I have acquired a Remington model 4 chambered in 25-10 REX. This gun belonged to a gentlemen who hand loaded for a living here in Asheville until the early 90�s named Bill Rawles. I have his dies, about 80 rounds that are loaded and some 1000 cast bullets. The cases are cut down 22-Hornet of which I have about 140 and the dies were made by C-H tool and die / 4-D custom die co. This is a beautiful gun, in a velvet-lined case with an old Burris 3X scope.

My problem is the gun and the dies, ect. Have been separated for about 5 years and the recipe which was with the dies was lost before I could get a hold of them. I can pull some bullets and weigh the powder but I do not know what kind of powder it is. I have looked everywhere I can think of to find some data, or any other kind of info but have not had much luck.. Some of his friends have told me they think the powder is Unique but no one is sure.

If anyone has any knowledge on this round I would sure appreciate some help.

Also welcome opinion, hunches or best guesses.

Thanks

I forgot to mention that the cast bullets that I have are 60 grn, .257 dia.

Did you check in an old Lyman Cast Bullet manual?

Case length and usable case capacity would be helpful. Unique sounds like a good guess at the right powder. Pull one of those rounds and weigh the charge. I'm guess that it is somewhere between three and four grains. I'm further guessing that velocity of the rounds you have is right around 1200-1400 fps.

Now we get tricky. Load the case you pulled back up, but only use two grains of powder. Chonograph it. Load another round with two grains of Unique. Chrongraph it and compare. If the two figures match, he used Unique or something close enough not to matter much.

I'd be willing to try that on the grounds that 2 grains of Unique is just over a .25 ACP charge and can't hurt anything in that case and rifle. If you had to, you could start there and work up.

The rest of my guesswork is based on the assumption that the only rationale for such a wildcat is a super small game gun. Your old fellow was likely reinventing the .25 Stevens in a centerfire with a .257 bore rather than the odd .251. You might want to slug that barrel to make sure that he did not recycle an old barrel for the .25 Stevens.

He sounds like a mighty smart feller and I would have liked to have known him.

[ 07-30-2003, 00:17: Message edited by: Leftoverdj ]

I went looking and dug out an interesting tidbit; .25-10 was Remington's nomenclature for the .25 Stevens. Makes me even surer that someone cobbled himself up a centerfire version when the ammo dried up. You better double check bore and bullet diameter before you do anything.

leftoverdj,
Here is some more info:

Length of rim to case mouth- 1.137
Diameter of base- .292
Diameter of mouth- .270 (Resized)
.279 (Frieformed)
volune of H2O- 12.1 grn
OAL of loaded round- 1.411
This case is cut down from 22-hornet so there is not a shoulder or neck
The powder weighs 2.8 grains and is round but very flat
This gun started out as a .25 rim fire, I'm not quite sure if that is the same as the .25 Stevens or not. Bullet size at .257 is correct I have not slugged the barrel but I feel very confident this guy knew what he was doing, kind of a legend around here.

Bill didn't hunt so this was not a small game-hunting gun. He was a decorated special forces that spent more years in Nam than the "gubmint" will ever acknowledge. So his thinking may have been hunting but probably not small game.
He handloaded professionally from about 1978 untill 1991 under the name "Cadre", mostly wildcat stuff and at times was buisy enough that he needed to hire help.

Thanks for your response

I'm not concerned about whether Bill knew what he was doing. I got that from your first post.

What I am a little worried about is that he may have intended to size those loose bullets down and never got around to it or that those bullets were added to the other stuff during the years the loading stuff was separated from the gun.

If he used the original barrel, the bore is .251-.252. Is there any chance you misread the caliber stamp and it's actually .25-10 REM? If he rebarreled it, it's almost certainly .257. You might check the diameter of the bullet you pulled to get the powder charge.

The reason I am interested in this is that I have a Stevens Model 44 in .25 Stevens I am looking for a way to shoot. The case dimensions you give are so close to .25 Stevens measurements that it may not have even been rechambered if the original chamber was a little sloppy.

I think I am about due to take a chamber cast. If all I have to do to the old gun is to alter it to centerfire, it's likely to speak again.

[ 07-31-2003, 03:32: Message edited by: Leftoverdj ]

leftoverdj

The stamp on the gun says .25-10 r.f. The bullets that I have pulled are .257 and all the loose bullets are new, manufactured at .257

My wife shared business space with bill for 10 years and I cannot Imagine that he would have gone thru all the work of making this gun and not rebarreling it. He was meticulious to a fault in his work which is probubly what made him so good.

How would I go about sluging this gun, I kinda understand the principle but not the details.

Nothing much to slugging. You just drive a soft lead slug through the barrel, catch it on something soft and measure it. I use buckshot, other folks use round fishing sinkers. one of those cast bullets should do you fine.

If you can clean from the breech, and I think you can on that gun, just drop one of those bullets into the chamber, tap it a few inches down the barrel using a short length of 3/16 brass or aluminum rod, even a wood dowel in a pinch, push it the reat of the way through with a cleaning rod and catch it. Otherwise you'll have to do it from the muzzle.

Measure it with a caliber or micrometer or get your gunsmith or machinist to do it for you.The measuring gets a bit tricky if the barrel has an odd number of lands and grooves.

I'm betting on closer to .251. He would not have rebarrelled it, converted the breech to centerfire, and then stamped it .25 rf.

Him knowing he was shooting oversized bullets might explain why the charge was a hair less than my guess. If the bore was in real good shape, but a bit oversized, say .253 or .254 (Quite possible in an gun built for boys in the early 20th century), the .257 bullets would have been about the only option open to him short of a custom mould.

This is the most fun I've had in a week. Interesting trying to read a dead man's mind from the work he left behind.

[ 07-31-2003, 19:11: Message edited by: Leftoverdj ]

-Leftoverdj,

Correctomundo! I slugged the barrel and itcameout at .2515, doing this from the breach was not a problem as this is a two piece gun.
I will post pics if you could tell me how to do so on this forum.

Also I have recieved e-mail from the people at accuload soft ware and they have ran the specs through thier new software and come up with several differant ideas on working up a load which I will try, but first I'm going to use your method to see if this might be unique powder.

If I only use 1/2 of the powder in the case to compare with unique is there a danger of overburn or what ever you call it when the powder burns from front to back. I know this can be a problem when shooting reduced pistol loads.

Not a risk. I've never heard of such trouble with Unique and cast bullets and the primer flash is going to fill that bitty case. The worry is with H110/296. You won't be using them, anyway.

You have a resource available that Bill did not have. Lee will make you a custom bullet sizing die for $25. Takes a few weeks to get one made. Order a .253. Those .257 bullets should size right down in the Lee push through die. Might check the case mouth of one of your sized cases with a .251 bullet to be sure your dies will work with .253 bullets.

You have a sweet rifle there. Enjoy it.