.

If you want an odd caliber that many people never knew existed and don't mind paying premium prices to shoot it, it's great. If you want a caliber you can find components for and shoot it a lot, 225 Win isn't it.

If Winchester had beat Remington to market by a year or two with the 225 WIN it might have been the winner in its two horse race with the 22-250. Another coulda', shoulda', woulda' scenario where a good product fails to capture sufficient consumer interest to achieve a sustainable production volume. Lots of cartridges are introduced and the majority of them fail and live on as niche cartridges.

As you noted, the 243 WIN was a winner, while the 244/6MM REM has always been an also ran in the same market niche.

There is a long list of cartridges that were introduced since the end of WW2, the following are just a few that have failed to become standards in their market niche;

17HM2
17 REM FB
5MM REM MAG
22 REM JET
221 REM FB
222 REM MAG
225 WIN
244/6MM REM
256 WIN MAG
260 REM
6.5 REM MAG
264 WIN MAG
7-30 WATERS
280 REM
284 WIN
7MM REM UM
307 WIN
8MM REM MAG
338 FED
338 REM UM
350 REM MAG
356 WIN
358 WIN
375 WIN

2x REM SAUMs
3x WIN WSSMs
4x WIN WSMs

Consumers aren't always right, but most of the time the cream still rises to the top.

Amen to that!!! I did do a search out of curiosity on availability of 225 brass--few and pricey as you posted Centennial. GB had four offerings, three "once fired" (?) at around $2 apiece (per hundred) bids. The best deal going was 100 new at $1.50 each, but they were all active bids with time left. Several other sites had some but all $$$! There is a place out of Minnesota that makes vintage/obsolete brass that I bought some 30/40 Krag brass once-didn't check on them. I reload for all nine of my centerfire cartridges, cast bullets also except for 223/5.56mm. Do use jacketed bullets also. Rarely buy factory ammo except maybe the 223/5.56mm if good price.

If I do get a new caliber, I always get at least 200-300 rounds of brass. At those 225 prices, add shipping and the now mandatory state tax crap, gettin to pricey, not to mention future brass availability/price. Glad I maintained a good inventory of components prior to all the frenzy. I really don't have a use for a 225, but would love the challenge of developing accurate loads (for just cause) in one, but it would be a pricey endeavor 'for just cause'! Be neat also just to have one, but so would a 67 Vette with a 427 in it.




Some writers at the time and some still contend the Rem 244/6mm was superior to Winchesters 243, but sales promo's and whatever the companies use to promote a rifle/cartridge won the day for Winchester. I did know a guy once who shot a Rem rifle in 244/6mm. It was a 1" and less MOA hole driller. I've never had either caliber, alot of shooters I know shoot the 243. Your list 260Remguy was interesting and brought back alot of recollections on some of those long forgotten calibers.

Yep, as fast as it sells and at the prices there is obviously some demand and i have been looking almost 3 years.

As for future brass availability. I emailed Winchester in Dec 2018 and got this answer "It is scheduled for production in 2019, although no loading date has been assigned." In Dec 2019 i asked again and got "It is scheduled for production in 2020, although no loading date has been assigned." Didn't bother asking in Dec of 2020...didn't need another canned meaningless answer. And, given the climate now, im guessing Win will never load it again.

I've loaded for some crazy odd stuff; 11.15X42R as an example. I never thought a cartridge from 1964 and is the basis for some of the JDJ contender cartridges would be that difficult to find and load. HA!, was i wrong. Only thing you can make it from is 30 WCF but 30 WCF and 225 Win work at different pressures and to make it, you have to thin the front of the rim for a proper headspace. Cant thin the back because the primer sticks out.

30/40 Krag and 7.62X54 Russian are the only two calibers I ever had to work at getting brass for and didn't have to do alot of searching. Have a good supply for the amount of shooting I do with those calibers, still see them for sale at times. The outfit I was thinking about in one of my previous comments was Jamison and from what I read on the web, they were sold to an outfit called Captech in S. Dakota, but they are no longer producing brass. Only what I read, who knows. Sure would hate to buy a 225 rifle presently without checking for ammo and brass availability. Fraid' the ol girl would be sitting in the dark recesses of a safe unless I'd get lucky on brass and at the prices it's going for I'd have to be pretty desperate and have a uncontrollable itch in my trigger finger for the need to fire the 255.