I recently acquired a low wall in 25/20 with a new heavy barrel installed. The rifle came with some 74 gr. GC bullets. I have tried several loads from my Hornady manual and the results are disappointing. Using a cleaning rod I determined that the twist on this barrel is a 1 in 8. Is there any possibility of getting an accurate cast bullet load for this rifle or am i going to have to use jacketed rounds in this old girl. Any advice would be greatly appreciated

rikkit
The 6.5x55 has a twist of 1 in 7.something ! And it will handle up through 140gr without much problem. Of course the limitation will be on the higher velocities. It seems to me the .25-20 with the traditional slower twists have problems with anything over 85 or 90 if I remember right.

If it's too fast for y'all I'm interested in it!

Tim K

Rikkit,
The old 25/20's (single shot and repeater) were 1 in 12(REM), 1 in 13(Stevens), 1 in 14(Win). The old Winchester 60grHP condom boolit was by far the most accurate in all of my 25/20's. I've shot everything from 72gr up to 117gr cast. When I got up to 117gr, it took a lot of twinking to get any resonable groups. My guess is with that 1 in 8 twist you'll need to start with a 100gr and go up. Geo

Humm..Who would put a 1-8 barrel on a 25-20? I have both a Remington 25 and Winchester 92 in 25-20 and they both shoot nothing but cast and very well at that. It yours a 25-20 WCF or 25-20 Single Shot. They are similar but different enough to cause problems if you don't know which you have. A couple of thoughts come to my mind. 1) Did you clean the barrel of all metal fouling before you tried the cast bullets? A barrel with jacket metal fouling in it, won't shoot cast worth a hoot. 2) Errr..ahhh, pardon me but could you have made mistake when you measured the twist? It would not hurt to do it again, just to make certain 3)The bullets that came with rifle could just be lousy bullets. Wrong alloy, lube, sizing diameter and so forth. In a 25-20 WCF, with a proper twist barrel, which is clean, and a good GC cast bullet (of proper alloy, lube, size etc.)in the 75 to 80 grain range, should should very well over a powder charge of 9 grains of 4227.

rikit...I've played with Marlin's 1-14 twist and cast in a 25-20 until I got frustrated and had it rebarrelled to a 1-12 twist. The 1-8 twist may be all right with 100 grainers. I'd start there and work down in weight. You never know./beagle