A buddy and I were talking about the difficulty in finding .22LR in our area. He jokingly said "I just need a 10/22 chambered in .25 ACP, at least I could reload it!".
That got me thinking, why not? The .25 has been around since 1908 so we're not talking about a brand new cartridge with potential supply issues (a la 17 Win super mag). We all know that when the .25 is compared to other self defense rounds like .380 or 9mm it falls very short, but I'm not talking about defense, I'm talking about a potential .22lr substitute. A plinking or small game gun that would be reliable and reloadable. I have seen .22lr Vs .25ACP ballistics before and the .25 is pretty much in the same class, but with one advantage. The semi-rimmed case of the .25 is more reliable in autoloading guns than is the .22 rimfire. I have never seen any ballistic numbers on the .25 fired from a carbine or rifle however, probably since none (or very few) exist.
Reloading the .25 would be pretty cheap, tiny bullets and small powder charges. Yes, you do have primer costs, but when a cartridge is only loaded with 3-5 grains of powder its not so bad. If you could cast your own bullets then all the better. How many little .25 cal bullets could you cast out of a pound of lead? How many rounds would a pound of powder last?
So my question is this, why cant more gun manufacturers start making long guns and more hand guns chambered for the .25? Or why wont an ammo maker roll out a line of super affordable .25 ammo? I'm not talking about REPLACING the .22lr, just supplementing it. A 10/22, single six, mosquito or some other modern guns chambered in .25 would be a viable substitute for their .22 counterparts.
Just my ramblings.
Thoughts?
