I am going to finish a HP Silhouette rifle- no place to shoot, with in 8 hours, so I dont know if I'll ever use beyond 200 yards. I have a NRA HP Rifle in a wildcat- .243 short (same as a 6X- the 1st 6XC). Its based on 250 Savage case- and got thinking why not a .250 Savage? I know there is not a great selection of bullets, butwould this be a terrible choice???
thanks
chuck

Bullet selection is not very good on 25 cal. 243 is bare min and you will loose rams. You have to shoot 107s at 2800+ to take a 55 lb ram at 500m.

Not the best choice, but not the worst either. One of our guys loves using his .250 Sav.700 Classic. Great on the first three targets, only fair on rams . He uses 117 and 120gr. Sierras and loses a solid 50-60% of all rams hit.

I have one being loaned to me for Zwolle this year until I can build up a 6.5x47 it shoots very nicely but I am a bit concerned about ringing rams but that is just how it is going to be I guess. He loaded me up 300 Speer 120gr and I think they are all loaded the same powder weight as well. They work great on our scaled down swingers at 300y but I have heard a few others that used this bait rifle in the past say they rang da rams with it. Is there a round that doesn't ring rams?

I think the ram ringing is going to be the biggest pisser offer of HP when I shoot it. Hell it is hard enough to hit it but then to make that happen and the damn thing is still standing there! The would give me the red ass for sure


Dee

Dee wrote:I have one being loaned to me for Zwolle this year until I can build up a 6.5x47 it shoots very nicely but I am a bit concerned about ringing rams but that is just how it is going to be I guess. He loaded me up 300 Speer 120gr and I think they are all loaded the same powder weight as well. They work great on our scaled down swingers at 300y but I have heard a few others that used this bait rifle in the past say they rang da rams with it. Is there a round that doesn't ring rams?

I think the ram ringing is going to be the biggest pisser offer of HP when I shoot it. Hell it is hard enough to hit it but then to make that happen and the damn thing is still standing there! The would give me the red ass for sure


Dee

It certainly isn't as common as it is made out to be. I have been shooting HP for about a year (7mm-08) and I have rung ONE ram and it was either a bad bullet or the ram was set at an angle. Of course, the advantage of being a crappy shot is that all my hits are around the edges which tend to knock them down pretty reliably.

There is a lot of poking fun at each other about "ram ringing" on here but in reality it isn't so common. I don't think.

"the advantage of being a crappy shot is that all my hits are around the edges which tend to knock them down pretty reliably"

That's funny.

A couple of us here in the northwest have wildcated the 250 savage. We neck it up to accept a 6.5mm pill. There are three guys using it currently and have no problem with the rams. I believe they are using Varget, maybe 35 grains or so with a 139 hornady.

Folks

Regarding ringing rams, it sure does happen. I use a 7mm 168 MK, 2,320 fps 10' from the muzzle, have rung one ram each at the last two matches. In both cases, I hit four, and took down three. They were center hits though.

Chris...we have all rung rams at different times, such fun and aggrevation all rolled into one, especially when you hit center. The question boils down to how much trouble do you want to go through
to keep track of different loads for different animals, how tight can you hold to the center and what are the trade off's for a consistent recoil across the entire match.
If you can hold a tight group, then logically you should be able to hit the animal on the edges needed to knock him down.....

Mary

I have used a 250 sav. with 117gr. sierra gamekings for years and they will take down 500m rams. I also use 7mm08 in heavy gun with 168gr matchkings and the ding rate is about the same.

It looks like the best BC is around 0.350 for the 25 cal. That's not real good and only a 117 gr bullet. A longer, heavier and higher BC would be nice. The 6.5 is over 0.500

G'day folks
I used a .257 Roberts when I started in silhouette for the first year and never had a ram stand using 120 gr bullets. My brother in law ( Outback Mick for those who know him ) shot a .250 Ackley Improved. We used these because they were our bush rifles, great for everything we have to shoot here in Australia but our rifles were not really suited for silhouette, too heavy actually. Mick had trouble with rams standing at a State championship in Victoria and built a gun in 7/08. I built a 6.5/257 Ackley because I had a lot of cases and to be a bit different. As a start out calibre and if you already have one in the safe I'd say go for it, but I certainly wouldn't build one specifically for silhouette.

Taps