I guess I research something far too much before getting involved, but .....Is the 25-06 a common round in silhouette? It shoots a 115 to 120 grain bullet at around 3000 FPS. My brother has one that will shoot about 1.5 inches at 100yards and has low recoil. Sounds like a good combination of flat trajectory and power in an easy to obtain case.

glen ring, when I started shooting hp silhouette I had a friend that did not like recoil so he used calibers like the 6mm Rem, 270 Win and 25-06 the problem was that all of those calibers left not only rams standing but also pigs and turkeys sometimes. One time he showed me his shoulder and it was black and blue after three days of shooting the Nationals because he was using max loads so as to minimize loosing targets. I was able to convince him to shoot my .308 and after that he build one and never looked back. Those were the days when we did not have 7-08's or 6.5's. I am not sure what you are looking for but historically we went from 308's in the 70's and 80's to 7-08's and for a brief time to 243's/6mm's. Finally in the late 90's to now 260's, 6.5X55, 6.5mm wildcats like the TKS, BR, Viking, 6.5X47 Lapua. Any of those calibers mentioned from the 6.5's to 308 will be much better than using any of the calibers that use long actions. Another good friend of mine that dislikes recoil shoots a 6mm BR with 115gr Sierra/Tubb bullets that seems to do well enough, I have shot his rifle one time and did not lose any rams.

Got to go along with Tony, I shot a .257 Roberts for a very short while, bottom line is not enough umph for rams.

lone ringer wrote:glen ring, when I started shooting hp silhouette I had a friend that did not like recoil so he used calibers like the 6mm Rem, 270 Win and 25-06 the problem was that all of those calibers left not only rams standing but also pigs and turkeys sometimes. One time he showed me his shoulder and it was black and blue after three days of shooting the Nationals because he was using max loads so as to minimize loosing targets. I was able to convince him to shoot my .308 and after that he build one and never looked back. Those were the days when we did not have 7-08's or 6.5's. I am not sure what you are looking for but historically we went from 308's in the 70's and 80's to 7-08's and for a brief time to 243's/6mm's. Finally in the late 90's to now 260's, 6.5X55, 6.5mm wildcats like the TKS, BR, Viking, 6.5X47 Lapua. Any of those calibers mentioned from the 6.5's to 308 will be much better than using any of the calibers that use long actions. Another good friend of mine that dislikes recoil shoots a 6mm BR with 115gr Sierra/Tubb bullets that seems to do well enough, I have shot his rifle one time and did not lose any rams.

Just starting to research high power so a newbie here, but was wondering if anyone had taken these different calibres and shot them off the bench (in quanity) to see where hits need to be so as to not get a ringer, and each of the cals. listed to see what the FREE recoil in ft. lbs is, not subjective recoil. I find it hard to understand how a 6mm rem with a 100 to 105 grain bullet would produce more recoil than a 308 with just about anything. Also in the next text how could a 6br have enough "umph" but a 25.06 with more speed and weight not have enough?????? Granted recoil is a major factor, but my 7.08 and .308 produce quite a bit more than my 25.06. thanks for definitive answers.

Hawk-1 I can't provide all the data you want but its out there if you care to look for it. I can just tell you what I and other people have experienced while shooting metallic silhouettes for 32 years. My best advice for you is not to reinvent the wheel and go with what the people that are winning the matches are using which are mild shooting 6.5's like the 6.5X47 Lapua, 260 Remington, 6.5X55 and 6.5 BR.

I started shooting HP in 1978 and used a 308 because seemed like just about everybody that knew what they were doing recommended it.
We did not have many offerings of match bullets in other calibers and VLD bullets had not been invented yet. We had 168, 180, 190 and 200. We shot first three distances with 168 and rams with one of the other heavier bullets. In 1984 a broken right cheek bone forced me to look for a caliber with less recoil and my first choice was a .243 (remember we did not have 107's) so I loaded it with 100 gr bullets and a full case of 4831, the felt recoil on my face was worse than the 308 because of all the powder I had to put in the case to make it perform at rams so I went to a 7-08 and was using for some time while my face healed a reduced load with 168 gr bullets. I don't remember the load but it was like 32 gr of some powder. I did well with that load but I lost a bunch of rams even when I up the powder load to conventional powder charges.
When Sierra started making 107 bullets, David Tubb and a lot of other shooters went to 243's and 6mm Rem mainly to be able to use them in the hunting rifle class (308 and 7-08 with 9 lb rifles are just a bit more than the average silhouette shooter can stand) scores went up but if the conditions were not right we would loose as many as half the rams we hit. I saw David Tubb at one of the Nationals hit 9 rams and ring 4 but his scores in the first three distances were so good that it did not matter too much to him but not every body shoots like him and to lose that many rams can be disaster to other shooters.
In my opinion the 6.5's are the best compromise for the average shooter, they shoot like the 6mm's with the 107gr bullets and with the heavier 140 gr bullets almost a good if not better than the 7mm's. I am not interested in debating what caliber may be better than others suffice to say I have shot silhouettes at one time or another just for the fun of it with 308, 7-08, 7mm IHMSA, 7mm TCU, 243, 6mm, 280, 270, 6.5 Brian, 6.5 Grendel, 6.5 Viking, 6.5X47 Lapua, 260 Remington. If you ask me which are my favorites I will tell you the last three because with the loads I developed for them they perform almost identical at ram's distance and if it was not for those rams that keep us honest we could shoot metallic silhouettes with just about any caliber from 6mm BR

