I haven't posted on PM in a very long time per some things that went down that I would rather not get into. I happened to look at the site and saw this thread which talked about a video of me shooting my 20-250 and a lot of talk about spinners along with comments on the caliber, etc. I decided to respond vs let others speak for me. Yes, I 100% admit that on that specific video there were more spinners than I am used to. If this was the norm, I would not shoot this caliber or the bullets.
The following video is a lot more of what I have been experiencing when using the 20-250:
I wanted to try the 20-250 for three reasons. First, I absolutely love the 20 cal, 40grain BIB bullets. I don't talk about them a lot because when people saw my videos, many of them were wondering how a 20 caliber bullet could create so many DRTs. BIB was having a hard time keeping up with the demand, so I promised to tone down the hype on the bullets. 2nd I shot thousands of coyotes with 22-250's over the years and have a lot of brass laying around, so why not give it a try. The third reason was to get decent speed with a 204 for instance, you need a fairly long barrel. Add a 9" suppressor and that is a lot of gun to be getting in and out of a truck for as many stands as I put in during a season. So, my goal with a 20-250 was to get around 4,000fps shooting my favorite 20cal 40gr bullet out of a 20" barrel.
The load I ended up using last year in my 20-250 was pushing the 40gr Bibs at around 4150fps out of a 20" barrel. I used 8208 for my powder and was getting more speed than I even expected. The gun shot extremely well and besides the video originally posted, most coyotes don't even twitch when they are hit. In fact, if I put the bullet where I am supposed to, when I would pick up coyotes, you could hear the insides of the coyotes slosh around and often you will see a large amount of blood pouring out of their mouth when held up.
I thought something wasn't quite right after the hunt shown and a few others. I actually went back to my 204 for a bit and found the same problem was happening. After that, I checked my scope mounts and found some were a bit loose and my zero was shifting some. This was the main reason for the number of runners not the bullet or the caliber. I could hide that type of stuff, but I don't. I have shot 1510 coyotes the last 3 coyote seasons, so there are some nights where things don't go as planned, and this was one of those.
As for barrel life, time will tell. I know the guys shooting heavy bullets out of faster twist barrels don't get a lot of barrel life. I ran around 500 rounds through my 20-250 last year, and the rifling looks really good and it is still shooting well. I do have plans to test shooting the bullets around 4,000 to 4,050fps instead. At the speeds I was shooting last season, I had a bit of a sticky bolt at times, so the lower speed and less pressure should help that. I purchased my barrel from Preferred Barrels. After posting some videos, Drew's Precision contacted me as they started getting requests for 20-250 barrels. Drew's is sending me a 20-250 barrel, so I can have two. I hope to put it to use this year as well and then customers can have a choice from multiple providers hopefully.
The 20-250 probably isn't going to be the go to for many and that is OK. I am using a die that is a single pass through making the caliber super easy to load. The vast majority of the coyotes I have shot end up DRT. Pelts aren't worth crap, but I would say the pelt damage is slightly more than my .204 but not by much. It is actually pretty darn easy on the pelts but not the inside of the coyotes.
The biggest issue that DAA mentions and potentially others is some bullets will not handle the extreme speed of this caliber, so that should be a consideration before anyone tries to jump into this caliber.
