Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 25-06 vs 30-06 in terms of recoil?

Does the 25-06 recoil less than the 30-06?

to me it does and by a noticeable amount.

Yes, lots less.

I came to the .25-'06 pretty late in life and was totally amazed by the lack of recoil. I'm equally amazed by the wonderfully flat trajectory and killing power of the big .25.

Personally, I greatly prefer 100-grain bullets. The 100s will fully penetrate deer and antelope and seemingly electrocute game critters in place.

The .25-'06 is a fabulous round.

Steve

what steve said.......plus 1

Ideed, the 25-06 is a joy to shoot!

+1 to what Steve said.
I grew up with 30 calibers, 30-30, .308 Win, 30-06, .300 Win Mag, and .300 WSM. About 10 years ago I got my first .270 Win. I shot it better than any of my 30 calibers and with less recoil. The .300 Mags are gone now.
Three years ago I won a .25-06. And man was I surprised!!! My .25-06 shoots as well as my .270 and with less recoil.

I distinctly remember the first .25-'06 round I ever shot. I looked at the HUGE .25 caliber round, fed it into the chamber and silently thought, "This is GONNA HURT."

The rifle went off, a hole appeared in the target and I was totally amazed. The recoil was like a flippin' .243, which is to say ... nothin'.

Then, I mentally kicked myself in the azz for not catching on sooner. This is a fabulous round.

Frankly, I stay away from the heavyweights (117-120s) because it puts the .25-'06 into the .270 realm as far as recoil. Also, the well-constructed 100-grain bullets usually fully penetrate deer and antelope, so why use anything heavier.

I've killed precisely one elk with the .25-'06. I shot the bull cleanly though both lungs and he rolled down the hill deader than a mackrel. The 100-grain Hornady Spire Point Interlocked broke a rib going in and broke two ribs going out, leaving a two-inch exit hole. As far as I know, the Hornady Interlocked is still in low orbit of the earth.

If I had told any observer that the elk was cleanly clobbered with a .375 H&H, they surely would have believed it.

If anyone wants a wonderfully accurate cartridge that shoots flat, recoils little and just kills the crap out of big game animals, look no further than the .25-'06.

Steve

My experience was very much like Steve's only my gun was Ruger #1V that weighed almost 11 pounds with the scope. I was shooting handloads from the bench on a rest with 70 grain Speer TNT bullets. I pulled the trigger and heard the noise and saw the hole but didn't get the punch. My initial reaction was something was wrong but nothing could have been more right. The next shot hit along side the first and a third followed suit. Even with 100 grain Ballistic Tips there is little felt recoil.

I'm also with Steve. The 25 kicks alot less than the 30 cal big brother. A 100 grain TSX leaving at 3300 ft/sec is bad medicine on deery size creatures.

My dad has had one for 25 years - I was just a little slow catching on..................

I have been shooting a 25-06 for year and love it. Recoil is less than the 270 and typically more like the 243 as the 25-06 is often just a bit heavier than most short action 243s.

mine is a win 70 with the factory sporter barrel contour duplicated by douglas. it's a bit heavy but a pussycat to shoot.

Been shooting a 25/06 since the mid 60's, when it was still a wildcat. It's a great round. and according to HA's recoil calculator its recoil is about 13ft-lbs vs 19 or 20 for a 30/06. A pretty significant difference IMO. The nice thing to me is that the recoil is light enough that you can often watch the reaction of the deer to the hit.

I do prefer 120gr bullets for big deer. I have killed lots of small deer with 100gr cup and core..usually without and exit. IMO, if velocity exceeds about 3000 fps, I'd rather have a premium bullet. A 120gr 257 bullet at 3000fps hits like a 270 and recoils just enough less than a 270 that I can watch the hit. With a 100gr at 3200fps or so, I worry about shots that have to penetrate very far thru bone/muscle.

I hate like disagreeing with dogzapper, 'cause he is much smarter and has more experience than I do. And I really don't understand why his experience is so different than mine. But, being human, my person experience carries a lot of weight, at least to me. Sorry, Steve.

