B & R Photography

Good morning and Happy Friday to all the readers. This week I am going to talk about the .25-06 Remington. This cartridge has allot of different names as it spent almost half its life as a wildcat cartridge prior to Remington standardizing it in the late 1960s.

If you do some research into the .25-06 Remington one of the first things you will come across is Charles Newton necking down a .30-06 Springfield to accept a 117 grain 25 caliber projectile intended for a .25-35 Winchester. This became the .256 Newton which really didn’t catch on. However, it did encourage Savage Arms to produce and release the .250-3000 in 1915. Frankford Arsenal also developer an experimental version of the .25-06 during World War 1. Other wildcats that followed this same path include the .25 Niedner, .25 Hi-Power, .25 Whelen and the .25-100-3000. All of these basically did the same thing a .25 caliber projectile out of a .30-06 cartridge case or similar.

Remington finally commercialized this cartridge in 1969 call it the .25-06 Remington. When the cartridge was standardized, it was capable of shooting a 117-grain projectile at roughly 3,200 FPS which is quite quick. Lighter bullets are available and where are the time however the projectiles were designed for smaller cartridges and thus where a little too lightly constructed to be pushed to max velocities that the .25-06 is capable of producing.

The .25-06 is considered a good round for medium sized game which includes things like deer and antelope. This is because its mild recoiling in comparison to the parent cartridge fairly flat shooting and delivers enough kinetic energy on target to effectively and efficiently dispatch and animal.

Let’s talk ballistics for a second. The .25-06 Remington is not quite as powerful as the .257 Weatherby Magnum as it usually runs 300-200 fps slower with similar weight projectile but is roughly 200 FPS faster than the .257 Roberts at its hottest loadings. When loaded with a 100 grain, 115 grain or 120 grain projectiles you will see 3,230 FPS, 3,000 FPS and 2,990 FPS respectively.

As far as trajectory goes the when you load the .25-06 Remington with a 110gr Nosler Accubond leaving the muzzle at 3100 FPS and zeroed at 100 yards you get the following drop:

200 Yards: 2.746 inches of drop.

500 Yards: 44.467 inches of drop.

1000 Yards: 310.560 inches of drop.

(Please note the above trajectory information was pulled from https://gundata.org/blog/post/30-06-ballistics-chart/)

Short Notes.

Official Name: .25-06 Remington or the .25-06

Year Designed: Commercialized in 1969. (Original Wildcats started in 1912)

Designed by: Remington Arms.

Parent Case: .30-06 Springfield.

Rifling Twist Rate: 1 in 10”.

Maximum Point-Blank Range: Roughly 300 Yards depending on your loadings.

I hope you enjoyed this brief overview of the .25-06 Remington 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