What Rifle in 25-06

[Deer Assassin]

The Tikka T3 Stainless camo is a really nice gun, 24" barrel with a 1:9 twist & light for what it is... plenty capable of everything you could throw it in front of in the uk.

They go for about £1100 new but its a special order item with EB though, which is the only reason i didnt get one (6months wait).

DA

 

[Offroad Gary]

I’m on my 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] 25-06, and cant rate it highly enough for its versatility, probably the perfect choice for the one-gun shooter, I’ve shoot fox, roe, munty and fallow with all of mine. The first was a 26” semi custom remmy which would throw 100gn bullets at 3360 fps and 85gn bullets at 3600 fps. I then has a 22 ¾” R93 which I sold as a complete rifle to someone who stalked on the same estate as me, as she was looking for one and couldn’t find one. That wore a standard weight barrel and shot 100gn bullets at 3100fps and was perfect for shots out to 300y with minimal holdover. I now use a lightweight R93 barrel, still 22 ¾” with a cmm4 alu mod pointable rifle I’ve ever handled, shoots sub .5moa or better with anything I’ve tried in it and achieves 3100fps with a minimal load of h4350, which is kind on roe but still drops fallow as you would expect. I would either go high end factory as a shorter option (blaser if you like them and can find one) or go custom/semi custom with a 26” barrel if you want something to really push the boundaries, in terms of accuracy and velocity. I’m sure either would shoot Winchester silvertips well as whenever I’ve used them (silvertips) they’ve been pretty good. A friend had a 20” sako which dropped like a brick after 150y.

 

[Deer Assassin]

100gr head travelling at 3100fps - you can achieve that with a .243 & get alot longer out of the barrel.

Why did you decide do opt for a 25-06 instead of a .243 shooting this kind of ammo?

Im not being cheeky, just wondered what it was that drew you to the 25-06 over the .243?

Was it purely the ability to throw a 120gr head if needed? Its the only advantage i can see having a short barreled 25-06 as opposed to a .243

DA

 

[Sinistral]

The Tikka T3 Stainless camo is a really nice gun, 24" barrel with a 1:9 twist & light for what it is... plenty capable of everything you could throw it in front of in the uk.

They go for about £1100 new but its a special order item with EB though, which is the only reason i didnt get one (6months wait).QUOTE].

I don't know where your information comes from, but all models of Tikka in .25-06 come in 20" or 22.4" in the standard twist of 1:10"..... just like virtually every other make available. From the comments of the twist theorists who abound on this forum, I have to assume that all these rifle makers have got it all wrong, and this calibre won't shoot anything above 100-grain. This is deeply troubling.


Nor did I know that Edgar Brothers had the Tikka/Sako agency? Surely this lies with Gunmark? This might be the reason for the long wait possibly.

 

[Brithunter]

The reason for the new short barrels is because they are cheaper. Less material and quicker in time due to shorter length, the spin doctors in the advertising and sale department then got to work to convince joe public how great they are and what a must have, they seem to be good at it too from the posts on the web. Performance be damned just rake in as much as possible for as little outlay as possible.

Nowt new there then.

 

[Offroad Gary]

100gr head travelling at 3100fps - you can achieve that with a .243 & get alot longer out of the barrel.

Why did you decide do opt for a 25-06 instead of a .243 shooting this kind of ammo?

Im not being cheeky, just wondered what it was that drew you to the 25-06 over the .243?

Was it purely the ability to throw a 120gr head if needed? Its the only advantage i can see having a short barreled 25-06 as opposed to a .243

DA

i chose the 25-06 over the .243 because i liked the blue tips better than the purple ones. is that a good enough reason?

and beacuse the .25 puts the deer down just that little bit better and when shot at those speeds its kinder to the roe than at faster speeds, i could easily squeeze more out of it (another 100fps or so) but its in a good accuracy node, is kind to shoot even for novices, its trajectory matches my .243 out to 300y so its easy place the bullet in the right spot.

and because i use my .243 for foxing with 70gn bullets (use that at night so nobody sees the purple tips)

for 120gn bullets i have other rifles.

