PRACTICAL WILDCATS....95% RIFLE

In RIFLE magazine #18 and HANDLOADER #22 John Wooters with his magic prose and un-defeatable logic describes a neat, compact little rifle he built in a wildcat chambering. He wanted something that would take pests to deer cleanly...but emphasis on medium game in his state of Texas, turkey...coyotes...deer. Wooters called it his 95% rifle. The one he would carry 95 % of the time.

He needed a rifle bore large enough for good cast bullets, he doesn't like to cast under 25 caliber. I agreed with everything he said but the bolt action he went with. I stayed with the lever action. He used the basic 222 case necked up to 25 caliber, because the action was made for the 222 case head size...so he developed a wildcat round to fit his needs. I picked an obsolete round, because it would fit my action choice. But we both used the same caliber and powder capacity of our cases, because we were both after the same set of minimums.

My cartridge case was the 256 Winchester magnum, a 25-20 with hyper velocity, developed by Winchester in the late 1950s. Ruger in 1961 chambered the Ruger Hawkeye , single shot, handgun for this round. And Marlin in 1962 produced a lever action called the Mod. 62 Levermatic. The round suffered from a lack of guns chambered for it. It is a shame it's one fine small game round. One reason of many I went with this case was the reason I went with the 30/357....cartridge case strength. The 25-20 brass suffered the same weakness the 32-20 cases had..thin, stretching, and case head separation....even when I was very careful not to set the shoulder back reloading, brass wouldn't last over three or four reloads. The 256 cases and necked down 357 mag brass, lasted forever even when kept to original high 357 magnum pressures.

All this was done in the early 1980s...and the building of the 30/357 in the 1970s I'm sure had some influence over my thinking at the time for the 256...I couldn't find a Winchester 1892 that I could convert, I wanted badly to have the first Winchester leveraction chambered for the Win256...since Winchester never did it. But I did have a number of Rossi 92s, and I took a 357 Rossi and rebarreled it for the 256. That's all it took just rebarreling. The quickest twist I could find in 25 caliber barrels was 1 in 9...it stabilized everything well, even up to long 117 to 120 grain bullets.

This little rifle and round had some real snap to it. I was still getting full velocities with such a small case. Again like the 30/357 efficiency was the name of the game. Easily getting the 'early this century' velocities the 25-35 got. And as much as I love Keith's work on just about everything, I disagree about the ability of the old 25-35 to take deer cleanly. Keith's brother Silas Keith, used the 25-35 on deer. The famous photo of the two brothers, with the two frozen deer standing upright in the snow, Si's deer has a Winchester levergun in 25-35 shown resting in it's horns.

To Keith’s credit, the bullets of that day and age, were not as good as they are today. And small bore jacketed bullets like 25 caliber were even worse. And Elmer would shoot deer at extended ranges with rifles...the 25 caliber bullets would just pencil thru. Today of course we have controlled expansion jacketed bullets in all calibers. So range and velocities are not the concern they were back then. And that's very fine because like Wooters’ wildcat...the 256 reloaded properly with the right bullet will cleanly take deer.

The history of 25 caliber rifles tells us that Savage wanted to break the magic sounding 3000 fps with the 250-3000 chambering in their fine levergun. So they dropped the 100 grain loading at 2800 fps to a 87 grain soft nose, and attained that 3000fps velocity. It was such a success it over shadowed the 25-35...but savvy gunnies knew they could reload the 25-35 with the 87 grain bullets to 3000 fps. Unfortunately for the 25-35 most folks back then were not that knowledgeable about reloading and the 25-35 went quickly down hill. So when I compare the ballistics of the 256 reloads today to the old 25-35 ballistics, I’m not comparing to a dud of an old timey round, but to one that was maligned by bad bullets and a worst press.

The 256 will not push the 87 grainers to 3000 fps...but they will come real close to 2650 fps. And the 87 grain 25 caliber jacketed bullets of today will open all the way past 250 yards at those velocities. I nailed a coyote out at about 270 paces with a Hornady 87 grain bullet from the 256 Rossi. It made a small hole going in but had a good two and half inch, three way rip coming out. I won't tell you what the 60 grain jacketed slugs will do, you wouldn't believe me...but they are the varmint killers. Crows suddenly learned a whole new respect for leveraction rifles and their killing range...tough south western jack rabbits went down with single shots...and that is an accomplishment. I sometimes think our jacks call up their own coyotes just to foot race. Surely they are made up of bailing wire and hard tack.

