Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 225 winchester review

Hey everyone I just bought a winchester model 70 is 225 anf was wondering if anyone had an experience with them and also what they thought about the 225.

Thanks

i think it's probably a little bigger than a .223. prolly real similar ballistics. i'm also guessing the ammo is a lot more expensive.

-tom

Some consider it an underrated cartridge that was a victim of poor timing and/or marketing, including competition from the .22-250. I believe it's closer to .22-250 ballistics than the .223, but you'd have to look it up.

If I were in the market for a rifle in that class, and found a good deal on a .225, and had a decent source for brass, I'd go for it.

Paul

very close to .22-250 ballistics in a Model 70, brass can be problematic to find, but is available.

Flyer

It is similar to the .22-250 in performance. Winchester had brought it out as an alternative to the .220 Swift, which by then had a (undeservedly) fussy reputation.

It should be a good varmint caliber, and okay for small deer with good bullets.

It is one of those Cartridges I'd never go out of my way to own, but if you find a nice rifle so chambered, it is still useful. You will have trouble finding loaded ammo, if you don't handload.

I went together with a buddy when I was in graduate school and we bought one to share. I had just started handloading (for reasons of economy) and bought a set of dies as soon as I could afford to. We shot it a lot and used it for some collecting (white-tailed deer). In addition to deer, we shot javelina, feral hogs, coyotes and a few bobcats (we did a lot of predator calling back in those days).

It was an easy cartridge to load for and was certainly the most accurate rifle that I had used up to that time. When my buddy finished his Ph.D. and got a real job, he bought my half of the rifle and the dies. I really missed it once it was gone.

It is very close to the 22-250 and in my opinion a better round than the 22-250 when chambered in a single shot rifle.

Interesting cartridge. Just looked it over in the latest Hornady manual[#8], and it compares pretty well with the 22-250. If you can find brass for it, you'll be in good shape. Let us know how it turns out.

Graf's has plenty of brass.

Where is grafs

There is nothing at all bad about the 225 Win, except ammo availability. It does anything the 220 Swift does.

I had one in the early 1970's. It had sat on the rack at a store for years, and I got it for a song. It was a simple Win mdl 70 post 1964 that shot ragged holes. I got tired of the scarce factory ammo and sold it.

Graf and Sons (I think?), they're in eastern Missouri, lots of oddball stuff they stock, good to deal with.

I have a Ruger No.1 V that was a 223 Rem. that I had rechambered to 225 Win. It is one of my PD rifles that goes with me every summer to Montana. Volocity wise it is more of a 22-250 Jr. Seems to run about 150 FPS less than the 22-250

Load data
50 grain Hornady V-Max
34.2 grains Win 748 CCI BR-2 primers
3534 FPS
Cases aren't that hard to find, Wichester makes a run of they once a year. One of my favorite rifles for p-dogs.

I've owned a 1966 era Model 70 for many years. I developed this load about 10 years ago:
35.0 grains H-380
50 grain Hornady V-Max
WIN WLR
WIN Case (bought mine from Huntington's in CA at the time)
2.437" COL
Chronographed at 3300 fps @ 77F
The round feeds well in my rifle (semi-rimmed case) and is under max enough to ensure long barrel life. Groups 5/8" to 3/4" with five round groups fired at 100 yards.

If you chamber and fire one in a 22 250 AI , it makes smoke and looks funny when you extract it .

And the second one don't work any better .

Blue Star Brass has it. I do not have a 225 anymore, but still have a bunch of loaded ammo and new brass.
Butch

I have a local customer who got the bug for this round about a year ago.. So he commissioned me to build him a varmint rifle in .225W... About a week ago he called me on some unrelated matter but did mention that he just LOVES that rifle and the performance of the .225W...

SSK Industries(JD Jones) makes several wildcats for contender and encores from that case and he has a generous supply of cases if you need them. I have owned several rifles and a couple pistols chambered in the 225 win and the omproved version. All were accurate and would do about anything a 22.250 would do. They are certainly not in the swift relm as has been suggested. The case was a modified 30-30 case in the beginning, I believe. The case is much stronger however. My old model 70 from the late 60's was one of the slickest bolt guns I ever owned, unfortunatly sold to pay bills while raising a family. My current gun in that chambering is a T/C Contender from Gary Reeder in a 14 in tube. It out runs the ,223 by a bit in that platform and I like the rim for ease of extraction. The .226 JDJ , an improved version of that case will run equal to the 22.250 Rem