how did stevens mark the bbl for the 25/20 wcf?

ok, the old memory maybe worse than I thought. will a 25/20 wcf reamer clean up a 25/20 ss chamber?

thanks for all the help. you guys are just great !!!

waterman wrote on May 7^th, 2017 at 5:02pm:


Can't believe they did, with three proprietary .25s of their own to promote.  But that .25-20 mis-marking is beyond careless! Would be mighty upsetting to buy such a gun at a show, then later find you'd bought an all but unusable RF.

My .25-20 Stevens with the .25 rimfire barrel marked 25-20  has the usual Stevens serial numbers on barrel and action.  Both are the same.  The rifle is chambered for .25-20 Single Shot.  They jammed the reamer into a .25 rimfire barrel, 17" twist.  Oddly, it shoots pretty well with 77 and 86-87 grain bullets, but so far my trials of 60 grain bullets have been disappointing.  100 grain bullets tumble.

I got a low wall with an 87,xxx s/n with a 23 and 1/8th barrel on it where the 25-2... disappears under the receiver ring.  Has a guy named Neidner's name stamped on the barrel.  Suppose you would have to do the same, but I hear he was good at such stuff.  Or do what I do with my Hopkins & Allen and Stevens - reload 25-20SS and have fun with it.  25-20 WCF came out for the '92 Win, but a couple of years later.
James

scharfe wrote on May 10^th, 2017 at 10:39am:


Both were masters of their craft.

i'm wondering  too. too scared to ask first though. still have my shares in the Brooklyn Bridge, they maybe worth something someday.

I had at one time a set of belding and mull reloading tools for the 25 niedner. I bought them thinking they for the 25/06. they were marked 25 neidner and were for a cartridge based on the 30/40. the chamber on my 25/06 niedner mauser was chambered tight. I finally neck turned the cases and shortened the necks to minimum dimensions. rounds I used all summer and fall failed to chamber in sub 30 degree weather. the buck that passed my stand that embarrassing morning got hit with a snow ball instead of a bullet.

I sit on a stand morning and evening usually on the edge of a field, just inside the wood line. in between I still hunt (still hunting is a form of stalking / woods loafing). the niedner / mauser begged me to go that day and that's the story.

calledflyer wrote on May 11^th, 2017 at 4:53pm:


Wait till you pass through Texas.  (Where you don't need trees, only structural steel.)

If you shoot straight down the valley in Nevada your bullets will stop for lunch and water before they hit a tree.

I bought a ballard a few months ago, said 25-20 on it assumed it would be a 25-20 WCF. my assumption was wrong... it was a 32-20 relined for a  25-20SS-after doing a chamber cast- picked up another of the same caliber in a Stevens 44.  In the mean time, jumping the gun a little,  I'd ordered a liner and reamer (WCF) for the Ballard because description stated the bore was "rough".   Both of these shoot remarkably well, "rough" and all, I'm leaving them both as is.  Used the liner in a '92 Win and cut the chamber in that for the WCF, maybe it's just that it's not a single shot, I feel the WCF isn't quite what the SS is - the brass for the SS is readily available, the WCF, not so much.

About the trees - I was told when I moved to Wyoming (from southern Montana) there was a pretty girl behind every tree, I had to look for quite a while... and to hunt from a tree here? heck, we'd have to brace it up to support a tree stand. 
G

About 20 years ago I got a fairly plain high wall marked 25-20 WCF.  Oddly enough, it's actually chambered in 25-20 SS and won't chamber the WCF round.  Back in the '90s it was common to ream out a SS chamber to WCF since at the time WCF brass was much more easily found.  It always pays to check your chamber for what it actually is!  BTW, although you can ream a SS chamber to accept the WCF, going the other way requires setting back the barrel and a whole new chamber.  Will a SS chamber reamed to WCF still shoot OK with SS?  I doubt it... those high priced cases would probably blow out at the base. 

Froggie

Green_Frog wrote on Jul 13^th, 2017 at 8:27am:


Actually it's not odd for any Win. SS made before about 1894 or so, when Win. decided to call their new necked-down .32-20 case .25 WCF.  Only then did they begin using the .25-20 SS designation for new guns made for that chambering.