The .25 Remington, introduced in 1906, is simply Remington's rimless version of the .25-35 Winchester. Remington designed a line of rimless cartridges that duplicated the ballistics of the popular .25-35, .30-30, and .32 Special Winchester cartridges for use in their bolt action, pump, and autoloading rifles. Pumps and autoloaders that load via a box magazine feed best with rimless cases.

The Remington .25, .30, and .32 rimless cartridges are functionally identical to their Winchester counterparts and have the same case capacity. They are, however, dimensionally different, and are not interchangeable with their Winchester counterparts.

Reloading data for the Winchester cartridges may be used for the equivalent Remington rimless cartridge without alteration. .25-35 data is thus also applicable to the .25 Remington, as most reloading manuals that cover the two cartridges state.

Remington factory load ballistics used to call for a 100 grain bullet at a muzzle velocity (MV) of 2330 fps or a 117 grain bullet at a MV of 2125 fps with muzzle energy (ME) of 1175 ft. lbs. The MPBR of the 117 grain load makes it about a 200 yard medium game cartridge.

The reloader with a supply of .25 Rem. brass can drive a .257" Hornady 117 grain RN bullet to a MV of 2300 fps with 25.5 grains of IMR 3031 powder, for a ME of 1375 ft. lbs. The trajectory of that load looks like this: +2.1" at 50 yards, +3.8" at 100 yards, 0 at 200 yards, -16.3" at 300 yards (Hornady figures).

The .25-35 WCF, introduced in 1895, had an 11 year head start on the .25 Remington and was offered in the far more appealing Model 94 rifle, and the .250-3000 Savage, which easily outperformed both of the older .25s, was introduced in 1915, 9 years after the .25 Rem. So the .25 Remington was caught between two more popular .25 caliber cartridges and never achieved much commercial success. Today the .25 Remington is totally obsolete, and the .25-35 and .250-3000 are tottering on the edge of obsolescence.

Rifles in .25 Rem. were discontinued shortly after the U.S. became involved in WW II, and factory loaded ammunition was discontinued around 1950. That pretty much ended the .25 Remington story.

Shooters with a .25 Remington rifle in good condition will be glad to read that Stars and Stripes Custom Ammunition can provide new factory loaded .25 Remington cartridges in virgin brass. Contact Stars and Stripes for details. (There is a link to Stars and Stripes on the Guns and Shooting Online Links Page.)

Note: A full length article about the .25 Rem. can be found on the Rifle Cartridge Page.