Scott,

  I did quite a bit of shooting with the .25 Hornet a few years back.

  It's the .22 Hornet case blown out to .25 cal. as you might have guessed.

  The only info I ever found....... admittedly I didn't look all that hard..... is in one of Ackley's  two vol. set of "Handbook for Shooters and Reloaders". Page 327 Vol. I.

  It's strictly a wildcat cartridge so you'd be pretty well on your own outside of Ackley's work. Not really an awful lot there. The only powder listed is for IMR 2400. with 8 & 11 gr. loads for the 60 gr. bullet, 6 & 10 grs. for the 86 grainer. MV's run from 1525 fps to 2035 for the 60 gr. & 955 to 1675 fps for the 86 gr., using the standard 1-16" twist.

  The case has a very shallow neck, similar to the .32/20, which makes it almost a straight case. Ackley says that a load of 12.0 grs. of 2400 and the 67 gr. bullet will give a MV of 2000 fps with very low pressures making it suitable for weak actions such as the Ballard.

  Never did any hunting with it, but it's more than accurate enuf for animals as small as head shots on Squirrels out to 100 yds. or so with hard cast bullets. I had mine set up on a Win. Low Wall. It's kind of my switch barrel gun, thus the "had". 

  If I can be of any other help let me know!

PETE

I have a friend who has a .22 K Hornet and had good results with lil' gun powder. How would this work? 

Scott

Little cases and big bullets (over 100 grains) can get you into trouble if the powder dispensing is not carefully done.
Pressure can spike very quickly.  I am talking .1 or  .2 tenths of a grain. Personal experience with a .25 Hornet.
mes

Ken, 

At your leisure sir. No rush, I know you're a busy man. We're in no hurry.

The Hepburn seater should be self explanatory but if you have any questions let me know. 

Have a fabulous day my friend!

God Bless!
Scott

Scott,

  Well, I'll fill you in on what I feel comfortable giving you. This is not meant as a slam on you, it's just I don't like giving out load data, especially for wildcat cartridges.

  What I was trying to do was see if I could get a .25 cal. set up something like the .32 Miller. A small case that would shoot a heavy bullet and a case full of powder.

  So, I set the gun up with a 1-10" twist, and had NEI make a custom GC bullet weighing 110 grs. Not sure what their current number is but I have it listed in an old catalog as #20. Worked real well, but then decided I wanted to use it in ASSRA competition so had the GC machined out, ending up with a bullet wgt. of about 117 grs.

  With that bullet I found that MV's in the 1250 to 1325 fps range gave the best accuracy, 1270 fps gives around 3/4" at 100 yds. and 1315 gives right at an inch. With this wgt. bullet, twist, and case I wasn't able to get BP to work at all well. Bullets tipped quite a bit at 100 & 200 yds. I'm not even sure if you used lighter bullets that you would get exceptable accuracy. The .25 Hornet is basically a smokeless powder cartridge.

  Later the barrel was chambered out to .25/20SS and with the 117 gr. bullet it would show serious tipping at 200 yds. with BP.  An original Ideal mould 257222 (90 grs) worked well enuf for Squirrel hunting at normal distances, but would tip slightly at 100 yds. with accuracy there and at 200 yds. not anything to write home about. With smokeless it shoots very well.

  The capacity for both cases when using BP is just not designed for any bullets over 75 to 80 grs. The .25 Hornet case just isn't designed for BP at all. But, the .22 Hornet is bascially a slightly re-designed .22 WCF case that held 15 grs. of BP and is very similar to the .22/15/60 cartridge. This makes a real dynamite Squiirrel caliber.

  If you do want to use BP in a .25 cal. then I would recommend the .25/20SS or .25/21 case and no more than a 1-12" twist and that you stay with 75 or 80 gr. bullets.

PETE