Gun Digest 2011. Dan Shideler
bullet at 100 grains during the cull hunt, I was assigned to a tower stand on a very wide open trail that was boarded by heavy pine forest, and then given a list of what to take and exactly where to place the shots. In all cases the .243 out to 235 ranged yards did a good job of cleanly taking my test subject with single well-placed shots. Shooting involved right angle vital shooting, sharp angle shots from back to front, and head-on shooting for vital penetration testing. Special metal-sensing systems used in detecting land mines (no, I’m not kidding) were employed to locate bullets that had not passed through the targets.
That deer shoot had been the official type event, but then I headed back to South Dakota and a few other states, hunting on my own for some detailed review time with the .25 WSSM and .25-06 Remington. With a buck license on a wide-open prairie unit and a second doe tag as well, I went to work with my Model 70 Winchester chambered in .25 WSSM. The bullet was the 110-grain Accu Bond in a Winchester factory wrapper. Bullet choice was Winchester factory or handloads, due in fact to the cartridge being loaded only by Winchester at the time of that test shooting. Federal was making brass for a period of time, or at least some of it crossed my reloading dies with their headstamp on them, but the WSSM line in all calibers is a exclusive product of the Winchester folks.
My first South Dakota kill involved a nice buck at 225 yards. I had been belly-crawling this guy all mid-morning for a clean, clear shot. He was courting three doe whitetail and was paying very little attention to the green and brown blob that was crawling toward him out on the open prairie. When I got set for my shot, he was clear of the does and now presented a solid left-to-right broadside vital area bullet contact point. At the shot, the deer, which I judged to be about three years old, dropped to his belly, never moving even a foot forward. The Accu Bond 110-grain bullet had done its job, and I was gaining more interest in this short, fat super-cartridge that had been thought up by Winchester. With two additional deer taken with the .25 WSSM, I was seriously wondering why anyone would even start to take up the .224 caliber bullet as a serious deer harvesting system. To me it was much like shooting waterfowl with a 28 gauge. It just didn’t fit the proper profile of a game harvesting gun system.
Author with a full-size deer target when setting up his Savage Predator .22-250 for taking big game with the .224-caliber bullet.
With some additional hunting with my old and well-used .25-06 matched with Federal 117-grain Sierra bullets, it was clear that under almost all conditions – with the exception of some ultra high wind and long range work with a .300 Win Mag– the .25-06 family of cartridges could meet the requirements of a very good deer round each and every time. For the most part I had not even moved into the 7mms or the 30-calibers, for I found enough solid performance from those 6mms and .25s to fit any ballistics requirement for whitetail deer.
Norma supplied many of the bullets used in this review. For a general-purpose round in the .223 Remington, the Norma Oryx 55-grainer is hard to beat.
WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?
In most cases I would be the last guy to ever come down as dictating guns and loads for sport hunting. I don’t like the massive shooting restrictions encountered so often especially in many of the eastern states. However, as illustrated in the main body of this review, the .224 caliber family of cartridges tends to come up short in the delivered performance department even at close range when the smaller .222 Mag and .223 Remington have been used afield. The more you move up the energy and velocity, as with the .22-250, .220 Swift or .223 WSSM, the more happens in the energy contact department. However, often the reaction of the animal to a hit is a “walk off” – not good when it comes to tracking time, as penetration is poor and blood trail faint. Under these circumstances, a day can become very long indeed.
Trying to get a good reason for turning with these light calibers is like pulling teeth. I would suspect that the main popularity of many small-bore “big game guns” centers around the fact that so many hunters own .223 Remington-chambered rifles of the “ black gun” type nowadays. Another factor may be that so many so-called “ladies’ and youth” bolt guns are chambered in light .22 centerfires. Even so, shooting a Model 70 Feather Weight in .25 WSSM, or even a .243 Winchester in a Remington Model Seven, doesn’t increase weight much if at all, and as for recoil, well, if you can’t handle a .243 or .25 you’re better off taking up some other form of outdoor activity.
Currently I have been shooting an outstanding H.S. Precision ultra lightweight turn bolt chambered in .25 WSSM that is nothing less then a one-hole tack-driver off the bench rest. With this rifle there is a big bang, with no follow-up recoil. The complete scoped rifle weighs no more (under seven pounds net weight) than a lightweight .223 Remington as offered by many companies. Will I give up on lightweight cartridges for general use? No way! But I’ll go with something a bit bigger, thank you, when I’m taking out after whitetail, mule deer, or even speed goats.
all about the .45 AUTO RIM
BY ROBERT H. CAMPBELL
The author’s much-appreciated Smith and Wesson .45 Auto Rim revolver. This is possibly the most versatile big bore ever produced.
I enjoy firing a number of pretty odd handguns simply for their own sake. Like many of you, I find calibers both new and old a challenge to fully develop in terms of accuracy and power. But when it comes to real work, such as harvesting game or winning competition, logic dictates the proper choice.
Among the handgun calibers I enjoy the most are those that give results out of proportion to their paper ballistics. The .44-40, .45 Colt and .45 Auto Rim are relatively mild to fire. The big, heavy bullets they use don’t break any speed records. But their effect on the target – be it a game animal, falling plate or the inoffensive ten pin – is impressive. I do not enjoy firing hard-kicking magnums nearly as much as the milder big bores. When I need more power than is available from a six-inch barrel .45 Auto Rim revolver, I consider a rifle rather than a longer, heavier, more powerful handgun. The man who masters the .500 Magnum has my respect, but when I feel the game outclasses my handguns, a rifle such as the Mauser Engineer’s carbine is much handier, and easier on me, than a hard kicking Magnum. But that’s me.
I am sure my affinity for the big bore revolver is related in some manner to my appreciation for the 1911 .45 caliber semi-auto. But the die was cast at an early age. Let’s just say I owned a big bore revolver before high school and the 1911 came along after I was driving and owned my own vehicle. No matter how many 1911s I eventually own, I can never change the fact that my first .45 was a humble and well-worn 1917 revolver.
The 25-5 revolver, top, is heavier and has better sights than the 1917, bottom, but either can serve well in their intended roles. Note Ahrends grips on the 1917.
Even today, my battery includes several 45 ACP handguns that are not autoloaders. These revolvers are more versatile than any semi-auto and can be loaded with a wider selection of bullets. The edge in power goes to the revolver for reasons we will cover in due course. I am not, however, going to argue that the .45 Auto Rim, a companion to the .45 ACP in revolver chamberings, is more efficient than the .44-40 or the .45 Colt. The differences are probably conversational at best. But the .45 ACP/AR revolver is the ideal big bore revolver for the man who also owns .45 caliber self-loaders.
An observation that I must make is that the .45 Auto Rim is among a very few revolver cartridges designed from the start for use with smokeless powder. The .44-40, .45 Colt and the .44 Special are longer cases, designed to perform well with bulky black powder. The .45 Colt in particular demands attention to detail. The .45 AR is much more straightforward, with good results with practically any powder. The .45