Having acquired a Model 1894 Winchester octagon barreled rifle in .25-35 caliber with a poor bore, I wanted to shoot it before deciding if the bore really needed relining. I reformed twenty new Winchester .30-30 brass to .25-35 and loaded them with RCBS 25-85-CM cast lead bullets. The rounds chambered very hard, and being reformed brass that did not surprise me, but after firing they extracted very hard as well. Accuracy was pretty much non-existent. I full-length resized the brass and tried several of the empties in the rifle. They still chambered and extracted hard. Measurements showed the reformed brass to be about 3-5 thousandths larger than factory .25-35 brass just in front of the rim, but I couldn’t size any farther down.
Fortunately a friend offered me some old original .25-35 factory loaded jacketed bullet ammo to try. The box was a mixed lot containing several different head-stamps, but they all chambered and extracted very easily in the rifle. A number of them were showing small signs of corrosion, especially the Winchesters that had the old round back primers in them.
At the range, I selected one of the Winchester rounds that did not show corrosion and chambered it in the rifle. It went in as smooth as glass. Upon firing, the bullet hit the target, but I felt a small amount of blow-by escaping the rifle’s receiver. The round extracted easily, but when I examined it, I saw that the back end of the primer had blown out, leaving the primer walls and anvil stuck inside the primer pocket. OK… no more of those! A single old Remington round showed dark brass, but had no corrosion. It fired and extracted normally, but the hard old case wall had ruptured.
I decided to disassemble the eleven remaining rounds to install fresh powder and primers and anneal the case mouths. Using one of those hammer style kinetic bullet pullers, I began pulling bullets. Getting the first one out, I got another surprise. That old round-nosed bullet had a boat tail! Most had this bullet, and some bullet bases were corroded while others were not.
One round refused to break the bullet loose no matter how hard I hit with the puller. I decided to use my collet style press-mounted puller instead. Removing the round from the kinetic puller I saw that the bullet was slightly crooked, and there was a crack in the brass near the base of the bullet. Guess that kinetic puller was exerting quite a bit of force, and that bullet was really stuck!
The collet puller succeeded in removing the bullet, complete with the whole neck of the case!
The powder inside the old cases was a stick type resembling 4198, and it had a slight rusty appearance from decomposition.
I set the powder from one case on fire, and it burned with gusto, but left a lot of residue after burning.
Using an RCBS press-mounted universal decapping die, I popped out the old primers. A couple of them separated just like the one I had fired in the rifle, leaving the primer walls stuck in the primer pocket. Only two primers showed no corrosion.
The cases did not appear corroded on the inside. I went over them with fine steel wool and annealed the case mouths.
They looked pretty good, but knowing the case walls were probably too brittle for the pressure of jacketed bullet loads, I reloaded them with a mild load of Trail Boss powder and cast lead bullets. I cleaned up those cool old boat tail bullets and loaded them into my reformed .30-30 brass. At least I knew it was strong enough for the jacketed bullet loads.
With the target posted at 50 yards, the cast lead loads fired and extracted with no brass issues, but accuracy was poor with five shots making a 2 ½” group. I was pleasantly surprised to see the old round nose boat tail bullets put four shots into ¾”. Too bad they don’t make those anymore! Seems the rifle’s rough bore might just shoot OK if I stick with jacketed bullets. Some factory loaded Remington ammunition of much more recent manufacture shot just as well as the old boat tail bullets did.
I researched those odd boat tail bullets and found that Winchester did indeed make a factory .25-35 load using boat tails:
I will return the old brass to my friend and advise that it be permanently retired. Age has made it too brittle to be trusted.
Shasta
