Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles 250-3000

The 86 grain hot core shot very well in my 14 twist. Nothing else shot good. Save your powder & primers & use the 86 gr.

Unless you NEED original, pull the barrel, have your Smith put a 1x10 on it. Will save a lot of your hair.

If it were my only rifle, I might have done that. My problem is that I like to play with vintage rifles. Sure, I have 308's, 270's, 280's, 30-06's and other more modern rifles. But I like to shoot the older ones the most, it's a lot of fun to see an old rifle shoot good groups. That is what retirement is all about.

That .850" bullet length is what a couple of us on the Savage Forum arrived at through empirical testing a bunch of years ago now. I've made some file trim dies with which to shorten longer bullets which provided gooder and gooder results the shorter I went until I hit the .850" mark. Now, granted, I live at sea level and the results are slanted toward that elevation.

I just mic'ed a couple 87 Speer HotCor's and they're .820", give or take. I don't have any R-P 100 Coreloct's to measure, but since they seem to work ok in a lot of old Savages I would bet those stubby bullets are fairly close to .850". Keith Nystrom did a comprehensive chart of popular .25 bullets with calculations for stability based on currently accepted formulas. (The old Greenhill Formula is pretty much only valid for lower velocity stuff.) I'll send him a PM to get him to post it here. That chart of his can save a guy a lot of money and time if he's messing with a Savage 99 .250-3000.

My current .250-3000 is a Ruger #1A with a custom Douglas 1-10" barrel. Even though it'll nicely handle longer/heavier bullets, I still stick with the 87 Speers at 3000fps on the nose. Why? Because it shoots them very accurately, I have a metric sh*t ton of them, and they perform all the duties I'll ever subject the rifle to. Lots O'Deer have been killed over the last 100 years with 87's at 3000 fps.

Thanks Gnoahhh!

I just got a package today from Brownells. I was hoping it was the SPEER bullets. But the package was for a different project I forgot about.

I used to have lots of old Remington CL's but only have some 30 caliber bullets anymore. Remington engineers seem to like slow twists and fairly blunt bullets - but they worked great and shot accurate enough. I wish I still had some 35 caliber old Remington bullets for a 350 Mag.

Here's the charts on 250-3000 1:14 Barrel Twist Bullet stability

I have two Model 20`s, one original, never touched, and when I could get Rem bullet components, used the 25 Cal. 100 grn R.N. in it. My son killed his first buck with it and that bullet. But, as you`re finding, very limited to bullet selection because of ROT. The other, my Dads` hand down, with all the bullets it would not shoot, I really like shooting that cartridge, finally pulled the barrel and replaced with a Douglas 1x10. Still on the rifle...don`t know how many rounds down that tube. Killed last years Wi buck with it.

Do whatever floats the boat.

85 grain Ballistic Tips are too long at 1.012 for my batch. They might work as a de-tipped hollow point.

I've got a 99DL in 250-3000 with the 1-10" twist and it loves the Barnes 80 gr ttsx. Not that it helps you but I love the load. The old ones 1-14" get 87 gr Speers.

These work in the 1-14's.

Those sierras are what my younger brother's 99 liked.

From what little I understand the plastic tips can be ignored...

I have an 1899 takedown in .250 Savage. As others have said it shoots flat based 85-87 grain cup and cores the best. Extremely well in fact. In my rifle, the Speer has done better than others.

100 gr Core-Lokt factory shoots 1.5-2.00" 3-shot groups. So do handloads with the same bullet and REL-15.

I have also had good experiences with the 100 grain Swift. I can't speak to its accuracy very accurately as I am too cheap to shoot bench groups with it.

Hornadys 25 Cal .257 110 gr FTX® for the .25-35 should stabilize in .250's. They also have a 1:14" twist.

If you could get some, the 117 grain RN's killed really well in their day. At the ranges I use my .250 I didn't feel limited by the low B.C.

The 87gr hot cores definitely get the job done on paper and deer, as did the 87gr Winchester-Western factory loads that Dad killed a boatload of deer with. My load is 36gr RL15 from the Hornady manual. (Their max is 36.3 at 3100) 3073 fps and no real case stretching. I get a couple reloads using a Lee collet die before I have to bump the shoulder back a little.

Standard twist on the 25-35 WCF is 1-8"

Yep. Apples and oranges.

I my pursuit to get my new to me 250-3000 shooting I found a box of the 87 gr. WW yesterday and the fella had a box of 87 gr. Sierra spitzers that I picked up as well. They're branded as "Varminter". Mic'd at .856, so I presume will shoot fine. Sierra website says good for medium sized game-any testimonials out there? FYI Midway still had the Hot-Cors when I ordered them and some dies yesterday evening.

LHS

Measure your twist on your early 99,s they vary