 

[Brithunter]

You forgot that it also has a larger frontal area for more and better transfer of work to the target . The .25 on the Springfield case also has a lot longer history on game and varmints than the new comer 6mm/.243.

 

[Deer Assassin]

The Tikka T3 Stainless camo is a really nice gun, 24" barrel with a 1:9 twist & light for what it is... plenty capable of everything you could throw it in front of in the uk.

They go for about £1100 new but its a special order item with EB though, which is the only reason i didnt get one (6months wait).QUOTE].

I don't know where your information comes from, but all models of Tikka in .25-06 come in 20" or 22.4" in the standard twist of 1:10"..... just like virtually every other make available. From the comments of the twist theorists who abound on this forum, I have to assume that all these rifle makers have got it all wrong, and this calibre won't shoot anything above 100-grain. This is deeply troubling.


Nor did I know that Edgar Brothers had the Tikka/Sako agency? Surely this lies with Gunmark? This might be the reason for the long wait possibly.

Sinistral - my mistake on the importers, i got my remy from EB after being told by GM that it was a 6month wait.

The T3 camo stainless does however come in a 24" version, look at the spec sheet on the Tikka website.

 

[Jonas6x62]

Thanks for all the responses, I will look around 24" Sako, Tikka or Remington.
Simon

Please have a look for Voere or Roessler

 

[Whitebeard]

If you can find one a Tikka 690/695 Continental is a superb rifle as are the standard 690/695 rifles, these would be my first choice along with a Sako 75.

Ian.

 

[deeangeo]

i chose the 25-06 over the .243 because i liked the blue tips better than the purple ones. is that a good enough reason?

and beacuse the .25 puts the deer down just that little bit better and when shot at those speeds its kinder to the roe than at faster speeds, i could easily squeeze more out of it (another 100fps or so) but its in a good accuracy node, is kind to shoot even for novices, its trajectory matches my .243 out to 300y so its easy place the bullet in the right spot.

and because i use my .243 for foxing with 70gn bullets (use that at night so nobody sees the purple tips)

for 120gn bullets i have other rifles.

Love it ORG!
My .25-06 has a short barrel at 20.5" It's brilliant & I don't NEED to shoot anything heavier than 100gn with it. It's put down everything I've shot with it easily. & By the way, my rifle shoots Bullets, not 'Heads'.
It may have a short barrel, but was last chrono'd (Not in lab conditions) driving Sierra 100gn #1620 bullets at 3270fps MV. with 22fps EV.
I may own an expensive rifle, but like ORG, I bought it because it works, -Every Time, is light to carry and has style.
Oh, & I could also afford it, so why not.

 

[Yorkie]

SAAMI twist rate for a 25-06 is 1-10.
Any Bullet offered by any of the mainstream manufacturers will work just fine. It would be financial suicide to make a 25cal Bullet that would not work in a 10 twist.
The longest Bullet i can think of is the 115 Berger VLD and that is designed for a 10 twist. It says so on the Box.

Yorkie.

P.S.
I have just taken delivery of a new Tru-flite,25 cal Barrel and 10 twist is all they offer.

 

[deeangeo]

The reason for the new short barrels is because they are cheaper. Less material and quicker in time due to shorter length, the spin doctors in the advertising and sale department then got to work to convince joe public how great they are and what a must have, they seem to be good at it too from the posts on the web. Performance be damned just rake in as much as possible for as little outlay as possible.

Nowt new there then.

What a load of garbage.

 

[Brithunter]

Perhaps you can explain why then manufacturers are only offering shorter barrels which fail to reach cartridges true potential unlike years back when 24" was a normal barrel length?

BSA adopted a 22" barrel on the featherweight rifles to help reduce the weight. the std weight rifle still had 24" length. then the accountants took hold and suddenly all are offered only with the 22" barrels. same time trigger units were simplified and adjustments done away with all to cut costs.

Hammer forging was brought in to replace the cut rifled and lapped bores.

