Hi
What is your opinion about 2506 as a sheep& goat slayer and which kind of loading do you sugest? TIA
Danny

Danny,

Neither sheep nor goat take a lot of killing. Sometimes I think sheep will fall over if you give them a mean look.

Goats are a lot more tenacious, but nothing short of a .458 will consistently "plant them". In other words, any of the smaller calibers will probably work as good as the other. Goats are not very big under all that hair, and do not require a great deal of penetration. Anything other than a heart-lung shot will usually result in a long tumble, so you don't generally want to take bad angle shots anyway. And there is no real reason to, as they are the type of animal you can sit and watch a while before shooting.

All that said, the .25/06 will work just fine on sheep and goat. I would definately stick to a heavy for calibre, premium bullet (eg. 120 Nos Part or 115 Barnes X), as most bullets in the .257 category are built for rapid expansion on light game, not for penetration.

I personally prefer the 6.5 (x55 or /06, or a variant of them), .270 and .280 for sheep, with the 6.5 being my favorite. The main reason is the selection of bullets for big game is much better, and you can find heavier bullets with awesome BC's and SD's that will buck wind better (a big concern in sheep and especially goat country).

You will undoubtedly hear from people that will say you should carry a big magnum in case you run into grizzlies bears. This is definately something to consider, but is a personal choice. I prefer to carry a gun for the specific purpose at hand, rather than carry a grizzly gun for everything. Life is full of risks.

Hope this helps,
Canuck

The .25-06 is outstanding for sheep or goats. Use a good premium bullet that your gun likes.

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To be old and wise.....first you have to be young and stupid!

Mate,
have I killed some goats with a 25/06, heck 100gn Nosler Ballistic tips work great, as do Hornady 100gn Interlokt's, if you can get Barnes 115gn X's to shoot let me know as I have 150 of the things sitting in the cupboard unusable in two different guns....maybe my new Roberts will work!

Never bothered with 115-120's as the 100gn do the job really really well.

Goats are fairly resilient to poorly placed shots, their nervous system disconnects I think, and they can absorb a couple of shots before stopping.....taht said they sometimes lay down and quite too.....dumb animals both of them.

S I have shot goats only as vermin control, not as trophy hunting, and it certainly been rocket science.