The last year we had the Shootist Holiday up in Colorado, I had this rifle with me. I constantly hit a big gong they had set up way out past 300 yards (I think that was the distance..Jim T. would know). We painted it black and I put a group on it that was about nine inches...that was with peep sights and a lot of concentration. Someone with better eyes or certainly a scope would do much better. And those 87 grainers were pock marking the steel very heavily....even at that range.

Cast bullets are a joy to make for this caliber...Lyman makes a .257 caliber flat nose that comes in 60 grain PB or in 75 grains (75.257GC) with a gas check. It is the perfect cast slug for this little case and the loading tube. They have an old mold listed a few years back but I'm not sure it is still being made, it was 115.256GC and drops bullets about 110 grains in my tempered 1 in 15 alloy. The 75 grainer I pushed to 2800 fps and the 110 grainer went well over 2450 fps. All these are surprising velocities for such a small cartridge. But ReL #7 powder is magic in this case like it was in the 30/357.

Why all this velocity over the 25-20s velocities? Not just the case strength, thou that is the key...but it's the rifle also. The 357 Rossi is made of modern steel and coil springs and the case head size being so small allows for full 357 pressures...the original 357 pressures were 45,000 to 47,000 psi in the late 1930s with large rifle primers not the small used in the cartridge today. YOU CAN"T USE TODAY’s FULL LOAD LEVEL DATA for the 357 magnum in the 256...because of the narrow bore in the 25 caliber over the larger case/bore and expansion ratio of the 357. But you can go to full 357 mag pressures. I started by using the 256 loads listed in Hornady’s Third Edition reloading book for the Marlin mod. 62. The lock up and strength of the modern 92 model leverguns is much stronger then the Marlin 62, so higher velocities are possible with safety.

I was on Mt. Lemmon...which is the highest mountain in the Tucson area, it was 1984...my 256 was almost new and it was deer season. At that time the Az Forrest Service was really dedicated to the environment but also to the hunter who really pays the bills for the Service (also for the Fed Wildlife Service). Every year I would buy a lion tag (Mt. Lion) and a black bear tag to help support the Service's mission. I rarely hunted either anymore. But since Clinton got in the early 90s...both Federal and State Wildlife Agencies have been infiltrated by graduate biologists who happen to be also rabid environmentalists and antiHunters...so I don't go out of my way financially or any other way for them any longer. They have done nothing but close down ranges, stop hunting, close land to hunters, and openly support the efforts of the tree huggers...etc.

Anyway I was sitting on a ridge, deer hunting, with sun coming up behind me and warming the ridge opposite me. Deer come out in the early morning sometimes to lay in the sun and warm themselves. I noticed a dark brown movement in the shadows of the ridge...I hoped I knew what it was...I waited on pins and etc, until the sun finally climbed over the animal. It was indeed a black bear ripping into an old log for something. I put a 87 grain soft point behind his shoulder. He sat back and rolled over got back on his feet and started bitting at the entrance instead of running...so I hit him again, I found later when skinning him, this one went into and thru his shoulder. He went down again...howling almost...then lay still. The foot trip to him, was a lot longer then the bullet took. I figured the range was a strong 190 to 200 yards. He was dead when I reached him.

Again I don't hunt black bears any more...but this guy showed up when I had this new Rossi in a semiWildcat cartridge. And some friends that had been bugging me about getting some bear meat because they never tasted it. The first bullet took off the top of his heart mushed all the way thru and took out a rib exiting! The second went thru the upper part of the shoulder and angled toward the neck and stopped in the spine. Excellent performance from a small but powerful cartridge and bullet on a tough 224 lb bear.

A few medium warm loads in the Winchester will give an idea to what I am taking about....19.5 grains of H4227 under a 60 grain jacketed soft nose will push it at 3000 fps plus from the 24 inch barrel. My...my that’s in .223 territory. 16.5 grains of the same powder will push a 87 grain soft spire point at near 2650 fps...I put one in the chamber and one in the tube...because of the pointed bullet, even though the recoil is practically nothing in felt performance....but we have little idea of what kind of movement is going on with the spring and cartridges in the tube. And 15.5 grains gives my heavy cast bullet 2450 fps. The Rossi 256 Win Mag. makes up for a very neat small game rifle....up to deer and even a small bear if the right shot presents itself.......