Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots Stevens 44 25/20

I just picked up a nice Stevens 44 in 25/20 SS. Where can I get reloading info on it and reloading supplies? Also what kind of performance can you get out of it? It has a nice bore and Lyman tang sight with a Beech front sight. I would like to shoot it.

thanks,

Shortgrub

Okay I just re-reread your post and you say .25-20 SS That's a different cartridge than the Win .25-20. Cartridges of the World lists factory loads with 86 gr bullets at 1410 fps. Bertram sells brass for it, and RCBS dies will be a special order proposition.

It's still true that the 44 is a cast action, so hot-rodding is discouraged, unlike the forged action 44 & 1/2 model.

If it's actually a .25-20 Winchester, then Hodgdon and other sources should give mild load data for it.

Neat find, in any case. The workmanship on the Stevens of that era was very nice. Sort of an American equivalent to a Rook rifle. Load it up, and shoot something tasty.

It is the 25-20ss not the Winchester round. Trying to scrounge up some brass and used dies. I will load black powder only and see what happens.

Shortgrub

The loads for a .25-20 SS and a .25-20 Win (as commonly designated) aren't going to differ.

More to the point however, the Stevens 44 action is quite weak and even a .25-20 will wear it down eventually, so stick with very mild loads.

It really will come into its own with blackpowder. About 17.5 grs of Swiss 1.5FG and a 75 gr lead bullet of 25:1 will do well.

Brass can be had from Jamison I believe. Also www.buffaloarms.com is likely to stock most of what you need.

Brent

I believe really early 1885 Winchesters marked .25-20 Win are the .25-20 version. And the .25-20 with the more pronounced shoulder (now called the .25-20 Win) came later.

Dies are costly, but you don't really need them for much. If you can avoid needing to FL size the first time, then all you need to do is some sort of crimp and you can seat/crimp a .25-20 SS in a .25-20 Win die (which are mucho cheaper.

BrentD is right; the earliest Winchester Single Shots marked .25-20 are .25-20 Single Shot. But then they started marking them .25-20 WCF. And they were still .25-20 Single Shot. And then, when what we call the .25-20 WCF (the shorter, "Repeater" cartridge based on the .32-20 WCF) came out in 1894 or 1895, they marked some ".25 Winchester"--the few I've seen were all .25-20 WCF, the "Repeater" version, that is. Confused yet? (Especially confusing since some of them were on Highwall receivers and those were also used for .25-35s....).

The very last bunch, mainly a cleanup of unused receivers after WWI, were made in the "Repeater" chambering and marked ".25-20 WCF". Unfortunately they stopped making them around 1919 or 1920, made up the majority of spare parts into finished guns and sold them off over the next few years; no more confusion, alas.

Good advice on staying away from hot reloads in a Stevens 44. They aren't prone to catastrophic "blowup" type failures but will shoot loose in a hurry if you try to imitate the old .25-20 WCF "High Speed" loads. The limitation isn't really the metallurgy, it's the design. They look like, but aren't true falling blocks; more like a weaker version of the rolling block. Very neat rifles. I have one in .22 WRF that I got for cleaning out a neighbor's sheep shed back in the late 1940s. It had a badly leaded bore from shooting .22 LR birdshot shells in it, but a local gunsmith showed me how to "get the lead out," and I've been shooting it ever since!

Which brass do ya'll think is better, Jamison or Bertram? I already load for the 25-20 Winchester. What about bullets? I have some 85gr that I use in the Winchester. But I need to find a supplier for blackpowder lubed bullets.

thanks,

Shortgrub

Jamison - it is not even a contest. Bertram is unfit for anything. Doesn't even make good scrap.

Bullets depend upon twist rate. What twist is that barrel?
The 85 gr bullets you mentioned don't sound bad. I use 65 and 79 gr bullets in my 1:15 twist rifle. Longer bullets are not stable with bp loads. But driving them faster with smokeless a longer bullet might be fine. Some folks shoot bullets well over 110 grs but with modern, fast-twist barrels and smokeless.

You can lube your own bullets w/o anything special for equipment. Pan lubing is as easy as it gets.

Brent

Thanks guys for the info. Brent, the best I can tell I have a 1-17 twist. Does that sound possible?

Tim

Yes, 17 sounds very possible. In fact, maybe that was what I had. Been a while.

Brent

I have a vintage Winchester low-wall in 25-20 SS. I bought brass from Rocky Mountain Cartridge. They have a website. I have used brass from Bertram for other calibers and am more impressed with the lathe-turned RMC variety. It's pricey at $2 a case but hope that they last a long time.

I have C-H dies but wish I'd spent more on the RCBS or Redding dies. The C-H ones get the job done but the threads on the dies are not as precisely machined as I am accustomed to. Being somewhat of a perfectionist, that bugs me. I'm half tempted to sell my C-H ones and buy the others for twice the price.

As for bullets, I found some cast ones on gunbroker.com from a seller named 22hornetfan. They're 72 gr. gas checked cast bullets. They shoot one inch groups at 75 yards from my open-sighted rifle. I liked them so well, that I ordered 900 more. Do a search under "25 caliber 72 bullets." I also tried the 86 gr. cast bullets from Buffalo Arms. They cost more and weren't as accurate.

I like shooting ptarmigan with the cast bullets. It really anchors them compared to the 22LR but doesn't cause a lot of meat destruction. And it's fun.

My 44 barrel is marked "25/20SS
I t was buggered by a would - be gunsmith who tried to re-chamber it into 25/25win and didn't set it back!!
I put a different barrel on it in 218BEE but shoot super light loads out of it, just for fun.
Some day I'll set back that 25/20ss barrel and do it properly into 25/20win......
Cat