Originally Posted By: joedOriginally Posted By: NdIndyThe 25 really has nothing over the 30. Whatever the 25 can do the 30 can do better.
No, I don't buy that. With 87 gr bullets the .25-06 is a spectacular varmint cartridge capable of hitting animals to 500 yards. You can load light bullets in a .30-06 but they won't perform as well as the 87 gr bullet out of the .25 cal.
Also noticed you mentioned you load the .25 to middle of the road. You're cheating yourself. The .25-06 shines when the loads are near max. I learned this pretty quickly 33 years ago when I bought my first .25-06. For some reason reduced loads just don't work well in it.
I figure prairie dog pieces are the same regardless of what I tap them with
But I used to go primarily HMR on them and have switched to .223 recently. I don't like to burn the extra powder with the bigger bores on them. Even with the .223 there's not enough left to recover. I keep a dermestid beetle colony and harvest PD's with the HMR when I'm out of skulls and need food for them.
For big(ish) game I've done deer and antelope to 400+ with both -06's and filled the freezer, and at 500 yards I'm just flinging lead at the little guys and hoping for the stars to align. I know my limits
When I picked up my 1st 25 I bought a bunch of midway 100gr 2nds and picked the middle load out of the book, about 2800fps by chrony. While sighting in I turned in around MOA with the load. Picked up an edge 25 and while sighting in had touching groups with the same load. Called it good and went hunting, dropped a mulie and a goat with each rifle and both took 1 animal around 400 by laser
I'll likely be bumping things up this summer when weather is better to experiment but it was a good enough combo for season this year.
I've never had more than a 30 yard run with the 30-06 on deer/antelope/elk, with the 25 I had 1 antelope and 1 deer go about 100. With the loads I used I give the big game edge to the 30's more immediate knockdown IME, but I like shooting the 25 and dissection of the 4 animals showed good bullet performance. Both my long runs took both lungs and missed the heart so bear that in mind. Hunting primarily the plains, 100 yards doesn't matter. You see them drop as long as they don't run more than a mile. But the 100 yard deer made it into some tall sage and took about 10 minutes to find.