Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Does anybody shoot 25-35 cal.?

Does anyone on the forum shoot/hunt this calibre? Comments on performance ballistics, reloading welcomed! John

Yes
Factory and Reload 117 Grain ammo. Have 7 25-35's all Shoot very well. Can Kill from coyote to small white tail no problem.
Fun caliber to shoot.


Click on Me.

I've got one and like it a lot. Very accurate a soft recoil. But I've yet to take a deer with it.

I have one with a 26" barrel and reciever sight using 60 grain pointed bullets, I used mine on a pairie dog hunt and got one at about 150 yards. Like stated before light recoiling fun rifle to shoot.
Steve

Saw a really nice one at the Albany show yesterday. Solid frame, fancy wood, checkering, 20" barrel, Lyman 30 1/2. About 90% out but bore dark in the grooves so I did not ask the price or check the serial number.

I have shot lots of 25-35 ammo, all in Winchesters. I have killed everything from varmints to Grizzly bears with it. I shot factory ammo when I was a kid. Now I shoot reloads with 117 grain round nose bullets.

The reload I use is 24 grains of IMR3031 with the 117 grain. 12 grains of Accurate 5744 with 93 grain cast bullets.

When you shoot Grizzlies with a 25-35, shoot them between the eyes.

Grizzly skull measuring 22 5/16 inches B&C...

shrapnel, what leads to the situation that a guy ends up killing a grizzly with a 25-35? Were you thinking of taking a 45-70 or a 405 Winchester lever gun and then decided what the heck, I haven't used the 25-35 in a while. It kills mule deer does pretty good, should be fine for a 600 lbs grizz. I know, I'll head shoot it at 20 yards. Maybe it'll kill it and hopefully not just piss it off. Only kidding of course, you have to tell us a little more.

I was just a kid and those days, bears, including Grizzlies, were considered vermin. You could shoot a bear just by having your deer and bird license.

Back then my dad had 2 big game rifles, one was a 30-06, the other a 25-35 carbine he had traded for breaking a horse. The 30-06 knocked me on my butt, so I hunted with the 25-35.

I didn't know anything about ballistics, but I understood simple physics, so I exercised caution about using the 30-06. I also knew about making good shots as my father taught us to be good shooters.

I grew up running a paper route all winter to buy enough .22 ammo to get me through the summer, shooting gophers. I used a Remington model 510 single shot and made every shot count.

This helped to refine my hunting skills by making calculated shots, which I did when I shot the Grizzly between the eyes.

C'mon shrapnel, there's got to be a longer story than that for us nosy folks. LOL!

That is the caliber of choice for the old timers in South Georgia for shooting fish. They say it travels the truest in water.

Growing up in Montana was akin to the life of Huckleberry Finn. I had the entire summer, from school getting out 'til it started again in the fall, to roam the extensive outdoors near Hebgen Lake, Montana.

We had horses that roamed freely on several hundred acres of pasture, whatever we could catch, we could ride. As a result, my sister and I became good at capturing and riding some fairly green horses.

The family that owned the horses was from Idaho, and they would summer their cattle and horses on their deeded property as well as a grazing lease with the National Forest. (This grazing lease is now no longer, as some dreadlock frocked, Birkenstock sandaled, #$%@# pukes, and the Gallatin Wildlife Federation saw to revoking the lease due to buffalo conflicts. That's another story for another time!)

Pasturing these cattle on my Grandfather's homestead, along with their private property, brought the cattle into some timber where Grizzlies liked to hang out. Grizzlies do like to eat beef too.

We were outside one evening enjoying nice weather, when we heard a terrible ruckus about 2-300 yards north of my Grandfather's cabin, back in the timber. My brother-in-law and I, being the best runners, got there first. A Grizzly had killed a calf and dragged it across the swamp, devouring everything but the lower legs of the calf.

My dad and I decided to get revenge on the bear and took a dead cow carcass to a protected area and then built a tree stand in the tree above the carcass. We would then take turns sitting in the tree and wait for the bear to come in.

One night it was my turn and my brother-in-law was with me sitting on this shaky, small platform, me with a 25-35 and him with a 6 volt flashlight. We hadn't been there long when we heard the fence squeak and we knew it was a bear.

We could distinguish the form of the bear when it came into feed on the carcass, both of us scared bleep-less. We were only about 12-15 feet in the tree and I just knew the bear would climb up and get us. Whispering back and forth to one another to see if the other was ready, we finally agreed we were and Mike turned on the flashlight.

The bear looked up at the source of the light and it was too late. The flash and blast of the 25-35 was too much for the poor bear to endure and he dropped in his tracks. Mike and I waited in the tree, still scared spit-less, and we waited for reinforcements.

When they finally got there, we could see the dead bear in the headlights of my brother's 1948 Dodge. He jumped out ready to shoot and I had to convince him to not perforate the bear any more while I climbed down out of the tree.

We skinned Grizz the next day and nailed his hide to the floor of the upstairs shop at the ranch and salted the hide. We tried eating the bear, but the soup was tougher than you could stick a good spoon into.

The picture of the hide on the wall illustrates what a bear looks like when you just salt it and don't take it to a taxidermist. In those days, I didn't even know there was such a person. It still reminds me years later of how it really was like to have lived in Hannibal, Missouri like Huckleberry Finn, moving about in the vastness of relatively uninhabited rural Montana in the 60's.

That's what I'm talking about! Great Story! Could you imagine trying to pull something like that today? Love it!

What a great story! May I ask how long ago that took place?

As an aside, not to detract from your story by any means, but there isn't a single .25 bullet hole through each paw too, is there?

Shrapnel...great story, thanks for sharing.

i also shoot a 25/35...and the 25/35 ackley Improved version.

my last kill with the 25/35 was a couple of years ago, i am a contender junky & i got together with a bunch of friends from the Specialty Pistols website. We went on a group hog hunt, and i was sitting in a ground blind waiting for hogs to show.

My 25/35 is a 22" carbine topped with a 2x7 nikon, in this case i was using winchester factory loads, 117gr RN, that a friend of mine had given me.

The factory shot pretty well, recoil is very mild in a 5-1/2# gun, and i had read some reports that the 117gr factory loads open up fairly well on deer. Hoped they did on hogs too.

A bit before dark, a medium sized wooly looking spotted hog comes in, and stops about 75 yards out. i let fly with a 117gr RN & i see dust fly. The hog swaps ends, and takes off with a pretty good limp, and disappears in a thicket. we give it a few minutes, then go see what sort of blood trail is to be found...none at all.

head down the trail & find the hog shortly. when skinning, we found the 117 had punched through the shoulder on teh near side & tore up the vitals, but stopped on a rib on the other side, inside the chest cavity.

The 25/35 cases have quite a bit of case taper & long sloppy shoulder, so i try to make cases last by neck sizing. Hot loads get sticky really quick.

My 25/35Ackley Improved is a 15" pistol barrel, and with top loads is about equal to the .257JDJ. case capacity is close to the .250savage, and with 85's/87's in a long barrel it will hit 3000fps.

After i shot up the factory loads i was given, i have been using 100gr Nosler BT's mostly, but the remington 100 grain bulk SP's shoot great.

If you want a light recoiling deer rifle, the 25/35 is apretty neta little round. After 1 hog i decided i wanted something that punches through more mea.

But the few deer i've shot with my 25/35 & a wildcat called the .25classic (30herrett necked to .25, which about duplicates the 25/35) have folded up quick.

Regards;
Gerald

Sounds like the start of another book (short stories) for Gary.