About 20 years ago I shot my brother's 30-06 and it kicked the crap out of me. Haven't shot one since. About 10 years ago I bought my 1st rifle, a remington 270 mountain rifle. It kicked nearly as hard with the hard rubber factory recoil pad. A pachmayer decelerator pad solved that problem. Two or three years later I bought a youth savage 243 for my kids to shoot deer with. Recoil was of course less than the 270 and therefore more fun for me to shoot. A little over a year ago after the Winchester factory closed I snatched up a sporter 25-06. It does what I wanted, a bullet weight in between the other two rifles with slightly more recoil than the 243. It shoots flatter than the other two guns and is now my go to rifle for stuff from prairie dog size to mule deer.

This year, 100 grn corloc, 8 point buck about 45 yds, broke a rib going in and centerpunched offside shoulder before getting caught by the hide. Deer was down for the count which doesn't carry a premium with me, a 50 yd disoriented struggle works just as well.

7.5 lbs. rifle comparison

.25-06 slingin' 100 gr. TSXs at 3300 via 54 gr. of powder nets you 12.6 ft.lbs. of recoil, at 10.4 fps, and with an impulse of 2.42 lbs-sec.

.30-06 slingin' 150 gr. TSXs at 3000 via 51 gr. of powder nets you 18.1 ft.lbs. of recoil, at 12.5 fps, and with an impulse of 2.90 lbs-sec.

As a matter of physics, between those two the .30-06 hits you with 44% more recoil, hits with 20% faster, and 20% harder than the .25-06.

The .30-06 is far from punishing, but comparatively (by both the numbers and the play on the shoulder) the .25-06 is a cupcake.

damn.....

Now I want one.....

It's simply a matter of physics, rifle weight, bullet weight and velocity. There's somewhat more to it than that, but 'roughly' if you're considering more or less 'the same' rifle firing a 100 grain bullet vs. a 150 grain bullet, there will be roughly a 50% increase in recoil (going from the 100 to the 150). If one bullet is going at 3000 fps vs. another at 3300 fps there will be a 10% increase. Powder charge enters into it as well, however for cartridges with similar powder capacities and powders you usually won't see a huge difference in recoil resulting from powder charge differences.

The old "assuming all other things equal", recoil is proportional to ejectate which is bullet weight plus powder weight. Thus it is immediately apparent that an '06 will tickle you more.

Gdv

I've shot one and loved it ever since and I'm getting one on thursday. Plan on shooting 100gr TSX on anything walking thats same size or smaller than a deer. Going up to bass pro shop to get me a Tikka Stainless T3. Can't wait!

Is it thursday yet!

I agree with all of you guys - I've had a 25-06 in my safe since about 1975.

I was raised on "big boomers" like the .300 Winchester and the .300 Weatherby Magnums - with the 30-06 being my "light" gun growing up.

Then, I had the chance to shoot the 25-06. I couldn't believe the apparent lack of recoil. Soon, I took to shooting the heads off of Blue grouse, with my 25-06 for camp supper - due to the fact it was so easy to do. I took no mental concentration whatsoever. Being that my favorite 25-06 is a heavy long-barreled Browning Bolt-action rifle (a fat bolt design - that looks like a Weatherby take off) the lack of recoil (even with hot loads) is so evident - it has to be tried to be believed.

I've shot more deer than I can count, plus some big bears, caribou, moose and elk with mine.

The 25-06 never let me down - even on the big stuff. But then, I have to admit - I never shot anything big without using either the 120 grain Nosler Partition or the 115 grain Barnes X's (or Barnes's other variations of that bullet) - and I've never lost an animal due to the lack of caliber or bullet weight. The 100 grain bullet was my "deer" bullet. With all of these bullets, if I hit it - it died.

In shooting the 25-06 compared to the big .300 magnums - I found the trajectory of the bullets to be the same, and when using premium bullets, the game seems to drop just as quick, but the recoil seems so slight (particularly in a heavier rifle)to be so slight as to enable pin-point accuracy without regular practice or without any mental effort or concentration. Also, shooting three shot groups into an inch and a half (at three hundred yards)just makes me want to shoot even more.

In short - I love the round!

Try one - I'm sure you'll love it too.