Reading great things from Ackley and Paco Kelly using the .25-35 AI has me interested.

If I understand it right a lever action in .25 caliber that equals the .250 Savage and .257 Roberts and can be made from any existing Marlin 336 in .30-30 with just a rebarrel and reamed for the AI version??!

Sounds like a real coyote, whitetail and antelope round plus just lots of fun to shoot!!

What do you think???

P.O. Ackley was pretty straight-forward and honest with his claims for his Ackley Improved line of cartridges, but he mentioned a few kinks with this one that kind of stray from the path of the A/I genre.

The standard 25-35 case doesn't fire-form very well in the A/I chamber. This is per Ackley his very own self--he stated that post-war brass wasn't as able to flare the shoulder upon firing, and suggested re-forming 30-30 cases with a die set to obtain cases.

I wrestled with the "standard vs. A/I" question for a few months, intending to build one or the other on a Marlin 336 receiver I still have laying around. While this went on, a Win 94 flatband in 25-35 came along, resolving that question for me.

I got to crunching the numbers with the Hornady 117 grain RN.....2300 FPS is easy to do with the standard 25-35, and adding 300 FPS to its standard velocity--which may be a reach--didn't flatten its trajectory enough to make the A/I conversion worthwhile. I already had a 250 Savage, so 100 grainers at 2800 FPS was already a part of the picture without the cartridge cse gymnastics.

My thoughts--if you're going to do a 25 caliber A/I, I would do the 257 Roberts. It's usually a bolt rifle, so spitzers aren't the problem they are in lever rifles. Since the 25-06 became factory available, these stretched and beefed 25's are kind of an esoteric kink more than a viable option. Also--velocity isn't everything--the 25-35 and its long, skinny bullet acts a lot like the 160 grainers in the 6.5 x 54 Mannlicher. It's pretty easy to make a core-and-jacket bullet behave nicely after impact when terminal velocities are in the 30-30 ballpark, which is why these otherwise obsolescent calibers remain so popular, in my opinion.

Deputy Al,

Thanks for the response......I love the Marlin levers and to a slightly lesser degree the Winchester levers. But all levers better than anything else.

So I was thinking of building a .25 in a 24" barrel in one of those. I like a 24" and longer barrel in a lever but today everyone else seems to love 20" and shorter.

I have looked at the Savage 99 in .250 but anything in decent shape in my neck of the woods is in the $750 dollar and higher range. I've even thought of the Roberts in a BLR but they are scarce!

Another reason for the AI version is I just read a post where a gunsmith shot AI versions in just a barrel and had zero backthrust. The regular rounds when fired, the cases shot out the back at 2000 fps. per second. That sounded like a good way to go with the lockup for the bolts in levers.

But just a straight .25-35 may be just what I need. Fun to think about!!

[ 12-02-2003, 02:07: Message edited by: Henry McCann ]

Henry--

Even the factory 25-35 rifles are a tough find nowadays--I looked pretty intensely for about 5 years before finding an acceptable example, and I was all ready to have one made on the 336 action.

My 250 Savage is indeed a M-99, and its a delight.

That backthrust question is an interesting one, and Ackley spoke of the issue at some length in his books and in the articles he published in the mainstream gun press prior to his death. I am not into wildcat calibers at all, but Ackley's chamber modifications have always seemed like a very practical, common-sense approach to the issues of both boltface backthrust AND headspace control/case life. That these mods also improved velocities and could in a pinch enable use of factory cartridges was just frosting on the cake.

The 25-35 IS a fine cartridge in its stock configuration. That 2300 FPS/117 RN result came in the 94's 20" barrel, and the rifle shoots at least as well as I can with its open irons--1.25" at 100 yards consistently. Not bad for a rattly old lever gun!

Deputy Al,

I have read Ackley, but this was a gunsmith on one of the other forums (Beartooth I think), that did backthrust tests that confirmed Ackleys ideas.

I'm jealous of your 99 in .250.

Thanks for your comments!