by John Markwell | Contributing Editor
The SRC 25-45 upper receiver was tested on a Colt lower with a 4-14 Leupold telescope mounted in an American Defense QD mount. Note the clean, snag free lines of the Diamondhead USA free float forearm and screw-on muzzle cap.
We have been a fan of the old .250 Savage (.250-3000) cartridge for many years. In fact, other than .223/5.56 rifles, we have more rifles chambered for the 100-year-old .250 than any others. So, it was with great interest that we discovered the .25-45 Sharps cartridge for the AR15 at the 2014 SHOT show Range Day event. Simply the 5.56x45mm cartridge necked up to accept a .25 caliber bullet; this addition to the AR ammo line-up launches an 87-grain bullet at near .250 Savage velocities out of a 16-inch AR15 barrel.
We were able to obtain a 16-inch barreled upper receiver from the Sharps Rifle Company (www.srcarms.com) just in time for the 2015 deer season. Here in the Allegheny Mountains, we can pursue whitetails with .22 caliber centerfire cartridges. There are, however, some jurisdictions where this is not the norm. For those capable of doing a barrel change on an AR rifle, the .25-45 Sharps cartridge is an easy upgrade that can make one’s AR rifle legal for larger game. Complete upper receivers in .25-45 are also available from Sharps Rifle Co.
The upper receiver we received for testing was a complete unit. The 16-inch barrel is threaded for either a flash hider or suppressor attachment and comes with a thread protector. The barrel is fully floated within the Diamondhead forearm which has a full length Picatinny rail on top. This forearm is nicely contoured with comfortable grooves to enhance the purchase of the support hand without the shredding effect of a fully railed hand guard. To complete the upper package, the SRC folks included their NP3 finished Balanced Bolt Carrier and Relia-Bolt.
Installation on our Colt HBAR Elite lower receiver was a simple matter of just pushing the two receiver pins to the right, removing the .223 upper and replacing it with the SRC .25-45 Sharps upper. Done deal! We mounted a 4-14 VX3 Leupold telescope, with a varmint hunter reticle on the upper, using a quick detach mount from American Defense. We’ve found this mount to be quite useful for swapping optics from one weapon to another for testing. We actually have several American Defense QD mounts in service on different rifles, having found them to be rock solid and capable of returning to zero when removed and replaced.
Although tested only with factory provided ammunition, the .25-45 Sharps is reloader friendly. Brass is easily formed using the Redding die set, and .25 caliber projectiles are common.
We zeroed the .25-45 with a point of impact 1½ inch high at 100 yards using the factory ammo provided by SRC. When fired from the SRC upper’s 16-inch barrel, our CED chronograph gave us a velocity reading of 2,752 fps for this factory load which utilizes an 87-gr. Speer HOT-COR bullet. The factory claims a velocity of 2,970 fps from a 20-incher. With our zero of +1.5” at 100 yards, the .25-45 is just about dead on at 200 yards and about 8.5” low at 300 yards; perfect for WV whitetail hunting here in the mountains.
During the 2015 WV deer season we went out to help our son gather some venison for his annual jerky making. It takes more than a “few” to make a goodly amount of jerky and WV’s generous bag limits allow for the harvesting of enough whitetails to provide a pretty good proving ground for new rounds like the .25-45 Sharps. To say the .25-45 Sharps did a good job is an understatement!
The .25-45 is compatible with all .223/5.56 magazines, bolts/carriers, buffers, and parts groups. The .25-45 upper we received, worked perfectly on our Colt lower as well as a home-built lower we tried it on. Terminal effects of the .25-45 Sharps cartridge on whitetails were equivalent to the .250 Savage, in our opinion. Quite simply, the .25-45 dispatched the deer shot with it quickly and cleanly.
Thoughtfully, the ejection port cover is engraved with the 25-45 designation to avoid any confusion in the field or on the range. The author used 10-round MAGPUL PMAG magazines for testing the SRC .25-45.
We have not had the opportunity to handload for the .25-45 yet but have the dies from Redding Reloading in hand and look forward to experimenting with the new cartridge. Forming cases from .223 brass is a simple matter of just expanding the .223 case neck and then running the case through the .25-45 sizer die. Reloading for the .25-45 should prove to be an interesting winter project and we are looking forward to it.
For those wanting to use their AR platform rifle for larger game hunting, we can highly recommend the Sharps Rifle Company’s .25-45 Sharps cartridge. Simply changing out an AR’s barrel (or complete upper receiver) for one chambered for the new cartridge can give the user a considerable boost in game-gathering power. We plan on using the .25-45 Sharps for some of our future hunting as soon as we get it out of our son’s hands which may prove to be easier said than done. Good shooting.
