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it's got a compass too

Yep, that serial number should definitely fall into 1951.

Finally had a chance to shoot the 250 at 100 yards...
I put 4 rounds of the 100g Hornady Custom factory ammo into 2.5 inches. The ammo chrongraphed 2788fps with single digit standard and average deviations.

I put 4 rounds of hand-loaded 117g Hornady RN (which is a shorter bullet than the 100g factory bullet above) ahead of 32.6g of IMR 4320. That load chronographed 2560fps and also had single digit standard and average deviations. Unfortunately, it went into a nice lengthy 7.5in string.

Much, much work to be done... :-(

On the up side, it really is a nice cartridge/rifle combo to shoot!

Yeah, I tried 117gr roundnose out of a 250-3000 once. Hit sideways at 100 yards. They are just too long to stabilize.

Hornady doesn't publish the length of their Custom 100gr .257 bullet. If it's already going 2.5", it's probably short enough to stabilize better - but can't guarantee it'll do a lot better. And since you can't buy it separately to handload it.. Look for a bullet that's .95" or shorter, the closeer to 0.91" or less the better.. the 87gr Speer Hot Core works great. The 100gr Speer Hot Core is .94", so should shoot well.

Something I've been pondering, Rory, is length of bearing surface in relation to overall length of the bullet in this application. I wonder if a .25 bullet that's theoretically short enough to stabilize but has an inordinately long bearing surface (think, say, a 100+ grain bullet with a very blunt round nose and not much of an ogive) would or wouldn't stabilize. Someone asked me that recently, maybe Joe, and I couldn't come up with a definitive answer.

I recently scored a box each of Remington 100 grain CoreLokt's and 87 grain CoreLokt hollow points. (Bullets, not ammo.) For no really good reason other than they were cheap, as I'm content to shoot 87 Speers forever even in my fast twist Ruger #1. Out of curiosity just now I measured the three bullets and the Speer is .835", the 100 CoreLokt is .940, as expected. What kind of surprised me was the 87 CoreLokt hollow points- they measure .830". (All averaged from a sampling of 10.) By that, the 87 HP's should by rights shoot well in our slow twisted guns. Anybody here ever work with them? Heck, I don't even know if Remington still sells them. I'm kind of hoping they don't shoot well for me because if they do shoot well and I find that they are no longer available I won't be happy.

Before i loaded the 117g bullets, i pulled one of the factory loads apart. The bullet Honrady is using is .984 (sample of 1). My box of Hornady RN bullets is .973 so actually shorter than the factory 100g. Maybe if i pushed the 117g a little faster but i think you are right, im chasing a unicorn with 100g and heavier bullets.

Has anyone compiled a list of .257 bullet lengths? It's not something thats easy to find in the manufacturers publications.

So far we have:
Hornady 117g RN - .973
Hornady Custom 100g - .984
Remington CoreLokt 100g - .940
Sierra 95g BTHP - ?
Speer 87g - .835
Remington CoreLokt HP 87g - .830
Sierra 87g - ?

Thanks for the ideas and help.

Yeah, one could jack velocity up in an effort to ameliorate the problem. But hellish high pressures would be encountered before you did much good, I fear.

I said it before and I'll say it again, for me the 3000fps I get with 87 Speers is plenty ok. It's the load that made the .250-3000's reputation, its accurate, not stressful on the gun, brass, or shooter, and kills stuff dead. If I need more moxie than that it's time to reach for heavier artillery. 'Tain't a whitetail living or dead that could tell the difference between getting hit with an 87 or a 100 grain bullet.

A lot of lengths are here, how accurate he is I'm not sure. He has the Hornady 100gr .257 at .987".
https://www.jbmballistics.com/ballistics/lengths/lengths.shtml

He shows the Sierra 100gr Pro-Hunter at .97".. still a bit long. The Sierra 90gr HPBT GameKing is .89", that would shoot well. They claim it's a high-velocity varmint bullet, but works well on medium game at 250-3000 velocities. ????


What I've read is that it's almost purely about overall length. The bullet is stablized in the barrel - it's stuck in there nice and tight and moving (almost) perfectly straight. The question will be whether it will be aerodynamically stable - and the physics there is apparently all about overall length, spin rate and velocity.

Alfred Greenhill's formula, which is rough but works pretty well: (C x D(2)) / L = T.
C == 180 for > 2800fps, a constant
D == diameter of bullet
L == Length of bullet
T == Resulting twist needed to stablize it.

So.. solving for T = 14, you get an ideal bullet length for a 1-14" twist of 0.85". The farther you wander away from 0.85", the less stable/accurate it will be. Keith posted a chart of bullet lengths and velocities and how well they'll stabilize, that's a great resource to reference.

When we played with those 100gr Partitions - original length was 1.04" - far too long to stabilize. Got 7'-8" groups. Cutting the lead nose off shortened them to 0.915" - and they stablized quite well with decent groups. Yours that were shortened to 0.85" appeared to stablize even better. From the 2nd line of Keith's chart, you can see we went from deep red with the original Partition to greenish-yellow with mine, to probably green with yours.

Thanks, Rory. That answers the nagging thought I had. Keith's formula (and I apologize for not knowing/remembering the source/creator of it) is way better than the Greenhill Formula which was originally made for lead bullets a century ago. Greenhill's still a good ballpark formula for jacketed stuff but not perfect. John Barsness has postulated on the subject far better than I ever could.

While it's fun to try and circumvent the natural laws of the universe, I for one am less inclined to waste precious primers and powder these days for the purpose of tilting at windmills!

Yeah, I think Greenhill originally worked it up for artillery.

I might have to dig through my stuff to see if I have any of those Sierra ProHunter bullets. I used to have Sierra's when I shot 243 quite a bit.

At the JBMBallistics link Calhoun posted above, in addition to bullet lengths, there is a link there for calculator .... several very useful calculations, one of which is for stability (that uses the improved calculations developed by Don Miller).

If you want to read deep on stability, here is a link to Miller's paper: https://bisonballistics.com/Miller-...n-Aid-to-Choosing-Bullets-and-Rifles.pdf

Good stuff. Thanks Keith.