saw a Savage 25 in .22 Hornet for less than $500 new.
in the bit of Googling I've done on the .22 Hornet and available guns, I've read recommendations to steer clear of the Savage 25. if it's so bad, why is it still around?
shouldered a .17 Hornet in Laminate and the .22 Hornet in plastic...definitely need to change the stock, but still don't think there are any new .22 Hornet out there for $600ish new ($100 for the Boyd's Laminate upgrade).
thanks!
In my opinion, most of the "recommendations to steer clear of the Savage 25" are based on early growing pains of both the cartridge, as supplied by Hornady, and early versions of the M25 as well. Furthermore, when people have problems, they get amplified on the internet over and over again as the original complainant repeats his complaints every chance he has, and others read said complaints and repeat them in the form of "I've read on the forums that....", or "the consensus seems to be that....". But rarely to never are the great reviews repeated, partly because the happy customers don't usually make a lot of noise.
All that to say, I bought a brand new M25 in .17 Hornet in Feb 2016, have put about 250 factory rounds through it and about 100 of my own loads and am delighted with the rifle and cartridge. I have the laminate "Lightweight Varminter", which isn't really lightweight
.
It is an absolute tackdriver with factory ammo, and I'm still doing load development but have found a couple very promising loads, one of which I will be doing extensive testing with today.
Both the cartridge and rifle have some unique quirks that take some getting used to. Because of the short cartridge length and steep loading angle from the magazine (at least in the Savage, can't speak for the Ruger or CZ versions), you can't be timid about working the bolt. That said, I never have any problem chambering cartridges. This is one of the common complaints, doesn't chamber reliably, supposedly. Not from my experience.
You'll also hear about ejection problems; again, if you work the bolt properly, there is absolutely no problem. If you're timid, the case may not exit the ejection port, which in the Savage is a machined "window" for lack of a better term. But it's not problem to just tip the rifle to the right and the case falls out fine. As a reloader, I try to catch all my cases as they exit so they don't go flying, or get bent at the neck from landing on cement. So I end up working the bolt to extract too gently on occasion. But this is all normal behaviour in my opinion.
You'll also hear complaints about the bolt being stiff to open. I think most people who complain about this fail to realize that the M25 action cocks on opening the bolt, therefore there is more resistance on opening than there is with rifles that #### on closing the bolt.
The other very common complaint you'll read (although if you look at the date of the posts you'll see that they generally go back a few years) is that pierced or leaky primers are common. I'll say two things about this: as I've mentioned, I have fired over 250 factory rounds through my rifle in the last couple of months without a single such problem. Because the .17 Hornet isn't a particularly mainstream cartridge yet, I have found that the stores from which I bought the various boxes of factory stuff from had some stock that was clearly older than others. I ended up buying a few boxes of 20 grain VMAX that had brass coloured primers, others that used silver coloured ones. For the record, there was a clear difference in pressure between the two, with the silvered coloured ones giving about factory velocity (~3650fps), while the brass coloured ones averaged about 3750fps.
An important thing to keep in mind is that the .22 Hornet is a very unique, finicky cartridge that takes a lot of getting to know. I had one many years ago that I reloaded for, and I blew many primers, split many cases and crushed many shoulders before I figured out how the little beast worked. Can you imagine if that cartridge had been introduced in the internet age? It would have been doomed. But it's a wonderful round, as many, many knowledgeable people will attest. The .17 is its offspring, and it has its quirks as well. It's a tiny little case that is extremely sensitive to how it's loaded. But I love it, and I love my M25.
Hope this helps.
