They say it's tough enough for the application. The 1:14 rifling should stabilize it. The cartridge should move it out at 3,000 FPS. Placed properly, it should do the job at any reasonable Eastern deer woods hunting distances.

Now to find the rifle...

-AaronB

Today I stopped at the closest local shop to see what they had by way of Savage 99s. There was one on the rack, but it was chambered in .22 Savage Hi-Power. A neat little cartridge invented by Charles Newton, but it uses a non-standard .228-diameter bullet that you have to order from Europe.

Nope. That's a bridge too far for me. I'm not done with my .250-3000 jones yet.

Let me know how much you would like for the dies, and thanks.

-AaronB

It will be a little while. Like JD, I am recovering from surgery and I will not be able to get to The Dungeon for a bit. (JD and I were going to start a club but nobody wanted to join. )

Good luck!!!

I was hoping that wouldn't be the case, but there it is. The alternative is to hunt deer with 87-grain bullets, I guess, but those tend to be varmint bullets and I don't trust 'em in the deer woods.

-AaronB

I believe they were around 2800 to 2850. Factory 100 grain ammo was just over 2500 fps... Pretty slow.

I really like the 250 Savage as a cartridge, but even Speer 100 grain flat base bullets showed that they were tipping at 100 yards. I've talked to some people who say their 1 in 14 twist rifles will stabilize 100 grain bullets, but mine certainly would not, even with an excellent bore. I finally gave up and sold the rifle and moved on to the 257 Roberts with a 1 in 10 twist.

Of course, I read the above "information" on the internet, which makes it worth exactly what I paid for it. Still, it does lead me to ask, when you were trying the 100-grainers in your rifle and they were keyholing, how fast were you pushing them?

-AaronB

As it turns out... (I can tell you're all waiting in suspense)... there was, and I brought it home. I got some bullets and a whole lot of brass, not to mention some cartridge boxes and some organized shelving that I could put to good use (my current system of organization being of the "a tornado came through here" school).

I was sitting down sorting brass yesterday and looking at what I thought was about 300 cases of 6.5 Creedmoor. It turns out it was about half 6.5 Creedmoor brass and the other half .250 Savage brass.

So I have about 150 empty brass cases for .250 Savage. I thought to myself "What am I going to do with this?" The reply came to me almost immediately: "Uh, I dunno... shoot some deer with it maybe?"

There's a shop a few townships over that seems to really appreciate the Savage 99, and they keep quite a few of them on the used rack. I am certain they will have one or more of them chambered in .250-3000.

A couple of questions:

1) Will the 14:1 rifling twist stabilize a 100-grain bullet adequately, or should I look specifically for the later 1:10 twist? and

2) Does anyone here have any experience loading and shooting the .250 Savage?

-AaronB