Getting Started With a 25-35|Winchester Shooting and Hunting|Forum|Winchester Collector

  Mark,

 I bought a 1894 rifle two years ago and played with loads with what I had. I came up with 23grs of 3031 under Hornady 117gr RN Interlock bullets .257″. Shot accurate and was available at the local gas station. Had some 86gr Remington jacketed flat point for 25-20 and they worked good with the same powder load, faster and accurate. Tom

Mark,  I load the .25-35 and PLAY shooting metallic silhouettes with it.  I say “play” as at 200 yards the ram often won’t go down unless I hit in the horns of the target.  Yes, I have taken the buffalo down a few times but often it takes several hits to edge it back on the stands.  My load is a bit more adventuresome than above.  It is as follows:  A Remington 9 1/2 primer, 24.6 grains of IMR 3031, and the Hornady 117 grain bullet seated to crimp in the cannelure.  It is nearly a 2200 fps load.  Now a caveat.  I have a newer vintage rifle which has problems chambering my cartridges as the ogive on the Hornady is a bit more blunt than the factory Winchester bullet.  Net result is it hits the rifling and is a bit hard to chamber.  I am thinking of trimming my brass a few thousandths shorter to allow a bit more space for that rifle.  My two barrel set 1894 with its .25-35 barrel has absolutely NO problems with my loads.  Also, IMR 3031 is temperature sensitive and is a bit off in the cold or a bit hot in hot weather.  AS always, use care in developing a load for your rifle.  Tim

Mark, eventually will you list some of your haul for sale?

As it turns out, I’ve owned many more Marlin .25-36’s than I have Winchester .25-35’s.  In fact, I’ve never loaded for the .25-35 but I have loaded a fair bit for my .25-36’s. Both are fun little cartridges.  

Great video Mark!  

I too, have been pleased to be able to find the Hornady 117 grain RN on gunshop shelves again.

By the way, Mark has a recent video on early M1873’s.  I highly recommend it.  Later in the video where he is range testing a M1873, he gives some great advice on cast bullet selection.  

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the discussion on 25-35 and I am late to this discussion too.

I have a Winchester 1894 rifle in 25-35 full octagon barrel that I haven’t yet developed a load for so this subject is interesting to me. My first introduction to this caliber was when I discovered that my uncle hunted whitetails with it using a 94 carbine. He said it was an accurate round to hunt with and that he did better with it than he did with a 30-30. That was nearly 60 years ago now so that is about all I remember. But it had sparked interest in me about that caliber ever since. I bought the rifle I mentioned above in 2014 cleaned it up and bought dies to do some reloads for it. I found about 200 empty cases that I bought. And I was able to find a few boxes of new old stock Winchester 25-35 which I figured I could try the rifle out with. Turned out the rifle cycled inconsistently so I just shot it one round at a time. I learned a long time ago not to mess with sights on old rifles before you shot it first. So I just put a few rounds though single shot mode on paper at 50 yards just to see how it went. Boy you’d think the barrel was bent it was so bad and I was using a Lead Sled w/o the lead bags. After 4 five shot groups, group size was all over the place. Although the rifle could be categorized as brown gun the bore is 8+. So I had a Marbles tang sight for a 94 so decided to put that on and forego the barrel sight. After 2, 5 shot groups it was better but nothing great and no consistence that I could detect. I only tried ten shots because I didn’t want to waste the factory stuff I had left.

I put the rifle aside for a while but after a few weeks I decided I needed to take the gun apart to fix the cycling issue and do a deep dive into finding out why I couldn’t get a good group with the rifle. There was a local gunsmith I had used to get some work done on a couple of 1911’s I had so I bought the rifle to him to look at. What he detected was that there was a very slight burr on the end of the muzzle so slight that I could not see it without magnification but it was inline with the end of the rifling. So he corrected that. He then said that I should try the rifle before more work was done. Well, that fixed the problem with getting good groups and a two, 5 shot group at 50 yards gave 1.25″ and a 1.5″+. Nothing to write home on but much better than what I was getting with the burr on the end of the barrel. I am sure with more time working with the rifle I could improve on those groups at least it was going in the right direction.

I have yet to fix the cycling problem and since reading this post I have gotten a hankering to get going with it again. I think I will pull the action apart and examine clean and the parts. The inconsistent cycling has to do with the cartridge lifting, sometimes no problem, sometimes once the empty is ejected the case isn’t lifted when closing the action. There is never a problem with ejection of the spent case just lifting the next round and not every time. If I discover it isn’t lifting before I close the action, a sharp downward stroke of the lever will lift the case. I have taken 1892’s and 1886’s apart and I am comfortable doing that with them. But the couple of times I have taken 1894’s apart I always seem to have problems getting them back together. I could take this rifle back to the gunsmith but I think I would prefer to do it myself. Now I just need to find the time to start this project again! I will be keeping an eye on this subject, thanks for the posts and thanks Mark for the original post!

Rob