.25 Souper

[sauer]

hi guys

 

im working with some yanks over in qatar just now and one of the guys has a .25 Souper

 

i have a .25-06 and i love the calibre so i was curious as ive never heard of it

 

he tells me its basically a .308 necked to .257

 

sooooo my query ...bearing in mind im no expert so keep it simples for stoopid(me)

 

is this just a 25 cal bullet in a short action (.308) case?

 

ballistically how is this round compared to standard .25cal?

 

could i say theoretically take my .22-250 sako m591....rebarrel to .25 cal then use .308 brass?

just curious as im not up on the ins & outs of changing calibres up n down and im just curious

 

 

theoretically sounds like to me the layman that you have a .25 cal which i love but could have it in a .308 case or short action giving better economics on powder useage? or is it not as simple as that!?

 

not that that would be my plan....just talking theory here...i already have my Russel Gal .25cal sooo wouldnt be changing that!

 

 

 

sauer /paul

[baldie]

.17Rem on here has one Paul [ i think ] sure he'll chime in when he sees this.

[Chris-NZ]

Whatever his opinion, it's gotta be a far more balanced cartridge than a .25-06 which is definitely overbore.

My br-in-law has a .25-06 and I can't for the life of me understand why.

 

If you rate a .243AI, there's damn near no diff with this (ignoring the range of projectiles)

 

Chris-NZ

[17 Rem]

My 25 calibre wildcat isn't the standard .25 Souper, but uses .243 brass necked up to .257 and fireformed to give a 40 degree shoulder and less body taper (think .243 Ackley necked up to .25 calibre). It has a .290", no turn, neck. The barrel is a 1 in 10 twist Pac-Nor.

I believe Russ Gall has a similar reamer to mine.

I've not experimented much with heavier bullets yet, but the 75 grain bullets are achieving 3600 fps, with 12 or 13 grains less powder than the .25/06 needs to achieve the same velocity.

87 grain bullets are running safely at 3250 fps. I can wring a little more out of them, but they do all I need as they are.

I'm using a Redding S type 243 AI resizing die, which needed the neck opening out slightly to allow the larger case neck through to the .280" bushing, with .257 expander ball. The seater is a Redding 243 AI competition one, which had new sliding sleeve made for it, as the standard 243AI one didn't work with the larger neck.

Mine was originally on a Sako 75, but feeding was difficult from a 22/250 magazine. I didn't realise how different the 243 magazine is, so didn't try one and had the tube put onto a Tikka 590 action instead, from which it feeds perfectly.

I used to have a 243AI on a Sako A2, which fed faultlessly and suspect that your 591 would also work perfectly.

Dasherman built mine. If anyone else wanted one, I'd happily lend Dasherman the reamer.

[Andrew]

I built 2 of these rifles back in the eighties for antelope hunters who didn't like the over-bore 25-06. Mine was the standard 25 Souper and thinking back, I don't even remember where the reamer came from, nor where it went. The dies I used were definitely RCBS, tho. I necked down the cases in one pass (new brass) annealed them and them fire formed them to the chamber. The reamer I had accommodated un-turned necks. I never fired them much after I built them but the men I built them for had nothing but praise for them and full freezers as justification.~Andrew (my 2 cents worth)

[sauer]

cheers guys

 

but to be perfectly honest most of that went right over the top of my head

 

bearing in mind since i started shooting ive stuck to standard popular calibres and know bugger all bout ballistics and gun smithing

 

christ wheni bought my 1st .25-06 id never even heard of em before....it was my little bruvver that showed me the relevant page i a lee reloading book that explained its origins as a 500yarder varminter for prairie dogs etc years ago due to lack of cover......

 

my take on it then was that it was basically a "beefier" .243 which gave me a little bit more oomph if i ever managed to land myself in amongst red deer..

and ive loved it ever since.

 

so what do you guys mean by "overbore" as in big brass lots of powder in relation to bullet size & weight?

 

i know Russel has a .25 summit which is different to the norm but ive no idea what it is.

 

 

now heres a dumb question for you then....

 

when you are re-barreling a rifle say a .22-250 to a different calibre...as in this case the .25 souper......

 

is it just a case of a .25cal barrel onto the existing chamber? you mention specific reamers....are these for the barrel or do you have to "change" the chamber in some way?

 

daft i know but im just now starting to show an interest in this side of things

 

sauer /paul

[Ronin]

Paul

 

 

the chamber is formed by the reamer in the barrel. The batrel then is screwed into the action.

 

In essence a 257 barrel is just a rifled tube, which you could make any 257" cartridge fit (with the appropriate reamer)

 

 

Overbore - basically means your burning a huge amount of powder that passes down a tiny hole (the barrel) which contributes greatly to barrel wear, flame cutting, firecracking and limited barrel life.

 

 

e.g, a 308 burns 44 grains of powder per shot for a 150g bullet

 

wheras a 30/338 Lap Mag (a wildcat derivative of the 338LM) burns 100 grains for a 150 grain load

 

 

You understand now?

 

 

So long as the bolt face of the rifle is the same as the project cartridge and the case length will fit in the donor rifles magazine you should be able to go with any cartridge in that group (usually).

[Andrew]

I would add an additional condition to "over-bore", being relative inefficiency. There is a point where adding case size and more powder contributes little more than pressure. In other words, there is just so much hot gas that can pass up a rifled tube of a given length, pushing a bullet of a given weight, and stay within preset pressure limits. When you find a cartridge that uses less powder to do the same work, you are a smarter shooter.~Andrew

[sauer]

cheers guys!!!!!

 

knew i could get answers on here !

 

 

 

 

 

sauer /paul