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Has any body out there ever reloaded .25 lr rim fire? I've been considering building a .25 rifle, but of course no one makes rounds or even brass any more. So i thought to look into 25 acp or possibly a longer center- fire case, that can be reloaded. Any thoughts?
Breyco,
Yes, I have loaded .25 Caliber Stevens rimfire.
I am not well into the project, but will relate what I have found so far.
Primed short cases are available readily in nearly any medium sized town as 27 caliber Ram-Set cartridges. Those are found at building supply outlets and lumber yards. You must use the weakest power. They run about $6.ºº per hundred, much cheaper on the web, but shipping can be a bear. In spite of the .27 caliber designation, the cases are undersized, and the rim sometimes fails to catch upon extraction, but there have been no split cases even with higher powered loads.
Eun Jin .25 caliber air rifle pellets have a heavy skirt. I paid $6.50 for mine at a Portland show. Find and use them. They, too are packaged in hundreds, and are hard to find in a sporting goods store, but are out there, if only on the web. Others I have found are way too frail around the skirt and blow apart, leaving the skirt in the chamber, but the search continues. I've not encountered a .25 ACP bullet mould yet, and I'm not holding my breath.
The blanks are rose crimped, and I Gorilla glue the miniature Minié ball cavity over the mouth of the case.
My first shots were with two-piece loading, inserting the bullet first, a la schützen style, but my fumble-fingers were not up to the task of keeping the rim of that short case reliably behind the extractor while closing the breech.
My progress with this project has been rather desultory so far, and I need to make time to get on with it.
I'd be pleased if others would play with the idea, as I hope it might get these neat old guns popping again.
Cheers from Darkest California,
Ross
.25-20 comes to mind. It sounds like you are looking for a low power/noise varmint round, and if so that might do the trick. Stepping up in power and versatility are .25-35, .250Savage, and .257Roberts, the first rimmed, the others rimless, all three are easily capable of taking deer sized game. What kind of action are you thinking about and what is your intended use?
Versifier,
I suspect the .25 LR rimfires are usually found in guns like the little Stevens boys' rifles, and rather frail for even the .25-20 Single-Shot, and too skinny for a .25-20 WCF. The barrel shank on my Stevens is only .655". The base on a .25WCF is .349 and that would leave a thin wall. The breech block lockup, though, would be the weakest link.
The .25 ACP has been used by some in the past, though the case is way too short. That calls for converting the breech block to center fire, but little else.
We need to revive the Morris line of cartridges, or develop a .25 Velo-Dog.
Regards from Darkest California,
Ross