Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Any recommended loads for Ruger 25/06?

I have a Hawkeye in 25/06 and tried 120gr Rem Corelokt and they SUCKD! About 3 in was all they would do. I'm poor and can't just go buy another box without at least being confident they will do under 2". Does anyone out there have a recommended load for this gun? I think the kid I bought it from said he was shooting 117gr but he didn't know what brand and it liked them. Wish he didn't shoot them all I would have liked to see what they could do. And oh yeah, 17 years in the Army, I do know how to shoot. Got a Savage MLII that will shot pretty little 1" groups at 100 yards. Thanks for any help guys.

Ed

4831, CCI 250s, Barnes 100 TSXs or 90 gr Sierra HPs.
I'd check the bedding and screw tightness too as the 120 UMC load usually shoots 1.5 moa or better.

120gr Fusions usually shoot.

If you handload, try (working up!) 53gr of IMR4350 and 100gr whateveryouwant.

+1 on H4831sc behind a Barnes 100gr TTSX. Load them deep into the case, they will usually shoot lights out.

Thanks Boss. I was kinda sorta hoping for a off the shelf load though. I have most of my reloading supplies but funds have since died off and can't finsish what I've started with it. I may just sell one of the guns and get the rest of what I need. U do have a couple of boxes of those 90gr Sierra HPs. I also have a good supply of 100gr Game Kings and 120gr Hornady hollow points to try. I have an enormous supply of 100gr corelokts that I hope will work or will be sold quickly! Got a great deal on something like 600 of the suckers. For powders I have IMR 4895 and 4759, Reloder 7, and Varget. I know one of them will work out but haven't done load research yet. Those are just what I shoot in the Savage and other smokeless MLs. But it does sound like I need to get some 4831.

Will see what can work out with getting rid of something to get what I need to reload. Off the top of my head I need a trimmer, shell holder, deburring tool, primer pocket brush or reamer, and something to clean the cases with and that should be all. I have the press, dies, scale, calipers, and priming tool already. Have about 100 cases ready to be deprimed and cleaned. After I get those items I will be a man on mission to find out what works.

I have not had this rifle apart to inspect the bedding area. I will this weekend though. I may even try my hand at bedding the recoil lug area and tang. Just got done reading the M77 bedding thread in this forum. Great stuff. I just didn't know if my gun would react favorable or not to it as I've heard it both ways. When you guys say to check the screw tightness, how tight should they be? I have a FAT wrench to check them but don't know how tight to make them.

The ruger techs say 95 inch lbs. for the angled screw, around 50 for the rear and 35 for the middle. Most ruger 77's like forend pressure (the way the manufacture has it set up). Its always a good idea to bed the recoil lug and first 2 inches under the chamber and the tang area. I've had very good luck doing this to my 77's. If you find you are still not getting the accuracy you think you should be getting (less than 1moa IME) then you can focus on doing something like free floating the barrel. I'd try to fine tune a load first before freefloating though. BSA.

The screw tension is very important. When I got my 77 back from Ruger after it stopped going bang when I pulled the trigger the gun shot a 3 shot group of .213. The recoil lug screw was extremely tight and I damn near wet myself trying to unscrew it. Great Ruger service by the way.

The 25-06s I've tinkered with over the past 30+ years, all favored a 100gr bullet and around 54grs of IMR 4831.

That would be the case with my current collection, including the tang safety M77, which also shoots 120gr Sierra HPBTs fairly well. It just likes 100gr Btips better.

Try this reloading site, you will be pleased!

http://www.centerfirecentral.com/viewer.html

Accurizing tips on rugers: have the center screw only finger nail tight, freefloat the magazing box so that it is not pushing up on the center of the action.

Good luck!

I echo Jordan's recommendations.

I would def try the Fusion 120g loads.

If you try your hand with reloading, the Varget should work, but 53g of IMR4350 as Jordan states shot really well with my Ruger M77 in .25-06.

Like dubePA, I have always had good results with H4831 and the Nosler Partition in 100 grain size. This is a killing combination.

My A7 like 100 grain TTSX with 55.5gr of RL22

3320 fps on the books, haven't chrony'd it yet