If you use the 25-06, find a heavier bullet and shoot it around 2800 fps. That gun has quite a muzzel blast that isn't very pleasent for the guys next to you.

Thanks for the response. I already have a short action ready for a build. I love to deer hunt with the 25.06, not thinking of silh. with it. I guess the thoughts of it not having enough umph didn't make sense to me. I would have to see that from the bench. Muzzle blast is another beast altogether. I am looking at the 6.5x47, .260, not familar with the viking. will look it up. Thanks again.

The 6.5 Viking is a 6.5mm BR improved much like the TKS or Dasher, is based on the 6mm BR lapua case and has about the same performance as a 260 but with less recoil. Not as popular as the TKS but here in California a bunch of us had them done by my very good friend Ralph Corral that passed away last year.

Tony, Thanks for the explanation of the Viking. I have had several 6mmBR's, most recently thanks to Malinois, and was wondering about the 6.5mm version.

It saddens me to hear of Raplh's passing. I still have 2 rifles he rebarreled for me when I was at Twentynine Palms. I'll remember him as a heck of a 'smith and good shooter to boot.

Tom

While the 25-06 is an excellent deer and medium game cartridge, .25 caliber bullets lack the ballistic coefficient to retain the high muzzle velocity they are launched at. The lower weight available in "heavy" .25 cal. bullets (120 gr.) cannot match the velocity retention qualities or the energy of heavier 6.5 mm, 7 mm or .30 caliber bullets required to knock down rams or even pigs, as Lone Ringer noted.

The 25-06 shines as a big game caliber because animals like deer and sheep are not made of steel and the bullet only needs to penetrate their hide and travel about 12 inches to do its work. To topple a steel ram, a bullet requires momentum and an ability to transfer it to the target, in order to knock it down. Bullets of high ballistic coefficient and mass do this better than light bullets of low ballistic coefficients launched at high velocities.

I shot 3 matches while fire forming 25-06 Ackley Improved cases, using 120 grain bullets and a stout charge of IMR4350. The rifle kicked as it should have, the bullets went where the barrel was pointed at, and when the bullets hit rams, only one out the 10 rams I hit during those 3 matches went down.

To reinforce what Lone Ringer, Jim Beckley and others have stated, the key to silhouette shooting is to use a cartridge that will deliver the minimum reliable energy to reliably know down rams, with lower recoil and relatively long barrel life. Such cartridges are the 6.5 Viking, maybe the 6.5 Rem. BR, the 6.5 X 47 lapua, 6.5 IHMSA, .260 Rem. 6.5 X 55, 7mm-08 and .308.

Regards,

thanks for the response. that makes a lot of sense. Does anyone happen to have powder capacity/water?? Not sure if that is the correct way to ask. Also between the dasher,viking,.260, and 6.5x47 is there one that seems to have the edge in making it more accurate, and money wise is one cheaper to load for? I"m taking lone's advice and asking those who know. You are right I can see how it would take years and big bucks to find out what someone could tell me in minutes. Thanks for your patience with these answers.

You are welcome Hawk-1, if you want to save money go the 260 Remington or 6.5X55 route specially if you are not recoil sensitive, the 7-08 is also a good one.
All the other 6.5 calibers mentioned are more expensive because they use Lapua brass and reloading dies for those calibers are a bit more expensive than the 260, 6.5X55 and 7-08
As I mentioned on a previous tread regarding the 250 Savage necked up to 6.5 you can reduce the powder capacity of the 260 and 7-08 and get good accuracy and performance by running the reamer short so you can use 300 Savage brass, then all you have to do is remove enough material from the reloading dies to be able to re size and seat the bullets on the shorter cartridge.

I was curious about the 25-06 because my brother owns one that is accurate and because I think I read somewhere that David Tubb used a 6mm to shoot silhouette. I thought I might try my first Highpower Silhouette match with his rifle.

If you are going to use a 6mm or 243, you need to have a fast twist bbl (7) to stablize either the 107s or 115s. The 100 gr hpbt will leave over half your hit rams standing. The 100 gr is good for all the rest of the animals.

I would bring it. shoot it. then decide if this is what you want to do with your retirement funds. you can always get a new gun. then another new gun and another and another.