Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 250 Savage the Darling of the Campfire?

Now that is a working rifle. Proves that well-crafted simplicity is beautiful as well as functional.

Two beautiful rifles!


The .250-3000 has always been my favorite cartridge.

I've owned and killed deer with -

Back in the 80's I had a new Savage 99A that I traded in for a Rem 700 Classic when they were first introduced (terrible mistake).

A Ruger 77 Ultralight,
T/C Encore Custom Shop rifle,
OTT custom Encore,
Savage 14 American Classic
Savage 99 R

Thinking about selling the 99 R, really wonting a 7 shot S&W 686 in .357


The .250 is perfect for southeastern whitetails, would love to build a 19" lightweight on a 700 or Model 7 action.

This Lipsey's special is my 250-3000. 35grs of Varget sends a 100gr Nosler BT along at an average of 2880 fps.

What's not to like?

Here is my Lipsey's special M77 RSI in 250-3000

It quickly turned into my favorite deer rifle. I have taken several mule deer with it out to the far side of 250 yards and have never felt "under-gunned"..

Both those Rugers are sweet. I passed on a #1 at the Pennsdale gun show in March.

I've often thought to propose a wildcat based on the 22-250 necked up to 25 caliber. Low recoil, better case efficiency, better combination cartridge, better bore to case capacity. Should prove to be a nice light whitetail and antelope cartridge and yet still be effective for varmints. You should be able to build it in a light handy rifle and still get good ballistics. What they used to call a Tabbycat wildcat. Not so much throat erosion. Wish somebody had thought of it a eighty or ninety years ago. I've always been surprised that MuleDeer didn't come up with the idea and write an article in Handloader. I think it might have caught on.
Here's a photo on mine RLS tang safety in 250. This one was taken when it first came home with me, still has its tag on. Don't see many of these, but I sure like it. The only thing that could make it better would be if the barrel were stamped 250 3000, instead of 250 Savage. I like the balance of the RLS's better than the RSI's, just me. But your mannlichers are prettier.


Bfly

Now there's a thinking rifle loony for you.

Let's jumpstart this thread. I've had a 99 eg since 1976. My step granddad left it to me. It has taken 'a few' mulies and whitetails. It wears a k4 wea er with non- centering x-hairs. (Shouldn't that be + -hairs?) Anyway I semi-retired that workhorse when I bought my .270 Ruger 77R. Over the years i became enamored wifh the sixes. Still am, but I'm rekindling the spark for the .250. I found a cherry 77R that I put a 3x9 leupold on. It is boringly accurate at about 1 1/4" groups. I haven't dove into it enough to wring it out. More recently, I bought my first hand rifle. A Rem XP-100 HB custom shop gun. It was wearing a broken Burris 3x9x hg scope, which is currently in their hands getting fixed. I am aching to get it back together and to the range. So that spark is smoldering!

Gary

The 250-3000 is one of my two favorite cartridges, the 257 Roberts being the other. Have two rifles in the 250, a 1953 M99R, and a Ruger M77 Tang Safety. Both have killed a number of deer and coyotes, the Ruger has an antelope to it's credit as well.

Last years buck, 150 yards with a 100 Interlock out of the Ruger. The bullet center punched the near shoulder, took the vessels off the top of heart, mashed the lungs and was found between the far ribs and the hide weighing in the low 60s. The buck went only 20-30 yards.
It was indeed enough!

I had two 250 savages. I sold the Ruger 77 last year. My remaining 250 is a Stevens 200 with a Midway barrel. It switches between 223 and 250 as the seasons change. Mule deer and antelope don't stand a chance against the 100gr interlock at 3000fps.

My wife is a fan of the 250 as well.


Prairie dogs don't like it much.


If I'm not mistaken, this is a 100gr interlock after going lengthwise about 6 inches down the spine of a small muley buck at about 75yds. I don't remember how much it weighed afterwords, may fifty something grains. I thought it did well all things considered.

My grandfather's 99 was the first .250 I was exposed to growing up, with Dad saying, "This gun doesn't go 'bang'. It goes 'meat'!" A 700 Classic, a Dakota 76 Alpine, and a M70 compact classic in .250AI all agree. I was told that the 700 wasn't enough gun for pronghorn on my first trip in 2001. 100gr Hornady at 3003fps disproved that thought. The 99 has 86 deer, three bear, and a horse to its credit, with all but three animals taken with 87gr bullets. (The horse was in '44, when Dad was home on leave from Italy. His stepfather couldn't stand to put it down, so Dad did the job. One shot.)

Of all the calibers I've never had, the .250-3000 is probably my favorite. If the right 99 were to come along at the right time....but it hasn't yet.

Same here. It did but we weren't fast enough. My son called me a couple months ago and said the local gun shop in Hickory NC had a 99 EG in .250 Sav for $500 complete with Leupold scope. I told him go back tomorrow and get it for me. He did and it was gone. They said it sold an hour after he looked at it the day before.

The 250 is a excellent deer round. Compared to some of the stunt shooting on this site it's literally a cannon. Seriously the sd and bc of the 100 gr. 257 hornady mirror the 150 gr 308 bullet and at 2800 fps it duplicates the trajectory of most factory 150 gr 30-06 loads for practical purposes and carries the 1000 ft lb threshold to around 300 yds. Same can be said for the roberts 120 gr compared to 150 gr. 270 at 350-400 yds.

My lone 250

Any thoughts about which scopes look best with bolt action mannlicher-stocked .250s done up as woods/stalker rifles? And that would look good with rust bluing (the rifle; I'm not going to try to rust blue a scope tube)? Ranges under 200 yards?

I have a Weaver K3 that looks "vintage classic" or something like that, but I wouldn't mind something lighter.

The only mannlicher-stocked rifles I've been around much were Ruger #1 and M77 international models. Those look balanced with a 1.5-5x or 1-4x Leupold with the straight tube. I suppose their 2.5x would be good, too. With a longer barrel .. those are 18.5" for the bolt action and 20" for the single shot .. perhaps the choice would change. I also shot with a guy who had a fixed 4x which was a good choice but I think overall I like the straight tubes best.

Tom

I had both a k3 and a k 4 ElPaso weaver on my Ruger 250 rsi and they looked good. They are the only solution I know if you want to blue a scope as they have steel or Uber. Most others have alloy tubes and blue is not much of an option . On my other rsi i used used a gloss leupold. You may prefer a matte which would look fine. A modern blued scope is going to be tuff to find though weaver did do a limited annaversary of the k4 several years ago with a steel tube.

I LOVE THE 25'S HAD 3 250-3000 BUT LIKE A DUMB ASS SOLD THEM OFF .NOW I HAVE A 25-06 BUT JUST IS NOT A 99 SAVAGE 250 . THEIR THE BEST I BELIEVE