Dellet wrote on Jan 1^st, 2023 at 6:58pm:


It seems you are right - someone has had a reamer in it    Using a telescoping gauge and micrometer. I took 5 measurements of the chamber just ahead of the rim. They averaged out to .3494".     The shoulder starts about .950" from the breech face.

ndnchf wrote on Jan 1^st, 2023 at 7:24pm:

That sucks. Sounds like 25-20 win.

There’s not much out there with a .345-350” base and 2.5” long. If there was, people would make 28-30 or 32 Ideal out of it.

A 28-30 case necked down to 25 with a 1.5” neck would be a conversation starter for sure.

Any chance the barrels been shortened?
It the chamber was shortened it might not be so bad. The neck wouldn’t be so long.

Thinking about this, I wonder if that brass case neck was put there intentionally to act as a bore sleeve for the shorter .25-20 WCF. Kind of a tunnel to guide to bullet to the chamber mouth. The rear edge of the case neck looks a bit eroded, as if the rifle has been shot with it in place. Hmmmm

I'm going to whole-heartedly agree with Bent Ramrod, I went through all the steps to make these different pieces of brass - the 25-20SS can be and usually is a very accurate cartridge and not terrible to make.  The 25-21SS is worth 100 gray hairs harder to make - yet I've found in the right action - just as accurate.  But the 25-25SS was a logarithmic function harder to make (caused loss of the gray hairs by pulling) and I never found its accuracy approaching either of the previous cartridges.   
Split cases became prevalent when I approached the 25-21 loads in the 25-25.  Just as accuracy looked like it might improve.  Attached a photo of a 25-21 that split along with a 25-25 that split.  My notes say it had 18 loadings with the 21 before this incident.  The one next to it on the right - the 25-25 had 3 loadings which became the norm for case splitting. 
Steve, I dabbled in soldering tubing to Hornet cases in the beginning but loads and pressure advice was keep it low - my results were always dismal accuracy - black, duplex, smokeless- nearly a dozen bullet configurations.   

I had some armchair cartridge advisors along with some very knowledgeable experts tell me all about chamber specs, annealing, and processes that would improve results, but you have to be in the mix to fully understand.  I have a couple of rifle builds that I tabled until I have more time for this.   
I may have shared these photos in another post once upon a time.   There's one with a real small sampling of the the carnage, another of the nibbing process I've found that works the best.
I'm hoping maybe you'll go down this path and shed some light?  I'm giving you a nudge...
Greg

Another option would be to purchase some turned brass cases. 
If you would like to go down that route I would highly recommend you sending them a chamber cast. 
If not you do run the risk of loosing cases due to improper chamber fit. 
I believe it is or was recommended for one to do so on the Rocky Mountain Cartridge site. 
This I have also learned from experience as I destroyed three 32-40 turned caes in a row with only one shot each. 
When I still had my 25-21 I had several turned cases of the proper fit and I never lost a single one of them during that time.

Steve I have been watching that rifle for the past couple of chantilly shows but passed on it because of the chamber and price . I think someone ran a .25-20 wcf chamber reamer into it as it will almost completely close on a .25-20 case. My plan for it if I could have gotten it for a realistic price was to send it to JES and get it rebored to .32-20

Yes Jess does 32-20 with the correct.312" bore he told me he put it on the list because of all the 25-20's with trashed bores. He did have to raise his price this year to 300 or 275 for barreled actions.

1Hawkeye wrote on Jan 2^nd, 2023 at 1:31pm:


I'll call him again, it's still not on.his list via his page updated 10/2022

thx for the info.