I have a neighbor kid about 13 that is very interested in guns. He has his great grandfather's rifle.His parents are non gun persons. He brought it over and asked me about it. It is a Rossi if I remember correctly. It is a pump and chambered for the 25 Rem. Any body know anything about this cartridge or rifle? Is ammo still made for it? It looks to be in pretty good shape. Could make a light deer hunting rifle maybe. It would be nice for him to be able to hunt with his greatgrandfather's rifle some day. Thanks, "D"

These people appear to have both ammo and cases.

http://www.qual-cart.com/25_Rem.htm

I've never done business with them personally. As far as ballistics go, I belive that it's about the same or slightly less powerful than the .25/35 Winchester. Essentially, it's a short range deer and varmint gun.

Good luck

While not ideal, the 25 Remington will go deer hunting and do the job. The 25-20 has done it and the 25 Rem is a whole lot more.

I'm unaware of Rossi chambering any .25 Remingtons. Remington chambered its Model 14 pump in .25 Remington. The cartridge is essentially a rimless .25-35 and shares the same basic reloading data and factory ballistics. Curiously, a shortened .25 Remington case is the basis for the new 6.8mm cartridge (a .270 on a shortened .25 Remington case nominally shooting a 110 grain bullet).

The .25 Remington is difficult to find loaded ammunition for. I have one that I load for, mostly using necked down .30 Remington brass (same basic case). It is in the same general class as a .243 for deer when loaded with modern bullets and powders. The old-timers seem to have had good luck, however, with the 117 grain round nose at only 2300 fps. My father-in-law, whose own father-in-law originally owned the gun, had no problem collecting whatever deer he shot with the little gun.

Incidentally, the Rem Model 14 has a tubular magazine with a clever helical offset crimped into the magazine tube that keeps the point of one cartridge from contacting the primer of the one in front of it, thus allowing the use of spitzers in a tubular magazine. Now, why don't nobody else do that? With conventional lead tipped spitzers you would get some nose deformation, but many of today's popular and extremely effective polymer-tipped bullets seem ready-made for the old Remington patent magazine tube.

Now, be sure that your gun in question is not a Rossi reproduction in .25-20 -- that's an entirely different story and not nearly so dependable for deer as the larger .25 Remington.

Seems to be a pretty nice gun. Seems well made. Nothing about it looks cheap or made out of inexpensive light weight metal. It has very little in the way of inscription on it. It definitely says "25 REM" on the barrel. I will see what else I can find out about it.

The only pump action rifles that I am aware of being offered in 25 Remington were the Remington 14 and the Standard. Remington also offered it in the 8 semi-auto and 30 bolt action. Stevens offered it in the 425 lever action, but only made a few of them because of pattern issues with Marlin(?).

The best article on the 25 Remington that I have seen was by Ken Waters in his Pet Loads article in Rifle/Handloader and the compilation of those articles.

The 25 Remington is, for all intents and purposes, a rimless version of the 25-35. I believe that the ammunition was discontinued after WW2, so any original factory ammo would be both old and collectable. I might still have a set of RCBS 25 Remington dies around that I could loan to you if you would be interested in loading some ammo for your young neighbor.

Jeff

The .25 Remington is long dead. I had 5 boxes of original .25 Rem ammo I purchased out of an estate in 1974, and I just sold it to another enthusiast in August after finally giving up on finding a suitable rifle. Those shells are becoming extremely rare.

LLS

quote:

Originally posted by sierra2:
The .25 Remington is long dead. . . . . Those shells are becoming extremely rare.

LLS

True, but why is that a big issue on a forum called "Accurate Reloading"?

quote:

Originally posted by Stonecreek:

True, but why is that a big issue on a forum called "Accurate Reloading"?

While in no conflict with the latter part of the sites name it maybe stretching things a little to achieve the former with a pump 25rem?

A little known, but interesting, piece of trivia related to the 25 Remington cartridge is that is was used in a modified Remington 8 semi-auto rifle as the U.S. Army test vehicle for the "semi-auto rifle as an infantry weapon system" concept tests in the 1920s. Based, at least in part on this test, the U.S. Army concluded that a semi-automatic rifle would be a useful combat infantry weapon. So the 25 Remington in Remington 8 broke trail for the 30-06 and Garand that served the U.S. forces so well in WW2 and Korea. Think how much easier the logistics would have been for the Allies in WW2 and the UN in Korea is they had adopted the 30-06 cartridge with the Garand as the MBR and the Bren as the SAW.

It looks as though we have come nearly full circle, as the cartridge sequence was (IIRC):

25 Rem to 275 Pederson to 30-06 to 308 to 223 to 6.8 SPC. If you look at the performance specs, the 25 Rem and 6.8 SPC are almost the same with 115+/- grain bullets.

Jeff

quote:

Originally posted by 1894mk2:

quote:

Originally posted by Stonecreek:

True, but why is that a big issue on a forum called "Accurate Reloading"?

While in no conflict with the latter part of the sites name it maybe stretching things a little to achieve the former with a pump 25rem?

Adam: You'd be surprised! My Model 14, which is equipped with an original Lyman Alaskan 2.5X scope, does 1.5" groups at 100 yards with regularity (and I can't see any better than that through a 2.5X scope, so its real potential may be even better!) Not bad for an obsolete rifle. I use a 90 grain Sierra HPBT propelled at 2900 fps with a charge of IMR 3031. I bought 100 .30 Rem cases from Midway several years ago and didn't lose a single one in necking them down.

260remguy: Interesting observations. I think that the 6.8 is about what all of the previous U.S. military rounds for assault rifles should have been: Short, modest recoil, good velocity, and ample power. Funny how it took a hundred years to make the circle!

I had a model 30s Remington in 25 Rem. and the first load shot a 5 shot group of .397 in.
accurate yes.

Little off topic, but I feel the 6.5 Grendel is way better then the 6.8 Rem. It beats it in all respects. The only reason the 6.8 is ahead, in my opinion, is because the big name company of Remington is behind it.

Thanks to all. I will pass this info along. I will look the rifle over again and see if I can get some more details. Good hunting. The season is upon us!! "D"

It is apparently a model 14 Remington. I think it says mod 141. It sure seems to be in good shape. Thanks again for the replies. "D"

I don't think that the 25 Remington cartridge survived the transition from the 14 to 141 configuration upgrade in 1935/36. If it is a 141, rather than a 14, it would be a very rare configuration I believe.

Jeff

quote:

Originally posted by 260remguy:
I don't think that the 25 Remington cartridge survived the transition from the 14 to 141 configuration upgrade in 1935/36. If it is a 141, rather than a 14, it would be a very rare configuration I believe.

Jeff

That was also my understanding. I was unaware of any 141's being chambered for .25 Remington, only the predecessor Model 14. If it is a 141 (and why else would "D" reference "141"?) it would be a rare bird.