Soon I may take possession of a rifle built on a Hoch action and chambered for the 25 hornet.   I would like to hear from anyone that has experience with the cartridge.

That is very interesting, thank you.

I kinda lucked out.   My 44 1/2 is a CF action that someone screwed a hefty Stevens 25RF barrel onto.  Only needed a proper extractor and was ready to go.   The cases are made of PPU Hornet brass.  Turn the webs, swage down the bodies, trim, then turn the necks to desired thickness. This leaves an inside shoulder to seat the bullets against, making them easy to load.

It had a nice, zig-zag pattern of scope-mount holes down the top of the barrel and action.  Filled those and mounted an old 4x small-game scope on it.  From the first time out, it gave the impression that it would seldom miss a nickel at 50 yd.  It is a full-size rifle, and a real dandy!

Started with 3-4 gr of Blue Dot, but on recommendation of LEE GIBBS, went to heavier charges of AA9, which shot even better.   I see no use of trying to get higher velocities than about 1400 fps, which is great for plinking, squirrels, or even some target competition.  I have almost the same rifle in 25SS, but have come to prefer the 25 Hornet.

CHRIS

bullshop wrote on Jan 23^rd, 2023 at 2:14pm:



My particular barrel is over .256 by a touch. And I can't quite remember but I think  my twist is closer to 15.

I have two remington rolling blocks in .25 rimfire (.25 Stevens). They have .257" and .258" groove diameters.

I have something over half a dozen original .25 rimfires, starting with an 1892 sideplate Favorite and ending with a 1938 Model 83. NONE of them have .251 bores.  ALL of them slug between .256 and .258, (for the worn ones).   Principle stumbling block to centerfire conversion is that the rimfire barrels are 17 inch twist, limiting the bullet length.   65 grain and flat-nose 74 grain bullets work fine. 

An old Ideal handbook says Remington .25-10 barrels were 16 inch twist.

Ah, wasn't this started for info on the .25 Hornet?

I was hoping that it might, eventually, get around to that.

FWIW, my .25 rimfire Remingtons are 1-16 twist. They shoot the 72gr Arsenal 257420 bullet just fine out to 50 yards (that's as far as I've tried).  They stabilize fine, delivering nice round holes.

BTW only thing I know about 25 Hornet is that deHaas claimed that he didn't get good results from it. But I'm pretty sure he was using metal patch bullets.

ndnchf wrote on Jan 24^th, 2023 at 2:08pm:

Are you shooting that bullet with or without gas checks.  We did an informal study documented on our forum about using gas check type bullets without gas checks.  What we found was that when velocity was held below 1500 fps or maybe not much over 1400 fps that those bullets grouped better without the gas checks.  Once velocity reached about 1500 fps accuracy went south without the gas check.

Today was a busy day filling bullets orders, making lube, and draining the water heater tank I have to replace.  There was no time for casting today so I am still ignorant about what dimensions will be from the bullets cast with the supplied mold.  I did however shoot the rifle.  It was a very quick  (I was afraid of getting caught) informal test.  I mounted an old El Paso Weaver steel tube K-10.  I like those old K-10's for the long tube.  I ran both adjusters to about center of adjustment range. I had four cartridges loaded with 2 grain of Trail Boss and the NOE 63gn PB.   I rested over a pile of garbage that was in the PU bound for the dump.  A large cardboard box at about 30 yards with about an inch black square was the target.  The ammo had to be neck sized in a .269" sizer to chamber freely. The first shot was a couple inches low and right a good sign for having turrets at near center of adjustments.  A quick adjustment put the next three shots in about a 35 caliber hole. That seems really encouraging to me.  Now that I have that HAVE TO SHOOT IT thingy out of the way and since tomorrow is one of my two days per week off I hope to get some bullets cast with the mold that the gun is intended to shoot and load them the way they are intended to be loaded. The prey has been spotted and the chase begun!

I think you should try that 40 rod bullet you have. Might surprise you. 

