Anybody use spire points in a .25 Rem M8?

Ask about your Model 8 & 81
Post Reply
texassako
Posts: 139
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2011 7:27 pm

Anybody use spire points in a .25 Rem M8?

Post by texassako »

I was just wondering how they would feed since I have lots of them for various of 25 cal cartridges and finally have a Model 8 marked .25-35 Rem almost here. Hoping to use what I have to try it out and see how she shoots. I will try the 117gr flat point in the near future, but I like to have a decent order in mind if I am going to pay shipping and I am a bit tapped out getting set up for several obsolete cartridges this month.
texassako
Posts: 139
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2011 7:27 pm

Re: Anybody use spire points in a .25 Rem M8?

Post by texassako »

Well, since no one answered before it got here, they do feed in the mag and chamber by hand. At least the cheap blemished sale Hornady Interbond 110 gr and GMX 90 gr will, cannelure is at the same distance from the poly tip on them. My magazine well will fit a 2.68" cartridge, and my old Bair dies have a seater for spire point and not just flat or round nose. There sure is a long neck on these cartridges, and I may have to try some cast bullets so I can shoot more but with less wear in the bore.
User avatar
Roger
Posts: 763
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2012 6:41 pm
Location: Iowa

Re: Anybody use spire points in a .25 Rem M8?

Post by Roger »

In john henwoods book about m-8/81 s, he warns that any 25 Cal. Bullets under 100 gr. May not cycle the action on the m-8/81. He claims that bullet weight is more important to proper cycling of the action than powder charge weight. I personally have only used hornady 117 gr. @ rem. 100 gr. Bullets in my two rem. 25 Cal. M-8 s, so i can't really say anything about lighter bullets. I did notice that the rem. 100 gr. Didn't have as good of accuracy as the hornady units. Only by testing will you be able to tell if the lighter bullets will work for you in your gun.
Good luck at the range@ thanks for your time,
Roger
Roger
raw4555@gmail.com
texassako
Posts: 139
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2011 7:27 pm

Re: Anybody use spire points in a .25 Rem M8?

Post by texassako »

Thanks for the tip, I guess I need to finally break down and buy that book. I also want to see the article out of Handloader #46 with Ken Waters pet loads for .25 Remington. The 110 gr Interbonds it will be I guess, with a few of the lighter ones loaded for testing function. My dies created a sort of double shoulder, did not set the .25 cal shoulder portion back as far as the .30 R-P brass was made. It is the main reason I wanted to shoot cheaper blemished bullets to iron that out before working up loads with the Hornady 117 grain. The R-P stamped .30 REM brass had some pretty bad QC with some really nasty, uneven, and even cracked case mouths and a couple with voids in the shoulder and body. Trimming them back down to size after sizing to .25 cleaned almost all of them up, but I can't wait to see how many cases I have to scrap after the initial firing :| . At least they were annealed well and not a single one was lost in resizing.
Roger wrote:In john henwoods book about m-8/81 s, he warns that any 25 Cal. Bullets under 100 gr. May not cycle the action on the m-8/81. He claims that bullet weight is more important to proper cycling of the action than powder charge weight. I personally have only used hornady 117 gr. @ rem. 100 gr. Bullets in my two rem. 25 Cal. M-8 s, so i can't really say anything about lighter bullets. I did notice that the rem. 100 gr. Didn't have as good of accuracy as the hornady units. Only by testing will you be able to tell if the lighter bullets will work for you in your gun.
Good luck at the range@ thanks for your time,
Roger
User avatar
Roger
Posts: 763
Joined: Tue Jan 17, 2012 6:41 pm
Location: Iowa

Re: Anybody use spire points in a .25 Rem M8?

Post by Roger »

I too have noticed that the rem. Brass is sometimes not so good. It is my understanding though, that they aren't making it right now. That was the word I got a while back from Buffalo Arms. So any new 30 rem. Brass you can get is good. I guess it's one of the prices we must pay for shooting these old rifles
On another of your points,I haven't reformed 30 rem. Into25 rem. Yet. I simply purchased 25 rem brass,which is expensive at best.I have reformed alot of 30 rem. Into32 rem.brass with quite a bit of success. I realize it's expanding only a small amount, instead of compressing it quite a bit,but it's all the help I can be on that subject. I'm a little confused about your double shoulder issue though.I have reformed quite a few calibers, and have not seen that.maybe someone else on the forum has reformed 30 to 25. Annealing is your best insurance for success in my opinion.so you are on the right track there.let me know how the 110 gr. Bullets work out. I'm always looking for ways to improve accuracy. I shoot old rifles 1 or 2 times a week. I also collect JMB designed Winchester levers and shoot the heck out of them @ my m-8 8/81

Thanks for your time,
Roger
Roger
raw4555@gmail.com
bluto
Posts: 8
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 4:54 pm

Re: Anybody use spire points in a .25 Rem M8?

Post by bluto »

I guess it was about 25 years ago I was thinking, I should get some extra cases for my 30 Remington. I ordered 500 from Midway who still had them at the time. I had a feeling they wouldn't be made forevever. Wow, was I right. (for once) As most of you know, those 30 Rem cases can be also made into 25 and 32 as I have done. Just rambling, thanks....
DWalt
Posts: 513
Joined: Sun Dec 05, 2010 1:18 pm
Location: San Antonio & Brackettville TX

Re: Anybody use spire points in a .25 Rem M8?

