Winchester still offers ammo loaded to 2,230 fps with a 117-grain softnose bullet, and the roundnose bullet of the same weight from Hornady was designed specifically for use in the .25-35 as well as the .25-36 Marlin and .25 Remington. The 60-grain flatnose bullet made by Hornady for the .25-20 can also be loaded in the .25-35, and while its performance on varmints is quite spectacular out to 100 yards or so, I have never found it to be as accurate as Hornady's 117-grain bullet.

Due to the scarcity of factory loads, the .25-35 is an excellent candidate for handloading. Remember that pointed bullets should be single-loaded directly into the chamber and not in a tubular magazine.

The .25-35 has long been considered an inherently accurate cartridge, and this explains why it was popular among varmint shooters before cartridges such as the .22 Hornet and .22-250 came along and stole its thunder. Back in those days most varmint shooters preferred various single-shot rifles for the .25-35, and while they were surely more accurate than the Winchester 94, the old lever gun was and still is capable of turning in same rather impressive accuracy.

A Model 94 in .25-35 I owned until a few years ago had a tang sight and a 26-inch octagon barrel with a pristine bore; it was built sometime during the mid-1920s, and yet it would consistently shoot five 117-grain Hornadys inside two inches at 100 yards. The .25-35 sitting in my rifle rack today was built only a few months before U.S. Repeating Arms ceased production of the Model 94, and it averages 1 1/2 inches and less with not only the 117-grain Hornady but with several spitzers that I load single-shot.

So how good is the .25-35 as a deer cartridge? I found the answer to that question not long ago when several friends and I headed to a South Texas ranch that was just about overrun with whitetails. In addition to being allowed to take two bucks each, we were encouraged by the ranch manager to participate in his population-management program by taking several does. What makes that trip fit into this story is that we used nothing but Winchester 94s, and that made it a great opportunity to compare the performance of the .25-35, .30-30 and .38-55 in the field. Prior to that hunt I had taken only a couple of hogs and one deer with the .25-35, so I was especially interested in hunting with it.

During the hunt I used a Winchester Model 94 in .38-55 to take one of my bucks and then switched to another Model 94 in .25-35 to take a second buck, four does and three coyotes. All tolled, our group took 16 bucks and 21 does, all inside 100 yards, and all but two were one-shot kills. Several dropped in their tracks, while the rest gave up the ghost after running anywhere from 20 to 60 yards. Only one deer that was shot got away. I was watching the doe through my binocular when another hunter's bullet from his .30-30 rifle just barely grazed the top of its back enough to clip off a few hairs; the hit was so light it didn't even leave blood behind. I am sure the animal recovered from such a minor scratch.

It might be of interest to mention that I used the Winchester .25-35 factory load on deer, but when calling in coyotes with a Burnham Brothers digital CompuCaller II, I switched to a handload with the Hornady 75-grain V-Max (which I single-loaded directly into the chamber). The traditionalist side of me enjoys using an aperture-style sight when hunting with one of the lever-action hammer guns, but nothing I tried worked due to the great difference in points of impact of the 117- and 75-grain loads.