Home Forums Lever Action Central Lever Actions - General Lil’gun in 357 mag and 25/20 WCF?

Having just retired for the second or third time, I am getting some time to spend at the loading bench. My Marlin 1894 in 25/20 and my Jap Winchester 1873 Competition are reminders of how much fun it can be to just spend a day shooting dirt clods and clay pigeon chunks at the range. I have 5# of lil’gun and while it seems that it would be tailor made for both of these little calibers, I can’t find any load data from Hogdon’s site or any of my loading manuals. Am I missing something, like this powder is dangerous in rear locking lever guns or the EPA has found lethal amounts of cyanide in the formula….???

Anybody out there using it?

I use Lil’Gun in my B-92 in 357 and it’s good for 100-150fps over W296/H110. It’s a good choice for a strong action. The 1873 is not a strong action and I would advise against using that powder in that action.

Real Guns did an article where they developed souped up Lil’Gun loads in an old Savage bolt gun in 25/20. They published the loads and I was impressed with the ballistics. I sent them an email enquiring about the suitability of these loads in an original Win 92 in 25/20. They quickly took down the article and later produced two sets of loading data, one for the Savage bolt and another for the older firearms (but no Lil’Gun data for the older firearms). If your rifle is a late model Marlin it might be suitable for the hotter loads but I have no idea. I will say that the higher pressure loads really woke up the 25/20 cartridge in much the same way Lil’Gun wakes up the 22 Hornet.

While the new 25-20 Marlins made a few years back are no doubt made of better metal than one made 100 years ago it is still built to the original design and you should load it accordingly. If you want to hotrod a 25-20 lever action find you a '92 Winchester , it is a much stronger design. Both will hold up just fine to the old factory HV level loads sold as rifle only loads before modern pressure standards were set. I don't hotrod mine, it's easier on the old guns , hard to source brass and really serves no real purpose. If you want a hot .257 get a Roberts bolt gun or a Savage '99 in .250 -3000 .

Lil Gun and Cast Performance 180 gr hard cast will recreate Buffalo Bore high performance ammo loads.

Look on the Hodgdon site under .357 Pistol, not rifle data. Don’t know why they don’t publish that, nor why they still use a 10” barrel for the pistol data either.

LilGun in the .357 has pressures much lower than others like 2400 and H110, with 158s anyway. If I had that Winchester, (and I wish I did!) LilGun would be my choice for full-power loads precisely because of the lower pressure. I do shoot it in my Henry SS.

Brian Pearce, who writes for Wolfe as the replacement for Ken Waters, is a big LilGun proponent. He goes over the 18.0 limit and gets close to 2000fps in some guns. I tried that, but stick with 18.0. Now that I have a new Garmin bullet clock, I’ll test the hotter loads again to see if there’s a benefit.

Can’t help with .25/20, but I kinda wish I had one of those too!

I use 16.2 grns of Lil Gun with 158 grain XTP HP and Remington 158 grain SJHP in my Marlin 1894 carbine. I get 1864 fps and 1891 fps respectively, and these are well below max saami loads. Single digit sd and es from these loads. These "should" be ok your 1873 which is proofed to saami specs, but the toggle action is inherently a weak action so double check to make sure.

Regards,
Manny

I've been using Lil Gun with both 158 and 180 grain Fury spitzers in the 357 mag. I can get the 180s moving fast enough from a 24" 1885 Low Wall to be legal for big game in CO. The 158s are a bit more accurate in that particular rifle. Both bullets are very accurate from a 17" MGM Contender handgun. The 180s with Lil Gun are also great in a 16" Contender barrel in 357 Max. I haven't used either cartridge to take game yet.

Gentlemen,
Thank you one and all for the very helpful information! Hodgdon could do everyone a favor and explain why they list their powders in the disorganized manner they do…or they could straighten things out in their database.

I have just tumbled several hundred cases for the two calibers listed above and will throw some ammo together tomorrow. As soon as our weather improves I will try to get down to the range to see how the loads work.

Thank you again for your help!