25-20 shells

the 25-20 winchester is a pretty old round, I did some research on it quite a while back when I was doing some other research on some wildcat rounds

I cant remember anything out of memory but heres some info on it... http://www.reloadbench.com/cartridges/2520.html

the round is still made today so(like just about all modern ammo brass) its probably going to be impossible to get an accurate date

Hey that was pretty cool Thanks!
That Buffalo nickel is a 1916, actually it has no date so it can be anything I want it to be so I chose that date.

no problem...

actually, I missed the WRA you said was on it in your first post, that headstamp stands for "winchester repeating arms", the manufacturer of that particular brass case/round(there were probably several manufacturers of them) it MAY be possible to narrow the date down by the headstamp, some manuf. only made rounds for certain years, or only used a particular heastamp for certain periods of time, I've never tried to date a round by its headstamp, and I dont really know much about the 25-20 except for its basic info, but it may be possible to get fairly close date-wise by researching when that particular headstamp was used

however, "winchester repeating arms" was pretty common over alot of years so trying dating it probably wont work out very well anyway

I'll do a little digging around and see if I can come up with anything

The WRA headstamp was used during 1932 -1950. Should it read 'WRA Co' then it would be older, 1866 - 1932.

Voriax

Spitfire, could you measure the length of the case? It seems that there are two 25-20 rounds. One has case length of 33,6 millimeters and the other 41,5mm.
Both were invented early 1880's and by same person so not that big of a difference..

Voriax

Voriax said:

Spitfire, could you measure the length of the case? It seems that there are two 25-20 rounds. One has case length of 33,6 millimeters and the other 41,5mm.
Both were invented early 1880's and by same person so not that big of a difference..

Voriax

Click to expand...

hhmmm....

all my books only list one 25-20, with a case length of 1.33in(33.7mm), unless the longer case is the older black powder one, in which case it wouldnt be listed in my books and I would have no reloading info on it...

the 25-20 does have a cartridge OAL of 1.592 though which is 1.592in(40.4mm)

at 1.33in it also already has a pretty long neck length(.337in or 3/8in) and in order to make the case length 41.5mm they would have had to extend the neck another 7.9mm(3.11in or 5/16in) making the total neck length about 11/16in, outrageously long for that round

another point is that the 25-20's parent case, the 32-20, was only 1.315in(33.4mm), not long enough itself to give the 25-20 a 41.5mm case length


I'm not saying your wrong in any way, just wondering where you got such specific information... I'm just a reloader and I've never had any reason to date any ammo brass so I dont really have any books or resources that actually date rounds unless its just in the "in general" information in a reloading book so most of my round dating gets done through online searchs and saved files, and I dont have much info at all on the 25-20...

but even so, I didnt find anywhere near the amount, or specific amount, of info on that round you did(I havent had much of a chance to look yet though, or look in any of my black powder books), I'm kind of a gun nut and if you dont mind my asking I'm kind of interested in this second 25-20 you've found, and where you got all that information, if its books, online, or wherever...

Well, it's not a secret :P The site is in spanish, I use it mainly because it has good pics of the rounds and usually quite a few headstamps.
check here: http://www.municion.org/index.html

It lists both '25-20 Winchester center fire' and '25-20 Winchester center fire single shot' rounds that are definitely different beasts.

Direct link to the 25-20 single shot: http://www.municion.org/Win/25-20Ss.htm

and to the 25-20 wcf : http://www.municion.org/Win/25-20Wcf.htm

Voriax


ps. I recently obtained a cardboard box that contained some 150 or so different cartridges, had a h*ll of a job identifying them. This site was really useful in that.

thats a cool site(after you translate it), thanks for the link...

according to that site it looks like your right, there were two different versions of the 25-20, I'm going to have to dig a little deeper into that, my books list the 25-35, 32-20, and a few other old oddballs but the only 25-20 I find listed anywhere is the short version, maybe it was an early form of a "magnum" or something, or maybe it wasnt offered in the US(which wouldnt seem right anyway because some of my books list foriegn calibers)

I'm going to go check the site out some more...


I guess I kind of highjacked your post too spittfire, sorry about that, I'm done now...

Okay I looked on your sites and it is definitely a 25-20 wcf wraco. I am attaching a picture for you to see. Thanks for all the hard work on researching this! I knew someone would be able to come up with the answers! Thanks to both of you guys!

Here's a very good site for identifying headstamps: http://members.shaw.ca/cstein0/uscenter.htm

oystermick said:

Here's a very good site for identifying headstamps: http://members.shaw.ca/cstein0/uscenter.htm

Click to expand...

Yep it is listed. Thanks!