25-06 - Medium weight bullet - this is what I'm doing.

[flashhole]

I had this on another forum and thought it is appropriate here too.

I'm finally tooled up to load 25-06. At the end of the month I have to get to the range and shoot my factory ammo to reload the fire-formed cases. I have a dummy load made up to use as a seating guide that is .010" off the lands.

I picked up a box of Speer 87 grain TNT hollow points. I haven't had much luck in the accuracy department with light-weight plastic-tipped bullets so I tend to stay the conventional route on bullet selection. I'm a Hodgdon powder fan and I'm thinking this will be my first combination of components for load development.

Speer 87 grain HP TNT bullet
CCI 200 primer
Hodgdon H-1000 powder - 62.0 grains is the listed max load at a published pressure of 43,700 cup. That's 15% average lower pressure than the other Hodgdon powders listed in the Hodgdon manual for this bullet and a full 18% lower than the SAMMI max pressure of 53,000 cup. So there is some head room to work with and I strongly believe you can't be too safe. I will start around 60 grains and work up in half grain increments. I find I get my most accurte ammo with a lightly compressed powder load and I find one (or more) for each of the cartridges I handload. My #1V has a 24" barrel so I figure I will end up right around 3300 - 3400 fps with the finished load. That's plenty of speed with this medium-weight-for-cartridge bullet to vaporize a rodent.

I picked this particular bullet for my first load because of the good balance of pressure and velocity as listed in the Hodgdon manual. All else equal (looking at speeds of within +200 fps and similar bullet weights), I will generally select the load path with the lowest pressure rating. This selection method works for me and I have developed some highly accurate kick butt loads for my other guns. There is always the possibility that the gun won't like the bullet and/or powder combination but I've been more successful with Hodgdon powder than any other manufacturer and Speer makes good quality bullets.

On the heavier side I'm seriously considering the Speer 115 grain Trophy Bonded Bear Claw but I need to see the pressure data before taking the leap.

It will take awhile but I'll let you know how I make out.