Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Does a 25-06 need a 25” to 26” barrel?

My .25-06 is a 26” Encore barrel in .25-06 AI.

I like the cartridge. As Mule Deer implied above, it’s the perfect happy medium between the .257 Robert’s and the .257 Weatherby Magnum.

Ah the 25-06... Love it.

The usual standard is a 22-24" 1:10 twist barrel. Mine is a factory Remington 24" 1:10 twist.

100's at 3340 fps
115's at 3100 - 3190 fps

First round "hold on hair" kills at 400 - 420 yards using a 300 yard zero. Mild recoil. It's my go to rifle for mule deer, pronghorn and coyotes.

I have considered a fast twist .257" barrel, 26" long and chambered for 25-06 AI, but... Dunno if I'll ever do that. Would be pretty cool to shoot the new high BC .257" bullets from it. Then again I could just build a 6.5-06. Who knows? At this point it's all just a bit of a game. The standard 25-06 works great.

Enjoy your project and put the money into a quality barrel that you will enjoy using.

Regards, Guy

I currently have 2 rifles chambered in 25-06, a 24" Remington 700 and a 22" Marlin XL7. Until I spent some time with the Marlin I thought that a 25-06 need a longer barrel, but the Marlin is only slightly slower than the Remington with the same load and not enough different to make a difference at ranges under a quarter mile. It has been a popular loaner and a couple of people who used it went on to seek out a Marlin XL7 of their own.

I have a 26" No5 contour SS fluted barrel with standard twist but did have a little extra leade added and fitted to a model 70 Blue Printed action.
It's one I don't play with much. Its best load generates a smidge over 3500fps using the 100gn TTSX.

I have a lot more time using various .257 Weatherby's going back to the 1970's.

For most of its life, it was topped with a 6.5-20 Leupold AO scope and for no reason, changed it out with a 3-9 VX2 where after sighting, it has assumed its previous position in the rear of my safe.

Some rifles are there just in case. This is one.

Had a Browning Abolt with a 22” barrel. Did just fine. Never chronographed it and never felt the need.

Exactamundo^^^



On a bolt gun, I'd run a 22" with no problems. A single shot, give me a 26". Again, no problem..

My first centerfire bolt action rifle was a Remington 700 BDL 25-06 sporter. It was very accurate, and I loved it. I shot many woodchucks and one whitetail buck with it. I had no problem getting 3,100+ fps with a 120 grain bullet. The one buck I killed with it dropped like a stone at 175 yards. My load was the old 120 grain Hornady hollow point bullet, long since discontinued.

Regarding your question, I think a 24" barrel is about right for this round. Good luck whichever barrel length you choose.

I'll also comment that prior to "affordable" chronographs for handloaders, relatively few handloading hunters obsessed over another 100 fps in velocity--or if they did, just believed what the loading manuals said their load achieved.

I bought my first light-screen chronograph in 1979, when I was living in Missoula, Montana and shooting at a local range. Chronographs were very rare back then, and on several occasions somebody else who was shooting there asked if they could take a few shots over it to test their load. Just about every time they got pissed-off, because the velocity didn't match their "estimate." Yet they'd been killing stuff with it for years.

Also, my fellow gun writer John Haviland had a similar experience with his first chronograph, purchased about the same time. (John's a year or two younger than I am.) At the time the 7mm Remington Magnum was THE super-round, and he loaded 160-grain Speer bullets with a load that according to their manual got around 3000 fps. Then he went out and killed a bunch of Montana big game with the rifle and load, from whitetails to black bears to elk, and it killed 'em quickly.

But when he finally chronographed the load, it got around 2700 fps--about like a warmly loaded 7x57. Of course, a warmly loaded 7x57 will kill such animals very well. I've done it myself in North America Africa on animals up to around 1000 pounds....

But apparently to some hunters a .25-06 won't be a "real" .25-06 unless it has a barrel longer than 22-24".

The people who I've seen most disappointed had had their rifles rechambered to an AI configuration and were often disappointed the the speed that they were sure that they were getting wasn't much more than it would have been in the pre-AI configuration.

My .25-06 got an average of 3350 fps with my load using a 100 grain Hornady flat base bullet out of a 24 inch barrel. The same load through my father-in-law's rifle got 3300 fps in his 22 inch barrel. I don't know how anyone could tell that little difference in the field.

