Resurrection! - the .256 Win Mag still lives...
I recently bought a carbine barrel for the Contender chambered in .256 Win Mag. There is absolutely no logical reason for this but a purely emotional response to the cute little cartridge. Truth be told, I can do everything and then some with the .25 for small game using my .25-35 barrel. To digress a bit, the 21-inch 25-35 barrel balances about the same as the 18" bull-barrel configuration.
Ok, to continue, so far I've tried the 75 gr VMAX and Sierra HP, the old Hornady 60 gr. RN, 75 gr. Speer FN and 86 gr Remington FP (for the .25-20). I've tried H4227, IMR 4227 and H4198. I just got some of the new Hornady 60 gr FPs. These have a noticeably flatter point than the older 60 gr. bullets.
Forming brass has not been at all difficult. I tried it, just to see what would happen, without annealing but got crazing and wrinkles. Annealing is definitely the way to go. I could not find any other brass quickly so got Hornady brass. I annealed it by holding the case by the rim/head and spinning it with my fingers in the flame from a blow-torch until it was uncomfortable to hold and then dropped the cases in bucket of water with a slotted splash cover over it. After all the cases were done the water was drained off in my wife's kitchen colander (shhhhhhhh...) and the cases allowed to dry and checked before priming and loading. ZERO case loss with this method.
Although I've only got about 300 rounds through the barrel it seems that the most accurate bullet is the 75 gr Speer FP. The jury is still out on the VMAX. I'm hoping that one will be accurate enough and with enough velocity for it to open up in a coyote at least as well as a big game bullet. I'd like the 60 gr. Hornady to work well enough to be a viable alternative as neither the 75 gr. FP or 60 gr. Hornady can be counted on to be constantly available.
This should be a good walking-around-the-farm gun so all I need to work on now is my ability to walk around.