REVIEWS
Death By (Quarter) Inches
The rise and fall and rise of the .25-06.
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No, it is not as powerful as the .270 Winchester; no, it is not as compact as the .250-3000; no, it does not have the long-range zapping power of the .257 Weatherby. No, no, and no.
What it does have, though, is the happy ability to be, for the average guy, just about all he needs for hunting anything in North America until he comes bumping up against something with thick fur and big teeth, at which point he should reach for a .375 H&H.
Back when the good ol’ days really were good and old, Americans adored .25-caliber rifles. The .25-20 and .25-35 each had a following (and a mystique) that led to the .250-3000, the very first genuine hot-rod cartridge, which debuted in 1915. With an 87-grain bullet that broke the 3,000 fps barrier, the .250-3000 rewrote the book on sizzle. So it was only natural that, when military bolt actions became freely available after the Great War, Michigan gunsmith A.O. Niedner (that’s "ie," folks) would neck down the .30-06 to .257 and create one of the very first ’06-based wildcats.
The .25-06 predates both the .270 Winchester, with which it is often compared unfavorably, and the .257 Roberts, a cultish cartridge I much admire but that, as even Ned Roberts would admit, cannot match the .25-06 when ranges stretch to 300 yards and you need the heaviest bullet you can throw.
As a wildcat, the .25-06 enjoyed the racy popularity of the illicit until 1969 when Remington decided to adopt it as a factory round. Almost immediately, the .25-06’s career path began to resemble that of Remington’s other legitimized wildcat, the .22-250. Suddenly, both were chambered in just about every suitable rifle imaginable, and almost as suddenly, both became old hat in the eyes of the avant garde.
I have no explanation for why this should be. The .25-06 was chambered in some pretty forgettable rifles, but then so was the .270; it was also a standard chambering in some really nice ones—Sako and Tikka come to mind. And the Remington 700 from that era set the standard for out-of-the-box accuracy. So, you tell me.
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