The .25 Stevens Short was an American
rimfire rifle
A rifle is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting and higher stopping power, with a gun barrel, barrel that has a helical or spiralling pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus o ...
cartridge, introduced in 1902.
[Barnes, p.276, ".25 Stevens Short".]
Developed by
J. Stevens Arms & Tool Company,
[Barnes, p.276, ".25 Stevens".] it was intended to be a lower cost, less potent variant of the
.25 Stevens, on which it was based.
It initially used a
black powder
Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, charcoal (which is mostly carbon), and potassium nitrate, potassium ni ...
charge; this was later replaced by
smokeless. It was offered in Stevens,
Remington, and
Winchester
Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...
rifles, and could be used in any .25 Stevens rifle, also
(in the way the
.38 Special can be fired in weapons chambered for
.357 Magnum
The .357 Smith & Wesson Magnum, .357 S&W Magnum, .357 Magnum, or 9×33mmR (as it is known in unofficial metric designation) is a smokeless powder cartridge with a bullet diameter. It was created by Elmer Keith, Phillip B. Sharpe, and Douglas B. ...
).
It was more powerful than the
.22 Short, as well as less expensive, but more costly than the
.22 Long Rifle and offering no edge in performance.
It was also inferior to its parent cartridge.
As a result, it was not a popular hunting round.
The cartridge continued to be commercially available until 1942.
Notes
Sources
*Barnes, Frank C., ed. by John T. Amber. ".25 Stevens Short", in ''Cartridges of the World'', pp. 276 & 282–3. Northfield, IL: DBI Books, 1972. .
*______ and _____. ".25 Stevens", in ''Cartridges of the World'', p. 276. Northfield, IL: DBI Books, 1972. .
Pistol and rifle cartridges
Rimfire cartridges
Stevens Arms
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