Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Reloading tips for 250 Savage

Looking for loading experiences with 250 savage, I have older and more recent 99's to load for (both fast twist and slower twist barrels) Did search here and had little luck, sure it must be in old posts somewhere???

Lots of old posts. In my older 99's, I get good velocity and accuracy with plain old H4895, and they pretty much like to shoot any 87gr bullets. Had very good hunting experience on antelope with 87gr Speer Hot-Core, wouldn't hesitate to use it on deer.

Great timing on this thread as I ordered a set of dies for mine that will be here today. I was going to post about the same topic or questions this morning!

Anyone here tried using 22-250 brass run through a 250-3000 die set? Are there any dimensional differences between the cases other than neck diameter? I have read, many times, that the 22-250 is merely the 250 Savage necked down with no other changes. I want to make sure that I will not be creating a headspace or other problem by making my brass in this fashion since 250 Savage brass is a bit hard to come by these days.

Any experience with the 80gr Barnes TTSX? Foud a box on the shelf locally and bought it.

Would my 1914 manufactured 99 be a slow twist or a fast twst? I am going to guess slow as the bullet they were promoting at the time was an 87 grainer. Thanks in advance for the help.

Anybody use 117gr bullets?

The older (pre-1960) 99's in 250 Savage will be a slow twist, 1 in 14". No experience with the Barnes, but it should be okay. Basically it likes shorter bullets better.

No experience resizing 22-250 brass.. it's not hard around here to find 250 Savage brass at gunshows or Cabelas.

bigbear, I tried the 117gr in an older 250. They hit the target at 100 yards going sideways. I don't think it was stabilizing them too well.

bigbear
I have had good luck and good shooting using
Varget 34.5 and 100 Grn Sierra's
And

Varget 37.5 and 87 Grn Sierra's
Steve

I just started dialing in a 250 EG...so far it likes 36g of Varget under 75g hornady ...don't bother with RE-15...it didn't like anything between 32 and 35g of it under the same bullet.

I've had real good luck with Re-15 in both the .250 and the .300.

Have had the best luck with H414, and RL15 with the 87gr bullets. H414 also performed well with 100gr, but best accuracy with 100's came with RL22 in a 1 in 10 barrel.

Safariman, there is a small difference in shoulder angle between 22-250 and the 250. I have'nt had any problem necking up the 22-250 brass and fireforming it. Except I don't do a dilberate fire form, I found a pretty accurate load with the 75 v-max so I load that and shoot varmints no waste of components that way.

Mark,

I tried the 80 grain TTSXs but couldn't get them to stabilize in any of my 1-14 twist. The bullets did groups at .600 in a 25-06 though.

My go to load for any of my new 250s is 34.5 grains of H4895 or IMR4895 and 87 grain Hornady bullets. From there I move up to 32 grains of 4895 and 100 Corelokts. I'm still not excited about any of my 75 grain Barnes "X" bullets groups. (not happy with the way the "X" bullets group or leave copper fouling either)

Now I'm waiting for Hornady to produce something in the new GMX bullets for the .257s in an 80 or 85 grain pill...

I've been shooting probably more years than I care to admit, and only started seriously with the 250-3000 after 2007. At that time I was able to work a trade with Saddlering. I traded a 99A saddlegun for a 1920. That rifle likes 34.5 grains of IMR 4320 and the Hornady 87 grain spire point. Velocity was 2733 over the screen. I used a Rem 9 1/2 primer.

Later in 2008, I got another 99EG from a member here who resides in Illinois. The rifle belonged to his grandfather. The owner was able to provide me with some interesting history of the rifle. This rifle digests 36.3 grains of RL-15, again with the Hornady 87 gr. spire point and a Rem. 9 1/2 primer. Velocity with this load is 3018 FPS.

Both rifles kill deadly. 2 deer with each rifle so far. All 4 were 1 shot kills and no deer went more that 10 yards.

Well, the 22-250 brass that I ran through my new dies looked good, loaded them with some old leftover bullets and 36gr of R-19. Cycled through the action once I figured out that the rifle definately likes the OAL short rather than long so I will shoot a few of these just to make sure these make-do cases work well and are not excessive in headspace. If this turns out to be OK, I will then load up a few different loads but likely with R15 powder as my baseline as it seems according to folks here and the manuals I have consulted that R-15 gives the highest velocities in this cartridge. I will give the 80gr TTSX's a try first in hopes that they shoot well in this rifle but if they don't will go to the Horny's. Thanks to all who have chimed in so far, I will report more when I know more.

Longbeard King.... LOVE your signatuer tag line! VERY true, freind, very true.

MARK

I'm running some 22/250 brass through my 250AI with zero problems.

Great to hear it. I am going to test fire a few rounds of mine later today. With the same outcome or results you got I will be happily crafting handloads this evening with said brass topped off with the 80gr TTSX bullets I have on hand and some R-15 powder. Have you shot any deer or other game with the 80gr TTSX .257 bullets from your 250? To date the only .257 bullets I have used have been various 100 grainers from several 257 Weatherby's. Trying out a 250 Savage a bit this year is a real paradyne shift for me. Quite the opposite ends of the quarter bore spectrum!

Negative on the 80gr TTSX's but that's because I have about 30 boxes of 85 X bullets on the shelf.

Then you've read wrong many times. Shoulder angles are different, datums are different lengths, etc. A quick review of most any load manual will confirm this. Cases formed from .22-250 hulls don't always chamber in .250-3000 rifles. Since Graf's, Lock, Stock & Barrel, Powder Valley, and others all currently stock .250-3000 brass, why are you even considering reforming from something else?

Well, the ones I made chambered good and 22-250 brass I have a lot of. 250 Savage brass was not readily available localy and I just changed bank accounts with a 2 week plus wait for my new debit card to get here, shredded all my credit cards 6 months ago and most of all I am quite impatient when I want to go play with a new toy! On my way to the range now to see if the refomed brass works OK. Steelheads worked good, here's hoping for same same for me. Report will be posted here shortly, unless I blow one of my hands off....

STEELHEAD, how have the 85gr pills worked out? Pass throughs on deer?

And yet you had the time and funds to buy dies. Great plan.

You should just simplify and buy .30-06 brass and a hacksaw.

Years ago there was another guy with a "half fro" and a similar sense of humor... shame the search feature only goes back a couple of year.

You'd be thinking of Johnny Nitro olgrouser


Mike