Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 25-06 Obsolete?

Obsolete as a term can mean a few things.

One meaning is "no longer useful". I think everyone hear agrees the 25-06 is still plenty useful.

Another would be "outmoded in design". There is no question that the 6.5mm Creedoor is a better design so yes the 25-06 is obsolete in that defintion.

10 years from now there won't be any comercial rifles chambered for the 25-06 and factory ammo will be scarce as hens teeth. That does not mean the 25-06 is not still useful then for someone who makes their own ammo but if you need to buy store bought ammo a 25-06 is not going to be very useful.

Twist rate and throat design are what holds the 25-06 back. If you get a custom barrel and custom throat then it's not a 25-06 anymore.

Times move on and lots of 250-3000 Savage rifle owners hated it when the 25-06 made that cartridge "obsolete". That's pretty close to the 6.5mm Creedmoor but for a few 0.001s of bullet diameter and twist/throat design.

All it takes is for Hornady to introduce a high BC ELDX/M and have it hyped to hell by some man bun having snowflake gun writer who likes to eat dehydrated meals on a mountain top and contemplates for hours how he/she/them is going to bury its turd with the least amount of environmental impact. There’s hope. Until then they’ll go on killing stuff with little fanfare and utter reliability per usual. The 257 Weatherby, 25-06 and 257 Bob and Bob AI just get it.

Dang my Sako and Ruger and Remington AND my Handle are all obsolete! Thank goodness I have enough goodies to shoot all three barrels out of them:)

I had the chance to pick up a Marlin XL7 in 25-06 for cheap a couple of years ago. Only one I have ever seen, and of course I hesitated.....

Obsolete? Yeah sure. 😉

I read in Rifle Magazine, - about 1979 - that the 25-06 was marginal for caribou.

Funny- in the previous 3 years I had had 20-something one-shot bang-flops on caribou, out of Pt Hope. Ruger 77V.

Haven't read a Rifle magazine since, or pretty much any other such rag. Yeah- I know- not the publication's fault - it was on the author, whoever that was.

By Burn's definition (one of them), the 7X57 is obsolete too, because I haven't been able to find factory ammo for mine.

Remember when the 25 WSSM came out? I forgot what year that was, but I still have a gun magazine around here someplace ( G.& A.?, Shooting Times ?, I forgot which), that ran an article on the new 25 WSSM, I also can't recall the author. The article almost made it sound like the 25-06 was headed for extinction with all the praises it heaped on the 25WSSM. I'll have to dig that copy out. I kept it because I like my 25-06 and have had it since 1997, although I will admit to getting a 257 Weatherby in 2018, and I shoot the "Bee" a lot more now. So that's twice now that I hear the 25-06 is on the way out. I'll believe it when it happens, but I don't think it's gonna go away any time soon.

Obsolete?
I don't think so.
https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/15603745/1

dave

Claimed obsolescence in reference to firearms and the cartridges they fire is dubious at best. Guns last for centuries in some cases, and everything from long bows to air guns get used every year.

As have been said, the word "obsolete" is not applicable to the 25-06


Now THIS can be legitimately called obsolete. >>>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.56-56_Spencer

And this >>>>>>>>https://forum.cartridgecollectors.org/t/the-very-first-pinfire-revolver-cartridge/12980

smartest thing at large aass said in a long time

A grand part of American rifle history has been shooting aerodynamic wafers at high velo. Despite being part of this, the 25-06 is a dandy and I’ve been right along side of it on a number of elk hunts. It surely can hold its own!

Let’s see how many wildcats based on the Creadmore case design reach the state of being commercially successful cartridges.

The gold standard is the 30-06 case which produced the 25-06, 270 Win, 280 Rem, 338-06, and 35 Whelen, not to mention several other wildcats.

When the creadewhatever case produces 5 other commercial cartridges, then its designers can legitimately boast.

Until then, pipe down.

I wonder if the creed case could even push a .358 rifle bullet out the barrel to a distance of 100 yards, mich less 200 yards. Anybody want to trust a creed cartridge to stop a charging predacious grizzly?

Lots of good comments here. Personally the .25-06 is an all-time favorite which I plan to keep using whether anyone likes it or not.

Same with my .30-06, or my .220 Swift, or my _____!

Shoot whatever you want, not what someone else tells you to.