Remington developed and adopted Button rifling to speed up production and cut costs. See a pattern here by any chance?

 

[Sinistral]

Sinistral - my mistake on the importers, i got my remy from EB after being told by GM that it was a 6month wait.

The T3 camo stainless does however come in a 24" version, look at the spec sheet on the Tikka website.

Please take another look at the spec. sheet. The 62cm barrel length is reserved for the WSM and Standard Magnums. The 'Long' actions are 51cm or 57cm only.

http://www.tikka.fi/pdf/specs/CamoStainless.pdf

Gunmark don't import the Camo Stainless BTW.

 

[swarovski]

Look at my thread in articles and write ups,PB shot,that might make your mind up

 

[deeangeo]

Perhaps you can explain why then manufacturers are only offering shorter barrels which fail to reach cartridges true potential unlike years back when 24" was a normal barrel length?

BSA adopted a 22" barrel on the featherweight rifles to help reduce the weight. the std weight rifle still had 24" length. then the accountants took hold and suddenly all are offered only with the 22" barrels. same time trigger units were simplified and adjustments done away with all to cut costs.

Hammer forging was brought in to replace the cut rifled and lapped bores.

Remington developed and adopted Button rifling to speed up production and cut costs. See a pattern here by any chance?

Well, all very interesting, however, there never has been anything wrong with updating manufacturing techniques and processing. Many of the old out of the box rifles couldn't pull together 1" MOA groups with factory ammo and becuase propellant development was slower in catching up, although improvement could be found, it wasn't necessarily spectacular.
These 'Modern day cost saving ideals' have and do produce rifles that will readily shoot sub MOA groups out of the box and have excellent 'Lock' times. So no disadvantage to the poor old hard done to punter there then!
Besides which, all the same manufacturing cost and production processes are applied whether barrels are long or short. So it's no good going on about all that old history engineering when modern manufacturing works better and with lower costs.
Also, Mannlicher-Schoenauer/Steyr-Mannlicher & others have made short barrelled 'Stutzen' rifles for pushing 100 years in various calibres, with the switch from old to new techniques only causing minor problems and these, associated with metal to wood fitting rather than the barrel/action/trigger.

Winchester, Rem, Mauser, & Mannlicher-Schoenauer who produced some very finely engineered rifles, among others of their day, made weapons that had inherrent headspacing problems for handloaders. They simply hadn't allowed for the fact that reloading may become as popular as it has, therefore assumed a 'Once only' cartridge firing.
I have owned many rifles with long and short barrels, but have always preferred the advantages short barrelled rifles offer and have never felt 'Under-gunned'. Doesn't mean I don't like long barrels..it's just my preference.

The .25-06Rem, a wildcat for many years was originally put together as a varmint gun to utilise lighter weight bullets. As a flat shooting rifle, it's great and certainly generates velocity with a 100gn bullet in my short barrelled rifle. That's more than enough for doing everything I want in the UK.
I have not found a recipe that stabilises a bullet weight heavier than 110gns in my rifle and have no wish to do so. The Sierra #1620 Prohunter works just fine and puts down Sika and Red stags easily and I'm sure there are others out there achieving the same result, whether they have long or short barrels on their rifles.

Check out Mike Dickinson who on Sunday morning put together a sweet 1/8" MOA one hole group at Calton Moor Range with my rifle, ask him whether short barrels are in any way inferior with modern cost saving manufacturing.

 

[Brithunter]

Well, all very interesting, however, there never has been anything wrong with updating manufacturing techniques and processing. Many of the old out of the box rifles couldn't pull together 1" MOA groups with factory ammo and becuase propellant development was slower in catching up, although improvement could be found, it wasn't necessarily spectacular.
These 'Modern day cost saving ideals' have and do produce rifles that will readily shoot sub MOA groups out of the box and have excellent 'Lock' times. So no disadvantage to the poor old hard done to punter there then!
Besides which, all the same manufacturing cost and production processes are applied whether barrels are long or short. So it's no good going on about all that old history engineering when modern manufacturing works better and with lower costs.
Also, Mannlicher-Schoenauer/Steyr-Mannlicher & others have made short barrelled 'Stutzen' rifles for pushing 100 years in various calibres, with the switch from old to new techniques only causing minor problems and these, associated with metal to wood fitting rather than the barrel/action/trigger.