It’s one I’ve thought about, but never got around to ordering

Today Wednesday was my day off but I still had domestic chores. I had to install a new water heater after emptying and removing the old one. Got that done and BS Mom is enjoying a hot shower as I type. It did cut into my free time but I did manage to get a couple hundred bullets cast for the 25 hornet. With a BHN-9 alloy the tapered spitzer bullets weigh 122 grain. At first the mold was not venting well causing bullet bases to be less than perfect. I shut down for a bit and filed a bevel at the top parting line and from then on bases were well filled with clean sharp edges, perfect. For this project anything less than perfect is unacceptable.
I was probably right about the twist being 1/10" because this bullet at 122 grain is pretty long. When I got the rifle there was some charged primed brass but because of how it was loaded I decided to break them down and just use the primed brass. What I didnt like about it was there was a Styrofoam disc tamped down on the powder leaving nearly half the case length empty so a good jump from the disc location to the bullet base. That is precisely the recipe for a bulged chamber which I think may have already started because case extraction from the chamber is harder than it should be. I will have to live with that but I wont allow it to progress further. I may be wrong but it is possible or it could just be a quirk of the gun or case length or something because its all new to me but time will tell.
So anyway I weighed the powder charges that were in the charged cases and they held 7.7 grain of what looks like AA#9. I compared several other similar type powders but AA#9 was the best match. I lubed up some of the bullets with Lotak and after I figured out the breach seater started out loading three rounds with 5 grain of AA#9. At 100 yards the group was perfectly vertical at about 2.5" top to bottom. One of the fired cases collapsed at the mouth I believe indicating insufficent chamber pressure. The next three were with 6gn AA#9 and the POI cam up a couple inches and was round at about an inch or slightly. Another case collapsed at the mouth so pressure is still too low at 6gn. That was the end of daylight for today but I already have four rounds charged with 7gn AA#9 for tomorrow if I can sneak out there between casting sessions. By all indications this thing is going to shoot really well once I get the load dialed in.
The gun is quite heave with a large fat but fairly short barrel. With all the weight recoil is about zero and the target stays in the field of view in the scope. Thats a big help when shooting small pest varmints to be able to spot your shots in the scope. This is certainly not a field piece but once it is set up near a dog town or gopher village anything that pops up within a couple hundred yards will be in a world of hurt.
I have a whole bunch of powders with similar burn rate to AA#9 that in time I hope to try. Two new ones that we just got are AA 11-FS and TCM. Those and a few older similar powders should keep me busy for quite some time.
Another nice plus with this rifle is the very low noise level. The small charges of fairly fast powders are consumed well within the rifle barrel length.
One other observation I wanted to mention is about the Hoch action itself and that is that it is big!!! If its robust size is an indicator of it strength then I would say it a tank. Its it big but also precision made and snuggling up to the beast instills confidence something needed to win matches.

i acquired a Hoch in 25 Hornet a while back and it is working pretty good. Have not worked with it much but it seems to like H108 (WC820) 8.4 gr with a 120 Mos,SPG,7 1/2 primers. easy to fireform. like Joe said it doesn't eat much.

10 twist. My first BRC barrel. Used bpjacks load and it seems to be working. Snuck up on it starting with 8.2 grains. Went to 9 and the groups really shrunk. Hey, that was to easy! 

mine is 1-10 also, Douglas premium barrel.

I found a better group from the same time frame.

Like you said I am cheating by having a RKS barrel. I sent Ron Smith a letter today with a photo of the rifle like it was with Bob Z’s forearm to see if Ron remembers it.

Bob definitely rested it on that slab forend since he had a layer of packing tape on it to make it slide better.

I figure that it being as ugly as it was helped me get it from Ron Heilman.  He probably would have put it on Gun Broker if it was nicer looking.

eBay will be your friend for one of those.  I will save a search for Stevens stock and let you know if I find any since I check eBay daily.

Can shoot perty small groups until I try to get them in the 25 ring.

Thanks Dave. My rifle is an original 44 1/2 with a CPA lever and triggers. Rough, looks bad, shoots good.