The .25-25 Stevens was an American
centerfire
Two rounds of .357 Magnum, a centerfire cartridge; notice the circular primer in the center
A center-fire (or centerfire) is a type of metallic cartridge used in firearms, where the primer is located at the center of the base of its casing (i. ...
rifle
A rifle is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting and higher stopping power, with a gun barrel, barrel that has a helical or spiralling pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus o ...
cartridge.
Designed by Capt. W. L. Carpenter, 9th U.S. Infantry, in 1895,
the .25-25 Stevens was the company's first straight-cased cartridge.
It was used in Stevens' single shot
Model 44, as well as the
Model
A model is an informative representation of an object, person, or system. The term originally denoted the plans of a building in late 16th-century English, and derived via French and Italian ultimately from Latin , .
Models can be divided into ...
rifles, which first went on sale in 1903.
In addition, it was available in the
Remington-Hepburn target
Target may refer to:
Warfare and shooting
* Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports
** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports
** Aiming point, in field artille ...
rifle.
While the .25-25 was popular, the
.25-21 offered "practically the same performance and was a little cleaner shooting."
It also suffered a "freakish"
appearance, due to its length to diameter ratio.
It was also found that the usual
black powder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, charcoal (which is mostly carbon), and potassium nitrate, potassium ni ...
charge of the shorter
[Barnes, p.75, ".25-25 Stevens", & p.74, ".25-21 Stevens".] 25-21 offered "practically the same ballistics" as in the .25-25.
The switch to
smokeless powder only exacerbated the problem, due to the small charge.
To cure this,
handloaders use a mix of of bulk
shotgun
A shotgun (also known as a scattergun, peppergun, or historically as a fowling piece) is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed to shoot a straight-walled cartridge (firearms), cartridge known as a shotshell, which discharges numerous small ...
powder and of black powder, with bullets of between .
The bore diameter of the .25-25 Stevens is .250 inches (6.35 mm) making it a ".25"/6.35 mm caliber" cartridge, not to be confused with the more well known 6.5 mm bore caliber which uses 6.7 mm/.264" bullets.
References
Sources
*
Pistol and rifle cartridges
Stevens Arms
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