Favorite .257 varmint bullet

[Skunce]

What have you found to be the best .257 cal bullets for prairie dogs and rock chucks? Will be shooting a 25-06 at long range. Is there anything explosive with a better BC than the 75 grain Vmax or 85 grain BT? Do any of the custom bullet makers have anything?

 

[7stwhunter]

i would try any of the lighter berger bullets they run from 72gr to 115. i would try either the 72's or the 82's

 

[Austin]

well just a 115 nosler BT will just flat cook along and make a coyote do back flips,and their accurate,but on rock chucks its not very explosive.but if you shoot a 75 vmax,87 TNT,100gr speer hp,or a 80-85-100gr NBT you will see airborn critters.

 

[weshowe]

Gents,

I just ordered 400 JLK 108 grain VLD's for my Custom Ruger #1V 25/06. Cheap they ain't. JLK is going to make the run when they get enough orders. He said he only does about 1 or 2 runs of 25 cal bullets each year.

Wes

 

[2506]

87 gr Sierra have worked very well for me. They will scatter a ground hog all over the place.

 

[Preacher]

First choice in my 257 JDJ is the 85 gr Ballistic tip, the 95 gr Berger rules in my 25/284
when you need to reach out a ways...

 

[Posit]

I use 100g Noslers in my 25-06 because I have an extremely accurate load with it. At the 350- 550 yards I shoot, accuracy is more important than explosiveness... especially on little critters like groundhogs,woodchucks). I did, however, plant a groundhog,woodchuck) in a tree 6 feet off the ground and 10 feet behind where he was having lunch.

 

[2506]

Some of the most accurate and explosive factory 25-06 loads I have ever seen were some old Remington. I can't remember if they were 85 or 87 gr. An old fellow at church used to have a 25-06 and he found two and a half boxes of these bullets when cleaning out some stuff. He gave them to me. I thought I would just shoot them up for fun and use the cases to reload. The first 3 shots at 100 yards went into the same hole. I just adjusted the scope for them and shot ground hogs with them that summer. Man those things would blow a groundhog into pieces.

 

[Twud]

Was on a Wyoming Elk hunt when we came across a PDod town. As I was carrying limited ammo I only blew 3 into hyperspace with a 300 Wby and 180 Nosler Partions.
Not the ideal PDog round or bullet but if your into splatt factor it's the deal.

 

[Flybuster]

It depends on your definetion of long range, but I use the Speer 87 grain TNT on anything short of 800 yards. Load them up to 3500-3600 fps and they will effectivley kill any varmint at those distances. Here's a rockchuck taken one day with the TNT.

The B.C. on this bullet is only .310 but it has one of the highest in the TNT line. An inexpensive and accurate bullet.


It's still really hard to beat the explosiveness of the 75 grain V-Max.

I just recently worked up some loads with the discontinued Berger 95 grain Match Hollow Point, with a B.C. of .348. I chose RL-19 and Fed-210M primers, seems to shoot better with Norma 270 brass rather than Winchester. Out of 4 loads it was consistantly under 1/2" for 5 shots in my Lilja 3-groove. I tested them out on a coyote, it opens them up nicely. Can't wait for a spring chuck hunt.

Other bullets I would consider for long range,beyond 800 yards) would probably include Noslers Ballistic tips. I haven't tried them, though.

 

[Skunce]

Thanks for the input guys. There just aren't many choices for the 25 cal. Looks like I'm using one of the best bullets already. Flybuster that country behind you looks a lot like my area in Eastern Washington. Do you ever shoot any squirrels in your area? Nice shootin by the way.

 

[Flybuster]

Hey Skunce, I'm from Pendleton, Or. We have some squirrel hunting around here, columbian ground squirrels in the mountains and the next county over has some populations of digging squirrels in their farmland. It's mostly a matter of getting on private land.

Rockchucks are in a few isolated pockets, alot of good areas have been shot out.

Your right the .25 caliber is somewhat limited on high B.C. varmint bullets. But we do have a better big game bullet selection than the .24 crowd. I think you can still do fine with the bullets we have to choose from.

 

[Skunce]

Have any of you tried the Berger 115 grain on varmints?

 

[IdahoSharpshooter]

the Fowler VLD...

 

[brainiac]

In my 25-06 I love the 100gr Speer Varmint bullets. Small varmints just get all exploded when hit with one. The hollow point is huge on them. My 700 shoots them really well over a load of IMR 4350.

 

[JRS]

the Fowler VLD...

Where are you going to find those? There is, of course, an alternative

 

[stacy]

Where are you going to find those? There is, of course, an alternative

I GOT SOME AND MY 25-06 ACKLEY LOVES THEM !!!!!!!!!

 

[Witchhunter]

When I was shooting a 25/06 at varmints I used a 75 Sierra at about 3600fps. It was bad medicine for anything smaller than a deer. Accurate and fast.

 

[joed49]

My 2 favorites in my .25-06 have been the Nosler 85 gr and the Sierra 90 gr Blitzing. The Nosler has a bc of .330 and the Sierra .388. These are probably the best bc you'll find for .257 cal varmint bullets. I stay with varmint bullets because I don't want ricochets, had a buddy buy a cow one time because of his bullet choice. With a good charge of RL19 I've had the Nosler break 3600 fps with no pressure signs, from a 24" barrel. I'm still testing the Sierra 90 gr but it has been promising, just not as fast.

I can't speak for the Hornady 75 gr as I tried the Sierra 75 gr for 1 season. It was an accurate bullet but it just didn't hit with authority past 300 yards.

 

[AckleymanII]

The sierra 90g HP with a stout load of IMR 3031 shoots bug holes in standard Rem 700 sporters, no one would believe the accuracy of this round. The 90g Sierra hP @ 3600 and the 257 Weatherby shoot the biggest holes in coyotes seen to date.

I have never shot any of the 90g Sierra tipped, they should be awesome.

I never will forget one shot on a coyote, he was in the 300 yard range, 100g Sierra hit him so hard with a hot load of IMR 4350 that he flipped upside down, and all 4 legs were running for about 3 seconds. He had a hole in him too big to sew up.

87g Speer spt with a Max load for the rifle(Rem 700), win brass, win primer, R#19 was all over 3600 fps, made a real mess out of coyotes. I had to use the Forester neck sizer to bump shoulders on each firing, but never had to full length size the brass. The 87's loved to jump .040 for some real odd reason but shot 3/8"-1/2" groups.