Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 25 acp deer rifle.

Seeing how NY only requires a deer rifle be centerfire, I was wondering if anyone has ever built a custom 25 acp caliber rifle? I have shot a little auto pistol in the caliber, and it seemed like a light kicker, and I know other people use 25 cals on deer.

That's about the worst idea for a rifle, much less a deer rifle, that I've ever heard.

I've got a .25-20, which has it ALL over the .25ACP, and it's far from an adequate deer rifle (though I'll probably damage tag one, in just the right situation).

There are far better options, and hard to conceive of any worse.

You serious?

A 35 grain bullet at 900 fps is a good deer cartridge?

Other .25 cals you probably hear reference to are absolute planets away than the BB gun that is the 25ACP...

Bait, bait, bait.

Probably, but maybe not...grin...

For the sake of musings, I would almost bet that a 24 inch tube would actually be slowing a 25 acp bullet, rather than speeding it up.

Also for the sake of giggles, if you could build one on a CZ rimfire action and use a 16 inch barrel, it might make a nice cat rifle. That being said, I don't think I would shoot a feral cat with it, unless I had someone backing me with a Taurus Judge .410 revolver and some 7 shot. LOL.

Just seems plain funny to me. Walk up to a game warden all serious like and ask if they know why it dosn't seem to work.

grin...

I guess it was back in the early 90's when Kentucky changed the regulations to include "any centerfire rifle". I remember going into a small gunshop that an elderly gentleman ran, and seeing a postcard he had on the wall. He had taped a .17 Remington Cartridge to it, and wrote "Deer Cartridge?".

You can't regulate common sense.

A 25ACP is not much more powerful than a highspeed 22short.

I have an adapter from ALEX INC that allows me to shoot 25acp in my 25-06. I have difficulty in hitting a ruffed grouse at 30 yds with it (the drop is that severe). The one I did hit, took 2-3 shots to kill (hardball ammo).

Not a deer cartridge at all.

Yet the Democrats continue to try.

Oh man, been there, done that! My family has been eating .25-20 venison since the 1930s that I'm sure of, maybe longer. To go even further, I've personally killed 4 bears with .25-20, my cousin has killed 2, and my dad and great grandpa, who used it when they were guiding bear hunters in the '40s and '50s, have shot MANY. We had a herd of wild Hereford cows with bulls up over 2000 pounds we had to hunt like elk, only they're sneakier and bigger, just lower to the ground. We killed quite a few with the .25-20 over the years.

That doesn't make it ideal, just says that under carefully arranged circumstances, it'll do amazing things.

The problem with the .25-20 today is ammo. We did most of our stuff with a HV HP 60 grain factory load that's not available. It is way more effective than the anemic 86 grain soft point stuff. Been working with the 75 grain Speer and 60 grain Hornady flat points which are better but not up to that 60 grain factory load standard.

Tom

Tom;

I'd be quite interested in youy .25-20 data, when you get a chance. FWIW, mine's a Remington Model 25.

Washington is about the same:



It seems so strange that I could legally hunt elk with a 4 inch 32 S&W revolver but not deer with a 220 Swift rifle with game bullets. It makes more sense to have an energy restriction instead of a caliber restriction.

Bruce

.....I hunt elk with my pellet gun. I shoot them in the ear. They always run away...lol. Flinch

Think it was Jeff Cooper whe said "If you shoot someone with a .25 ACP and he finds out about it, he will be very angry with you."

One of the deadest dudes I ever saw was a giant black guy on the floor where a dice game had been. Tiny hole in the sternum, deader than a fart, 25 ACP.

corelokt; That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Why would you use a 25acp in a rifle for deer when you could go to the much bigger 32acp and hunt elk with it, too?!

Last I read, in Georgia, anything centerfire .22 cal or larger, handgun or rifle is deer legal. Common sense goes a long way