Winchester, Rem, Mauser, & Mannlicher-Schoenauer who produced some very finely engineered rifles, among others of their day, made weapons that had inherrent headspacing problems for handloaders. They simply hadn't allowed for the fact that reloading may become as popular as it has, therefore assumed a 'Once only' cartridge firing.
I have owned many rifles with long and short barrels, but have always preferred the advantages short barrelled rifles offer and have never felt 'Under-gunned'. Doesn't mean I don't like long barrels..it's just my preference.

The .25-06Rem, a wildcat for many years was originally put together as a varmint gun to utilise lighter weight bullets. As a flat shooting rifle, it's great and certainly generates velocity with a 100gn bullet in my short barrelled rifle. That's more than enough for doing everything I want in the UK.
I have not found a recipe that stabilises a bullet weight heavier than 110gns in my rifle and have no wish to do so. The Sierra #1620 Prohunter works just fine and puts down Sika and Red stags easily and I'm sure there are others out there achieving the same result, whether they have long or short barrels on their rifles.

Check out Mike Dickinson who on Sunday morning put together a sweet 1/8" MOA one hole group at Calton Moor Range with my rifle, ask him whether short barrels are in any way inferior with modern cost saving manufacturing.

I notice that although you allow the powder development has improved you do not mention that bullets are of better quality now that those available say just after WW2. As noted by testers, experimenters and writers such as Whelen and Waters bullet of the 1970's onwards were far better than those produced in the 1940's and 50's. Better jacket material and refinements in the drawing techniques made more uniform bullets. Bullet that have jackets thicker on one side do not fly as well as those of uniform thickness.

If you were to try some of those old bullets through your supre precision rifle you might find that yout grouping has gone to pot .

This does not alter the fact that manufacturers are not offering barrels of length that can give the maximum performance potential. You might like short barrels and in some chamberings like the 6.5x54MS with it quite small powder capacity they work fine but once gets to these larger cases with over 55 grains of powder a short barrel is a handicap. I never understood why BSA offered their CF2 Stutzen in 270 Winchester. The 20" barrel handicaps the cartridge. 7mm Mauser would have been a better option IMHO.

If you look at barrel makers web sites notice how few offer barrels of 26" or longer. When I was looking I found few who did so in a hunting profile.

The .25 Niedner was developed as a long range Coyote and Antelope rifle I think you will find. Of course in America there were several .25 cals based on the Springfield 06 case with differing necks, shoulders and tapers to the case. All were handicapped by lack of suitable slow burning powders until 4831 came along.

 

[Muir]

I'm not going to jump into specifics tho I agree with both of you on some counts. Shorter barrels are easier to make then longer ones, but, they are generally as accurate or more accurate than longer ones.

The real reason they make short barreled rifles? Well, gentlemen? Read this Forum. "...having it shortened to 20 inches...", "having it cut back to make it easier to handle" are phrases that litter the place.

Like boat tail bullets and piccatinny rails, they are what the public wants.~Muir

 

[NorthDorset]

I have a Sako 75 Stainless Synthetic in 25-06. As someone said ealier its a gun that does it all. Ive never known a gun to handle and feel better on a cold wet morning. The 75 has a rubber insert molded into the synthetic stock. It looks amazing.

I have dropped Fallow Bucks with it and it will knock over foxes at ranges that make me look good.

I feel no need to change. I dont have a moderator on mine yet but will do at some point in the future. I think the 25-06 combines the crack of doom and the finger of god quite effectively.

Its probably odd to say but I find it an exciting thing to shoot.

I use 100Gr Nosler Ballistic tips for everything. It shoots flat. Drop off at 350 yds is something like 12 inches.

Great calibre but pick a gun then work out the load that suits.