After last week’s post I felt it was a good idea to lead into the .300 Savages parent case the .250 Savage or the official name the .250-3000 Savage. The reason for this rather long name is actually what it was originally loaded for, it was a .25 caliber projectile traveling at a velocity of 3000-fps. I believe the original loading was an 87gr projectile. However, being designed in 1912 the cartridge has come a long way as far as load offerings are concerned.

This cartridge was designed by Charles Newton for the popular savage model 99 lever action rifle just like the .300 Savage was at a later date. Charles originally suggested a 100gr projectile but Savage arms wanted to obtain a 3000-fps velocity as stated earlier so it was changed to an 87gr projectile loading.

Like other cartridges in the same caliber, you tend to find the .250 Savage in a varmint hunters safe. While it can double as a deer rifle if needed due to the projectile size that is likely the only big game, I would use it on. (I am sure others have used it on bigger game I just like having more cross-sectional area when hunting larger animals.)

The .250 was later improved upon by Ackley and is commonly known as the .250 Ackley, .250 Improved or .250 Ackley Improved. When Ackley blew the shoulders and made his improved version, he was able to increase the velocity by 250 fps.

As far as loadings go the common factory offerings as found on Wikipedia for the .250 Savage are: 75gr, 90gr, 100gr and 117gr projectiles at velocities of 3,170 fps, 2,997 fps, 2,864 fps and 2,652 fps respectively.

As far as the trajectory and bullet drop goes with a 100gr Winchester silvertip travelling at 2819 fps out of the muzzle you get the following bullet drop in inches:

200 Yards: 4.240 inches of drop.

500 Yards: 74.572 inches of drop.

1000 Yards: 668.548 inches of drop.

(Please note the above trajectory information was pulled from http://gundata.org/ballistic-calculator/ )

Short Notes.

Official Name: .250-3000 Savage, .250 Savage.

Year Designed: 1915.

Designed by: Charles Newton for Savage Arms Company.

Parent Case: .30-06 Springfield.

Rifling Twist Rate: 1 in 14” originally than later switched to 1 in 10”.

Maximum Point-Blank Range: 270 yards.

I hope you enjoyed this brief overview of the .250 Savage and will return next week for our Cartridge of the Week series.

Please remember to always practice safe muzzle control when dealing with firearms and happy shooting.

B