I have a box of 1972 vintage 25-20 Winchester High Velocity 60 grain O.P.E. ammunition and have been unsuccessful in locating the ballistics information for this factory load. I have contacted Winchester (Olin) and several other organizations with no luck. Several reloaders reload 60 grain bullets, but that doesn't necessarily match the original factory loading. Does anyone know where this archived data might be found?

As per page 316 of the 1971 edition of Shooters Bible (#62):

25-20 Win. High Velocity Super-X 60 OPE:

Velocity; 2250/M, 1660/100, 1240/200, 1030/300

Engergy; 675/M, 365/100, 205/200, 140/300

'Hope that this information is what you were looking for.

Jeff

Jeff, thank you. That will certainly do the job. The tech support fellow at Winchester said that if he had the MV, he could calculate the trajectory for me and this gives me that data that I feel comfortable with. I was ultimately just looking for the drop at 100, 150, and 200 yds. and this should let me get that.

Thanks again,

Dadu

From the same source:

Mid-Range Trajectory; 1.2/100, 6.3/200, 21.0/300

I guess that you have to infer whether the number is "+" or "-".

Jeff

Jeff, yes, I'm thinking maybe they were setting 0.0 at the 50 yard mark. Just a guess, but then all of these figures would be "-", which would seem to make sense.

Thanks again for the info.

Dadu

I have a couple of boxes of Remington .25-20 ammo, old stuff, loaded with 60 grain hollowpoints (Mushroom bullets according to the labelling.) I've fired a few out of one box, the case necks tend to split. I keep them on the shelf with some of the other old ammo/boxes I've acquired. My .25-20 much prefers 75 grain Speer and 86 grain Remington flat points. Even with the high speed 60 grain bullets I don't think a .25-20 is a good choice much past 300 yards.

I haven't owned a 25-20 in some time, but recently owned a 256 Win Mag and found the 86 grain Remington 25-20 bullets to work quite well.

Jeff

Dadu-
The "mid-range trajectory" data is an older way of describing bullet flight paths.

The numbers "1.2/100" indicates that if the rifle is sighted in so the bullets hit the aiming point at 100 yards, then the bullet will be 1.2 inches above the line of sight at 50 yards.

Likewise, for 6.3/200, the bullet will be 6.3 inches above the line of sight if the rifle is sighted to place the bullets at the point of aim at 200 yards. And similarly for "21.0/300", a bullet that hits point of aim at 300 yards will hit 21.0 inches above point of at at 150 yards.

What is missing for these estimates is the height of the sights above the bore. For the 25-20, which was usually furnished with open iron sights, presumably the calculations were made by assuming sights are about 0.75 inches above the bore.

If I've messed this up, the pros will be along soon to set things aright.
--Bob

Bob, this is interesting and certainly explains the difference I was thinking I had between the data Jeff gave me and the calculations Winchester made when I gave them the velocity data. Using the convention that you describe makes the numbers come closer together. The data I got from Winchesterwhen they ran their program was: (sighted in at 50 yards with a 0.9" sight height - mine measures about 0.6")
50/0; 100/-1.4; 150/-6.0; 200/-15.0; 250/-29.9; 300/-52.2.

Thanks for the clarification

Dadu