Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles 250-3000

I bought a Savage 99 chambered in 250-3000 here on the fire.

I picked it up from my FFL yesterday. I measured the twist 1 in 14". Last night I looked at Nosler, Hornady, Lyman, New Nosler and first addition Nosler manuals, Ken Waters, Gun Gack #1 and on the internet. It seemed some feel that 100 grain bullets wouldn't stabilize in a 1 in 14" twist. I looked at all the sources where I buy bullets including a couple gun shops in Sioux Falls and a half a dozen sites on the internet. I found some SPEER bullets 87 and 100 grain Hot Cores, I ordered them. I found a supplier that had 117 RN bullets, but they wanted 50% higher prices than others, albeit he had them in stock - I thought I'd wait for the next run.

I looked at my supply of 257 caliber bullets, I had various boxes of bullets under 100 grains, but the manufactures said they were all varmint bullets. Then I noticed that Ken Waters' loads showed that a 100 grain Gardiner bullet with 30 grains 30-31 was his most accurate load in his 14' twist 99. I have no Gardiner bullets. But I had several boxes of plain base 100 grain Bullets - Interlocks and Partitions. I saw also that Hornady technicians wrote that the 99 - 1 in 14" twist rifle stabilized all their bullets up to 117 rn, but not their 120 grain HP. They didn't mention the other 117 grain bullets. I thought I'd give the 100 grain Interlocks a try. It wasn't pleasant weather out, but I could shoot at targets 60 yards away off my deck. I didn't want to stretch cases and I didn't care if I got top velocity. I used 33.5 grains of Reloader 15, 9 1/2 primers and RP brass. I loaded a cartridge quite long and it chambered. I decided to load cartridges short enough to feed reliably from the magazine. Hornady said the top load in their 99 250-300 was 34.7 grains of RE 15. I fired a couple with 33.5 grains and they seemed to be fine pressure wise.

I shot off my deck and for some reason and my bore sighter was off about 4" to the right, hmmm - more on this later. I sighted it in. I was using a compact M8-6x scope.

All the holes were touching at 1" high at 60 yards. I ran the 100 grain Interlock at 2800 FPS through my ap. The scope is 1.66" high BTW.

My ap says it will be .2" high at 200 yards and 2.9 " low at 250 yards.

I'm going back white tail hunting this next weekend. I'll be taking this rifle and this load out.

1 in 14" twist works fine on 100 grain bullets. at least plain base 100 grain Hornady Interlock. I hope Hornady didn't abandon those bullets! If they did SPEER and Nosler here I come.

Forget the 100 grain Noslers***, they're longer than the flat base Hornady and their length is the problem with the slow twist.

***I was thinking about Ballistic Tips, which I use in a 10" twist.

never got noslers to work in my 250-3000 1-14 they are too long.

Partitions?

Cool stuff Bugger. I’ve got a 250 Savage but in a Ruger bolt gun.

Haven’t spent much time with it but I need to, be a fun rifle to carry around on nice days. Hope you get a chance at a deer with your new rifle.

Are the 100 grain PTs the same length as the old Hornadys?

I don't have any of those Partitions to measure.

Nosler shows 1.035” on their site.

Hornady has indeed cancelled production of the 100gr IL as well as the 120HP. Better stock up if you can find any!

100 grain Interlocks = .986" according to my measurement

So probably just enough shorter to work! Seems like you have a winner Bugger! Hope you have plenty to hunt with.

Hornady has indeed cancelled production of the 100gr IL as well as the 120HP. Better stock up if you can find any!

Hornady Management needs to fire the bean counters that make these decisions if they want to keep their loyal customers. On the other hand, I probably have enough to last my lifetime.

FUQUE Hornady management!

I'll try Noslers though.

For guaranteed results in an old slow twist Savage, bullets of .850" in length or shorter are what you want. Anything longer will be a crapshoot, determined by elevation above sea level, humidity/temperature, and whether or not the fella who set up the sine bar rifling machine that day at the Savage plant was hung over or not.

That’s what I’ve understood too.
The strange thing about where I live in SD, it is about the lowest point in the state at about 1,000 feet above sea level elevation. Anywhere I’d hunt in this state won’t be any lower and in the Black Hills could easily be over 5,000 feet. The other states I might hunt would be Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico, the elevation in those mountainous area would be much higher. Going higher in elevation, I believe, would allow longer bullets, right? The measurement I made using tight wad pushed down the barrel looked like right on at 1 in 14”.
I know there’s several sites that a guy could visit to see how stable a bullet would be, I’ll investigate what the calculations say.
There were a couple manuals, Lyman and Hornady I believe, and Ken Waters all had good accuracy with 100 grain bullets. As KW said there’s no need for a heavier bullet in the 250, he didn’t (and me too) think it would be a good elk rifle.

It looks like I’m going to have some fun testing bullets, stability etc. with this rifle. I looked and found 200 each 100 grain Interlocks on my shelves so I can use those for a while. The SPEER bullets are coming. I see that Nosler has a lighter weight partition and if I can find some I’ll be testing them too. I have several boxes of 100 grain partitions and I’ll be sending some of them down range too. Next I’ll be looking for the round nose 117 Hornady bullets.

My younger brother played with a 1 in 14” twist 99. The best grouping he got with his was with 90 grain Sierras as I recall. Maybe I can find some Sierra bullets that are good to go with white tails and 1 in 14” rifling.

I've always used the 87 gr Hotcor with great results on Virginia size Whitetail

I have some ordered. I think MD had a load for that bullet in GG for 1 in 14” 99.

Is it just me? It seems Hornady and Nosler bullets are the easiest to find on the Internet. Sierra and SPEER not so much.

When I started loading for my first center fire Sierra and SPEER was mainly what I used.

Speers have been spotty for a long time. I never used many Sierras until a couple years ago, but they certainly haven't been as plentiful as Hornady in that timeframe.

I ordered my 87gr Hot Cors direct from Speer, too. Costs more than retail, but a lot of times they have bullets in stock that are sold out elsewhere. Got my last .308 130gr FN direct as well.

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