The .25-25 Stevens is an American centerfire rifle cartridge developed for and manufactured by the J. Stevens Arms & Tool Company as their first straight-cased cartridge.
It would be used in the Stevens Model 44 and Model 44½ rifles, which went on sale in 1903, in addition to the Remington-Hepburn target rifle.
It was distinguished for having a "freakish" appearance, due to its length-to-diameter ratio, which made it look skinny when compared to rifle cartridges of similar length.[1]
A popular round, it was initially a black powder cartridge, but due to excessive fouling, the propellant was switched to smokeless powder. However, this only made things worse. To get around this, handloaders would use a mix of 3 to 5 grains (0.19 to 32 grams) of bulk shotgun powder and 18 to 20 grains (1.2 to 1.3 grams) of black powder with projectiles weighing from 60 to 86 grains (3.9 to 5.6 grams).
In addition, the shorter, bottlenecked .25-21 Stevens cartridge offered similar performance and ballistics with its usual 20 to 21 grain (1.30 to 1.36 grams) load of black powder, but it had also suffered less fouling than the .25-25.
External Links[]
- Wikipedia article
- .25-25 Stevens at Municion.org (Spanish, old site)
- Shooter's Forum thread on .25-25 Stevens