Post by DWalt »

Just a couple of items.

First, if you can keep below the maximum cartridge OAL, any bullet will be OK. But as noted, it may not function at maximum load if the bullet is light. That may not always be the case, and the only way to know is to try different powder weights and types for the bullet you wish to use, and see what happens. Recoil impulse is what makes a recoil-operated weapon perform. Impulse is the product of the bullet mass times the bullet muzzle velocity plus the product of the propellant mass times the propellant gas muzzle velocity. As an estimate, the propellant gas velocity at the muzzle used is usually assumed to be 1.5X to 2X the MV of the bullet. Problem is, you will have to determine a minimum recoil impulse for proper operation of any particular rifle. As you can see, in cartridges using light bullets, the recoil impulse from the propellant alone can be very significant. Therefore, the approach would be to use the heaviest possible safe powder load listed for your bullet weight first to see what happens. Or using any good reloading manual and the impulse formula given, you can probably calculate a maximum impulse load for any bullet. Not much reloading data is out there for the .25 Rem, but you can always use data for the .25-35.

Second, when you neck down a case, it will often thicken the case neck wall. The neck OD of a loaded round must not be a tight fit in the chamber neck, as it will then not expand to release the bullet. That can be very bad as it will raise chamber pressure to possibly dangerous levels. The cure is to be sure that there at least several thousandths of an inch difference in the two diameters. The cure is to trim the neck wall thickness, from the outside, after necking it down to achieve the proper neck wall thickness. That is very simple to do, but only if you have an outside neck trimmer.
texassako
Posts: 139
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2011 7:27 pm

Re: Anybody use spire points in a .25 Rem M8?

Post by texassako »

The brass is so thin on these I did not need to turn the neck for them to chamber, but that thin brass did reveal a problem with trying the Hornady GMX bullet. It has two cannelures? and sometimes the mouth catches a little on the first and the case collapsed some. I gave up on them after loading 10. The Interlocks went together just fine. I scrounged up a box of factory Winchester Western .25 Rem brass and a few still loaded to run through the chrony for load comparison. I also found the Ken Waters Pet Loads data and a copy of the Remington Society's interesting write up on the .25 Remington cartridge development including the trials rifle loads. Water's used an M8 for testing and used Sierra 87, 100, and 117 gr spire points and the Remington 117gr round nose. It seems very sensitive to powder/bullet/primer changes.
texassako
Posts: 139
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2011 7:27 pm

Re: Anybody use spire points in a .25 Rem M8?

Post by texassako »

It was a wonderful day for some range time, cool and sunny. I tried 4 powders, H4895, IMR3031, WC844, and WC846. Almost all were loaded with Hornady Interlocks, with 10 Hornady 90 gr GMX(collapsed cases, gave up) and 3 120 gr HPs(leftovers from elswhere), and 2 Speer 120gr(collapsed RP cases, but not old Rem UMC). I was surprised 3031 worked poorly, and all the others had their accurate load 2-3 grains under max. WC 844 surplus powder had the best group at 2"@50 yards. The other 2 had 3" groups as their best. Every load functioned the action from minimum listed loads on up and most of the brass ended up in a pile 8" from the receiver, but the clips were useless since the hole through the receiver for a loaded clip is shorter than the magazine. I found the first round must be chambered by letting the bolt go. If you hand feed the round into the chamber, then the friction of the bolt on the next round will push the point forward wedging the point, chambering round, and barrel. Now it is time to load .5 grain above and below those 3 best loads and see what was a fluke and was real becasue those stock sights are a lot harder to shoot than a scope.
DWalt
Posts: 513
Joined: Sun Dec 05, 2010 1:18 pm
Location: San Antonio & Brackettville TX

Re: Anybody use spire points in a .25 Rem M8?

Post by DWalt »

I would think that 4895 and 3031 would be a bit slow for good performance with the light bullets. The WCs being faster would probably be better. For an IMR powder, 4198 is faster and should be good (my particular favorite propellant with the .223), or you might try BL-C or AA2230 (both are very similar to each other). To resolve your case mouth hanging problem with the double cannelured and 120 grain bullets, you might try first belling the case mouths a bit prior to bullet seating. I find a pair of small needle nose pliers twisted around inside the case neck does this OK. The belling will be smoothed out when the bullet is seated. Alternatively, using a case mouth chamfering tool to remove the sharp inside edge at the case mouth might also work.

As I suggested earlier in another posting, you might want to play around a bit with using bullet seating depths incrementally less than the maximum cartridge OAL to see what that does for grouping, without making any other changes. I do not have anything that fires .25 Rem, but I personally never crimp bullets in either the .30 Rem or .300 Savage for use in the M81, and have never had a problem by not doing so. The much milder recoil of a light bullet .25 load vs. these two .30s would seem to make crimping considerably less important.
texassako
Posts: 139
Joined: Sun Sep 25, 2011 7:27 pm

Re: Anybody use spire points in a .25 Rem M8?

Post by texassako »

Thanks for the suggestions DWalt. I was thinking of getting a Lyman M die to get the neck to accept the other bullets with a little bit of belling at the mouth. The WCs I have are close equivalents to H335 and BL-C(2). It has definitely been the most fun of my M8s and M81s to shoot since the recoil is so mild. I figure if I can solve the seating problem, I can use up all the leftover .25 cal bullets I have from other reloading projects for plinking with it.
Post Reply