Bosshoff: My "real" 25/06 Rifle has a 26" medium heavy barrel and it is a Deer and Antelope killing machine!
I say go for the extra length/mass/velocity with a 26" barrel.
Best of luck to you with whichever you choose.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

They can't.. which is why I like running the numbers through a ballistic program like Strelok to visualize the effect.

Once you realize that that 50-100 FPS delta translates into 30 or 40 yards difference in effective range, the shorter barrels don't seem like such a hindrance on performance at the normal distances the majority of game is taken.

For a couple of my long shooters I still have 24" barrels, but for the rifles I know will be used out of stands, blinds, still hunting and drives, I've gone to 20" or shorter.

I have a couple Remington 700 25-06's. I never wanted a shorter or a longer barrel or a faster or slower twist as far as that goes. As is, my favorite pronghorn rifle and as for me, great whitetail rifles.

An 80 Barnes TTSX is a laser beam at 3590 in a 22". Yes a longer barrel can make it go faster.

I get 3100 with 117's too.

It is already easy mode for deer and antelope.

My 1st year production 700 wears a Shilen 24" stainless #5 in 25-06. I've been a fan of the cartridge for many years and think it's a top choice when it comes to light recoil, trajectory and killing ability. A 24" barrel is my preference, but a 26" is also nice if the balance is to your liking.

Amuses me a fair bit to see discussion that debates the difference between a couple or three inches of barrel length. Likewise, the fascination for fast twist barrels cracks me up.

If it ain't broke it don't need fixin'. If you feel the need for speed you won't find happiness with a short barrel. High peak pressures are not your friend. -Hints-

My 25-06 is a Forbes 24 b at 5.75 pounds and a 24" mid-weight barrel. Rl 17 gets the 101 grain LRX (bc of .400) to 3336ft/sec into 0.75 MOA and the little bullet is death on caribou as far away as I want to shoot them with a 300 yard sight in. The 120 Speer BTSP (bc of .480) is going 3070 fps with RL25 with even better accuracy but I haven't found a pound of RL25 in the last 3 years!. I like the rifle/cartridge combo and while more velocity is always nice the 24" is about as long as i want in a rifle. Interesting that Mule Deer finds LESS velocity loss with the lighter bullets but that might explain my relatively faster lighter bullet loads.

I agree with the poster who mentioned that he liked being able to spot his own shots. Even in this light rifle I can spot impacts past 200 yards due to the light recoil and excellent stock design on the Forbes. If I ever do shoot it out I'll re-barrel with another 24 " barrel but it might sport a faster twist. Why not experiment with the new batch of super long, high b.c. bullets?

I like a .26 inch barrel on almost all long distance rifles. I have had 24's in the 25-06 but they never stayed long.

I have a good deal of experience with my model 700/ 25/06 on game and paper....24" tube.
I have to disagree with Muledeer over is position on the 25/06 comparatively.
I used this rifle exclusively for 8 years in the last century on Sheep, Goats, Deer, Elk and Moose and one Black Bear.
It also would shoot the ocassional bughole off the bench.
I have not owned the Weatherby but my limited experience with the Robert's prove disappointing.
The 25/06 rifle of mine is a confidence builder, most anyone can shoot it well. Translates to Big Game- Big Time with Nosler Partitions, imo.
I wouldn't use a repeating rifle with a longer barrel than 22" these days. The 25/06 needs at least 24.
In my humble opinion.

comerade,

We've used the .257 Roberts on the same basic array of big game here in Montana, with the exception of moose--and I would bet the same bullets we've used in the .257 on elk would work on moose. The .257 loads have been either 100-grain Barnes TSXs or Nosler Partitions at 3150-3250 fps from 24" barrels, or 115 and 120-grain Partitions at around 3000. The longest shot was on one of my biggest pronghorn bucks at around 450, and several of the other have been 300-350.

Might also mention that the .257 Weatherby has also worked extremely well at the same basic ranges on the same array of animals--again with a 24" barrel, with either 100 monolothics at 3550 or 120-grain Partitions at 3300.

All of which is why (as I have stated before in recent years) that the longer I hunt, the less difference I see in the field performance of different cartridges--especially when they're of the same, or similar, bore-size.

But whatever....