ImBillT
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There is no question. .280AI. There are very few good .257” bullets. There are a million good .284” bullets. That’s it.
25-06 or 280AI
- Thread starter nhenry
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VOLhunter
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I would see if you can even find the components to reload a 280AI right now. Is the 25-06 the only cartridge you reload? If so, I say stick with what you know and have great confidence in. The 25-06 is a great round, plenty for sheep, and adequate for elk with proper blah blah bla blah. The older I get, the fewer overlapping cartridges I want. Why not a 30-06? You can use the same brass, primers, and they share a lot of the same powders for the most common loadings.
ImBillT
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If you don’t want to go as big as a .280AI, go with a 6.5-06. That extra .007” diameter lets you go from a couple bullet options, to a million.
DamascusSteel
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Do both problem solved..
DamascusSteel
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Id go with the 280 gives you something a little bit bigger if you need it.. if you have something bigger then go with the 25-06
I ended up going with 25-06 because of my fondness for it, along with my reloading setup already set up for it. I’m excited for it to come in!
My bullet options are the only ones I really “need.” My favorite are the 117 gr InterLock and I’m also fond of 100 gr nosler accubonds
ImBillT
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I suppose that’s one way to look at it, but pick any 130gr 6.5mm Hunting bullet, and it will have advantages over the 117gr Interlock in .257”.
6.5mm
129gr Interlock. BC .445. SD .264
130gr Accubond BC .488. SD .266
.257”
117 Interlock. BC .243 SD .253 110gr AccuBond BC .418 SD .238
Velocity in good handloads will be be similar in spite of the 15gr increase in bullet weight due to the slight gain in efficiency from increasing the bore to 6.5mm.
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noharleyyet
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It's a great round, one of my favorites. I recently let one of the prettiest and great shooting #1's go to a close friend for easily half worth coz it made him happy and he deserved it.
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ssmusicman
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My nephew is eying my Ruger #1 in 25-06, he is going to have to pry it from my cold dead fingers someday though. Awesome antelope gun, fun for long range prairie dogs too. You should not regret the caliber choice.
noharleyyet
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It's the most elegant rifle ever produced....have had 2 quarter naughts in #1, both shot sub inch and dropped everything they pointed. Had to aquire a .257 wby to cope with letting them go.
Good luck to your nephew.
BC is just a fancy graphic I don’t look at much as I’m a hunter first and foremost; however you got the BC of the interlock wrong (you looked at the G7). Simply put, quarter bore projectiles simply work and work well. 25-06 is one of the most underrated cartridges out there
ImBillT
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It was the G1, but apparently there are two different 117gr Interlocks.
Posted are some ballistic calculations for the correct 115gr Interlock with a G1 BC of .391 and a 130gr AB with a G1 BC of .488. At 100yds, the two have almost the same kinetic energy, but by 500yds, the 130gr 6.5mm has almost 400ft*lbs more energy, has dropped 6” less(more than one MOA) has drifted 4” less in a 10mph wind and has the velocity to work properly for hundreds of yards yet. The extra 400ft*lbs of energy, and the reduced drop and drift were purely a function BC. The muzzle velocity was the same and the extra 13gr contributed only slightly to
Frankly, that InterLock may be a good close range bullet, but no only is the .391 BC a little questionable, the lead tip is going to be melted off within a couple hundred yards, and that BC will be reduced to the very low .300’s in short order.
Sure a .257” bullet can “simply work and work well”, but if you think that increasing the bore diameter by .007” ruins a bullets ability to work, you’re not thinking very hard. What that extra .007” will give you is a lot of updated bullets. Most .257” projectiles have not been updated for decades, and those that have were still designed to be fired from 10” twist barrels.
None of that is to suggest that you must have a 6.5, or that a .257” bullet won’t work. If you have a 25-06 great. If you just want one for some illogical reason, great. I want things for illogical reasons all the time. But if one is choosing between a 25-06 and a 6.5-06 based on what the two cartridges will do, the answer is clear...6.5-06.
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Oh yes, I forgot there was a bullet made for 25-35. I don’t doubt the lethality of 6.5, it’s just not my thing. I like my .257 projectiles. I haven’t even tested out Partitions and any of Barnes’ stuff because I’m content with what I’ve found. I wish that Federal sold the bullets for the 120 gr Fusions
ImBillT
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I just clicked the first one I saw. I was admittedly surprised by its profile. I like a blunt bullet for close range work. I wish the Lapua Mega was available in more diameters.
Mako
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You have chosen...wisely.
All kidding aside, as long as you like the round and are happy with your choice, enjoy. That‘s all that matters. You can still get a 280 AI later if you want.
I
I find that I have plenty of reasons that are not “illogical,” and as the cartridge has worked for my family pretty much since its conception by Niedner, I’d say they’d agree with me. Me and my father took a nice muley buck close to 400 yards a few years back with the same interlocks and it had great penetration, as we didn’t recover anything. Just my defense about it. I personally love quarter bores and the bew rifle I got has a 7.5 twist to handle more advanced bullets coming out as it gets more popular.
ImBillT
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You’ve presented zero logical arguments explaining why the performance of a 25-06 is superior to, or even equal to a 6.5-06.
When Niedner necked down the ‘06, metric bore diameters were still highly resisted in the US. Even then, PO Ackley said the 6.5-06 had an advantage over the .25-06 due to the availability of bullets from 87gr to 160gr. It’s unfortunate that the same problem continues to exists today. If a person is building new, there is NO performance based reason to choose .257” over .264”. There just isn’t. There is nostalgia. There may be a set of dies on your shelf. There may be a barrel blank in your closet, or a reamer in your tool chest. There may be a pile of .257” bullets in the corner of your man cave. None of those are logical arguments about the performance advantages of one over the other.
7.5” twist is too much. Not just for a .257”
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On paper, yes, 6.5 dashes out .257 caliber because of projectile availability, but real life is different. As stated before, 25-06 works and works well. However, since you are unhappy with my decision to choose the cartridge that I’ve been using since I started shooting and know how to load properly for, here are my exact reasons:
• factory ammunition availability is greater, if I ever run out of handloads for some god knows reason
• I know my loads and I know they work
• I have ample stash of brass and bullets to last years (not nostalgic; smart)
• I’m not a fan of 6.5 projectiles and that’s okay man. The thread was food for thought to help me choosing between my two favorite options, not what you thought was better.
• 1:7.5 actually isn’t too much, as that’s what’s required for the Black Jack high BC bullets that actually work surprisingly well, and Ron Spomer has a nice little video proving the efficiency OPPOSED to 6.5 creedmoor, where it wins. That twist also works with 100-120 gr bullets like I use and they’ve all been tight little nice groups as far as I’ve shot them out to 300 yards so far.
just for you, here is a really great performance based reason:
• it works for me and I’m sticking with it instead of going with something entirely new to me, since it is my rifle.
Whether you agree or not, there’s nothing wrong with choosing what one person is happy with. It takes game ethically and efficiently, it has enough bullet availability for my intended applications, and it has commercially available options I can pick up at the local Cooperative.
I do think that is enough reason to justify my purchase of my barrel
