25-06 Project

[YoteSmoker]

It's freezing and snowing here today and I'm home playing hookie. I picked up a sporterized Springfield 03-a3 recently that has seen better days. It has some goodies though and I'm in the middle of restoring the stock and metal. It has a nicely tuned Timney trigger and a 24" douglas barrel. The bolt has been jeweled and has a beuler safety on the right side. The stock has been glass bedded. I had to do a little shimming to the scope base to get it where it needed to be. What would we do without aluminum cans and plastic milk jugs? I snapped a couple pictures of the work in progress with my crappy camera phone. The stock is on its 3 coat of tru-oil and I've started to work on sanding down the bottom metal to be re-blued. Probably need to add the sling studs soon before it gets close to the end. I've refinished a few rifles that have come out pretty decent but I thought it might be fun to add pictures and details from semi-started to finished here and ultimately some range results. So here goes:

 

[DrMike]

This looks like a fun project. You're certainly off to a great start.

 

[JD338]

Yote,

Congratulations on the rifle and moving forward on a total make over. The stock looks beautiful with a lot of character to it. Looking forward to seeing a finished photo.

JD338

 

[Guy Miner]

I like this project! This looks good. The wood on that one is beautiful, and the action is classic.

 

[FOTIS]

update? :mrgreen:

 

[YoteSmoker]

Well, the stock work is complete. I finished the wood out with 5 coats of Tru-Oil and about the same amount of wax. The sling studs have been mounted along with my favorite leather sling. I puchased the 4-16 4200 from a member here. It is mounted just to get an idea for now how it will look. The metal work and bluing still needs to be accomplished and load work as well. I have been a bit sidetracked lately with getting ready to get in some night time predator hunting in. The last picture shows some of the gear I've gotten together and assembled. Looking forward to getting out the next two weekends to hunt some bobcat, fox, and coyotes so it may be a while until I get back on track with this project because furbearers go out the end of the month.

 

[JD338]

Yote,

The 25-06 looks great! Can't wait to see it finished.

JD338

 

[SJB358]

The 25-06 looks excellent. Can't wait to see how it looks when it is finished! Looks like a great rifle. Scotty

 

[DrMike]

The rifle is looking very handsome indeed!

 

[YoteSmoker]

Thanks guys! I can't take it anymore-starting to work up some test loads now. It should shoot pretty metal or not, at least to see what it'll do.... Gonna start out with 110 AccuBond and 100 TTSX both bullets using RL-22, H4831SC, and IMR4350 for the preliminary test run. Well, back to the bench...

 

[Guy Miner]

Seems like you've got a loading plan, and a great rifle to try those loads from!

 

[YoteSmoker]

Finally made it out to the range today with this rifle. I tried test loads of both the 110 AccuBond and 100 TTSX. In my first round of tests, it appears 55.0 RL-22 combined with the 100 TTSX is the pick of the litter with a 3/4" group. The Barnes manual says it should be pushing close to 3300 FPS but I will need to chronograph next time out and also try experimenting with the bullet seating a little. The metal on the gun still needs to be sanded and re-blued but at least I was able to get some trigger time in for now.

 

[DrMike]

This sounds very promising. A great project with a great cartridge.

 

[SJB358]

Sounds pretty good! Can't wait to get my new 25-06. What a joy it is to shoot from the bench compared to a few of my others. Scotty

 

[YoteSmoker]

The recoil certainly isn't bad but it is a bit more "snappy" than I antipicated in this medium weight stock. The barrel got hot pretty fast and slowed me down quite a bit waiting for it to cool between rounds. It sure seems to have a little snot behind it. I ran some ballistic tables on the bullet and projected speed. Looks pretty good with a 300 yard zero it would be 3" high at 100 and only 9.5" low at 400 yards with around 1200 ft/lbs left if I remember correctly.

 

[JD338]

The recoil certainly isn't bad but it is a bit more "snappy" than I antipicated in this medium weight stock. The barrel got hot pretty fast and slowed me down quite a bit waiting for it to cool between rounds. It sure seems to have a little snot behind it. I ran some ballistic tables on the bullet and projected speed. Looks pretty good with a 300 yard zero it would be 3" high at 100 and only 9.5" low at 400 yards with around 1200 ft/lbs left if I remember correctly.

Exactly the reason why the 25-06 is a fantastic round for deer and antelope at long range.
Nice shooting first time out. I would think you could get her to do even better with some load tinkering.

Way to go yote.

JD338

 

[YoteSmoker]

Well, I don't have any current updates on this project as I am now deployed to the sandbox for the next 6 months. Will get back just in time for elk/deer season, so this project is on hold until December. The metal pollishing and bluing remain unfinished until then. At least I was able to get a load to work with and the stock refinished. I put a 2.5-10x50 4200 on it but I think I may swap that over to my wife's 7mm08 because that should be just about perfect.