25 Griffin & Howe? built by Niedner on o3 action

[lafoyjl]

I'm brand spanking new here. Found this site by googling 25 Griffin & Howe. This seems to be the right place for that kind of info. What I recently inherited is an custom 03 springfield fitted with a niedner barrel. Final assembly (stock ect.) made by Henry Edwards Davis in Florence, S. C. I have one dummy round for this rifle which is a 7mm Mauser necked down to 25 cal. Rifle is not chambered for the modern 257 Roberts. The best I can tell, the rifle is chambered for the 25 Griffin & Howe. Can anyone tell me anything about this rifle and cartridge. Thanks in advance.

[raymeketa]

There were at least 3 versions of the 257 Roberts cartridge. What you have is one of the earlier ones. Even though you have a dummy round, it probably would be a good idea to make a chamber cast to be sure.

Here's a short version of an article that I wrote about the Roberts a couple of years ago.

Early in the 20th Century, several experimenters and wildcatters were playing with 25 caliber cartridges based on the 30-40 Krag case, similar to what Dr. Franklin Mann had introduced to the world in his treatise The Bullets’ Flight. One of those pioneers was N. H. (Ned) Roberts. He set out to design a rimless case having a capacity similar to the rimmed 25 Krag-Mann, considering the advances in powders since Mann’s experiments. Roberts settled on the 7x57mm Mauser case and began months of testing different bullets, barrels, and chambers. He finally settled on a 15 degree shoulder and a 2.160" case length, dubbing it the 25 Roberts. Michigan rifle maker A. O. Niedner agreed to make barrels, hand formed cases, and complete rifles, and shooters of the day commonly called the new cartridge the 25 Niedner Roberts.

In 1930, New York gun makers Griffin & Howe began to produce ammunition and rifles. They determined that case forming could be expedited if the case was left full length. Roberts tested the longer case, approved it’s design, and it quickly came to be called the 25 G & H Roberts.

In 1934 Remington proposed to legitimize the wildcat and introduce it in their Model 30-S Express rifle. They concluded that the manufacture of new brass cases could be facilitated by simply necking the 7x57mm case to 25 caliber, with no other changes. The new cartridge was named the 25 Roberts and cases were headstamped accordingly. Several noted riflemen raised flags of concern since it could be mistaken for the original 25 Roberts. Within a year the cartridge was renamed the 257 Remington Roberts and the headstamp changed to 257 REM. A year later, Winchester came on board with their cartridge named the 257 Winchester Roberts, headstamped 257 Roberts. With the passing of time both the Remington and Winchester cartridges came to be known as simply the 257 Roberts.

http://i43.tinypic.com/nqu1jk.jpg

[Rick the Librarian]

Michael Petrov, who often posts on this forum, is your man. If you can post some pictures that would help considerably.

[Michael Petrov]

The are several different .25 Roberts out there and sound like you have an early one. Like the man said you will need to do a chamber cast., here is a link on the same question as well as a link on how to made a cast.

http://www.doublegunshop.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=332317#Post332317

What does it say on the barrel and tell me the number of the barrel found on the underside hidden by the stock? If you have a Niedner barrel then it would have been chambered by Niedner so not the G&H.

Many of the Niedner chambered rifles have what is called a Mann-Niedner chamber which is a very tight chamber so you must use a little caution when loading for it if that is a the case. Most Mann-Niedner chambers are so tight that the case never needs resizing.