Funny thing I notice these days as to whatever the new trend is anything else is obsolete. Off top of head I remember magnum craze, beanfield rifles, all around rifles, ultra mags, short mags, light rifles, modern sporting rifles, probably others. The newer rounds canabalize each other before they sustain to super popularity like some of the old favorites. How many 7mm or 30 cals were the magnums of the day. The 6.5 creedmoor is enormously popular but all the prcs and other new round will be the 2506 and wsm 10-20 years from now. Something will come along and new trend will take off and the new and shiney crowd (I am proud member) will move on.

Lou

When ammo manufacturers stop cataloging a cartridge it becomes a handloaders only proposition and if there isn't any factory ammo being cataloged soon there probably won't be any factory rifles cataloged either. Companies are good at introducing new cartridges, but not very good at supporting them if they lose market traction/share.

Think of all of the cartridges that have been all but abandoned by ammo manufacturers over the past 50 years, including the ones on this list:

5mm REM MAG, 22 WRF/REM SPL, 222 REM MAG, 223 WSSM, 225 WIN, 243 WSSM, 256 WIN MAG, 25 WSSM, 260 REM, 6.5 REM MAG, 264 WIN MAG, 270 WSM, 7-30 WATERS, 284 WIN, 7MM SAUM, 7MM WSM, 280 REM, 300 SAUM, 300 WSM, 307 WIN, 8MM REM MAG, 356 WIN, 375 WIN, ETC.

Most shooters aren't handloaders, so the market for the most common cartridges get the manufacturing priority, leaving a lot of good, useful, but old cartridges to be produced as "seasonal" or "occasional" runs, so that ammo isn't always available and in recent years old standards like the 30 REM, 30-40 KRAG, 303 BRITISH, 32 WIN SPL, and 32 REM are scarce in many areas. Scarcity leads to hording and hording leads to more scarcity, not a positive thing for the one box of ammo per year or so hunter who generally isn't one to plan ahead.

Just so glad my beloved .275 Rigby, 9.3x74r & .405 Winchester didn't make that list! I would hate it if they wound up on the unwanted pile with the 25-06.

I suppose it could be looked at that way.
I don't, and have always find it was easy to shoot, handload for, and my model 700 will shoot consistantly tiny groups .
Actually it is one of my favorites, and as long as Nosler continues to make a .257 Partition bullet .
I have use it on Bull Elk & Bull Moose with good success.
Now with so many other bullets available, I believe monolithics will make it be even better on the larger deer species. I have not used these - for those.
My only objection these days is the need for a longer barrel . It would be sweeter in a single shot , for my purposes.

Obsolete comes in many flavors. As far as performance on game, you could say the 30-30 is obsolete; the 300 Savage did it in. Except it is still a popular cartridge and 300 Savage kind of dimmed when 308 Winchester came on the scene.

Obsolete can come from the chambering not catching on and no one besides its originator making guns for it. When was the last time you heard of a new offering in 308 Marlin Express?

Obsolete can come from decades of dwindling demands for ammo and components. How many 30 Remington owners? How many 307 Winchester?

I own a Custom Mauser in 25-06. It was commissioned by my friend and neighbor, O.T. back in the early 80s, and it was famous around these neighboring ridges as a laser beam deer killer. I bought it off O.T. just after he went blind, and just before he died. I confess it has been one of my least successful projects over the past decade. I started with 117-grain Hornadys and every deer I shot with them ran a good long way. I had it back out with 100 grainers this year and never got a shot. O.T., BTW, used green box Remington ammo and didn't worry about what grains he chose.

I'm going to take a stab here. I'm not going to put this forward as an expert opinion. I'll just prattle a bit, and maybe you can see my point.

First off, let me set the scene. SW Bracken County is an intense cauldron of deer hunting. Everybody is out. 3-4 Generations have been at it since the 60s. The first of these preferred the 30-30. The next group were 30-06 devotees mixed with a large minority of 270 WIN. The group that roughly corresponds with my thirty-something sons has started exploring alternatives. The youngest cohort is still depending on their elders for choices.

In the eldest group sat O.T. He got his 25-06 Mauser back when the idea was still fairly new and the press was still good on it. He was a legendary hunter on our ridges. However, I never heard of anyone trying to emulate him. 270 WIN? A bunch. 243 WIN? Quite a few. 25-06? It was like it never registered with folks it was a deer cartridge.

Prior to O.T.'s rifle, I had just one data point on 25-06. I'd read somewhere that it tended to eat barrels.

I think the 257 Roberts is the cartridge that is becoming obsolete. I can't find any manufacturers chambering rifles in that round anymore and brass is very hard to come by and if you do find it, it's very expensive.