With the ammo crunch and prices of available ammo and general lack of availability of many components alot of us old hands are finding it next to impossible to either afford nor find the materials we need. So sometimes you have to get creative.
I was lucky enough a few months back to acquire a near mint Remington Model 25, first year production (1923) chambered in .25wcf, or .25-20 as it's known. Digging around in the brass cache i found I only had 100 pieces of new Remington brass. Like most of us I get the jitters when I don't have at least 500 of something, so knowing I had a large stock of .32-20 brass I decided to form the .25wcf from some of this and I learned a few things along the way.
I want to pass along some knowledge and tips to those who may have Grandpa's old Win 92 or Marlin in the closet and would love to shoot it, but at present cant find brass or ammo. Last .25wcf I found was going for around $60 for 50 rounds and it was the wimpy CAS stuff. Aint happening.
So here is a photo guide on forming .25wcf from more readily available .32wcf (which is relative as to available right now).
First thing is this takes some patience and thought, it's not for everybody but if you handload/reload you already have a bit of love for tedious, repititious tasks so why not try it.

First up you'll need dies, I only use either RCBS or Redding dies, I've not had alot of luck with other brands, spend a bit extra and be set for life.



I try to use unfired brass when forming cases but once fired works, just don't expect as good a survival rate from it. Here is a shot of the stages of forming, raw .32wcf, intermediate stage and final result.



You can skip the intermediate stage but expect more lost cases.
First step is to round off the case necks on the .32wcf, use your neck expanding die from the .32wcf set ( i have one that measures .308, which helps, the larger diameter of the neck in the forming stage the more lost cases you'll have), set the die to just round out the mouth and NOT expand the case mouth. In other words back it out some.
Next up is case lubing, this is critical, you want to just get lube on the case body and the mouth of the case, DO NOT get lube anywhere near the case shoulder, this is thin neck brass and you will put dents or collapse the shoulder. Use your fingertip to do this, not the pad, a little goes a long way.




Now your ready to start the intermediate stage, I recomend this stage. Basically you are using the bullet seating die from the .25wcf die set for this. What this does is reduces the neck diameter to about .29 or so and sets the case shoulder back a bit but doesn't reduce the body taper. This helps in the long run as the reduction of going from .34 (outside diameter) to .27 (osd) is a pretty big step, you will spend time but save cases this way. Remove the bullet seating stem and set the die up like this:



This set up puts the die down enough to initially form the case without the crimping shoulder coming into play, you don't want to crimp the case mouth, just form the brass. Your die may vary, deal with it.
After the initial forming stage your brass will look like this:




Now here is what can happen if you do not round off/square the case mouth, if there is even the smallest dent in it before this stage you will get this:



Not pretty is it? Take your time on prepping your cases.
Now, after you've initially formed your cases, DO NOT wipe the lube off of them, if they've turned out good it means you have just enough on them, no sense wiping it off only to put it back on and hope you dont have too much.
Next step is to final form, for this you use the full lenght sizing die from your .25wcf set. There is a trick to doing this, it took me awhile to puzzle thru this but I'll try to explain.
Because the body of the .25wcf is so small you must set your expander ball all the way down towards the inside base of the case without contacting the bottom (and bending the expander stem) this looks odd because the decapping pin sticks way out the bottom, you can remove it if you want, not hard to do. If you do not adjust the expander stem all the way down, what happens is the sizing die is trying to reduce the diameter of the neck at the same time the expander ball is trying to expand it, don't work like that and this is what happens:



Scary stuff that, eh? Took me a bit to puzzle this out, so adjust the expander stem all the way down like this:



Now adjust your sizing die, with expander stem adjusted as shown all the way down, lower your press arm a bit, adjust a quarter turn or so more, raise the arm to put pressure on the base of the die (not much) and lock your ring down. Your now ready for final forming.



As you process each piece of brass lube the inside of the case neck a bit to ease the expander ball in and out. As the case goes in the expander ball enters the slighty oversize case mouth, as more pressure is exerted (do this slowly, don't just slam it down) you'll feel resistance and pressure, this is normal, your not only reducing the diameter of the case neck, you're moving the case shoulder back and reducing the taper of the case. It feels strange but unless you run into a complete resistance keep going. If you do feel you have to exert undue pressure STOP!, check to see what is wrong, is your expander ball set too far down and hitting the inside of the base of the case? You WILL bend it. Do you need to add just a tad more lube to end of case mouth or case body (didn't wipe it off did you? I warned you not to...) anyway you be the judge, just expect more resistance than usual, just not a tremendous amount. As you withdraw the formed case the expander ball does it's job and expands the mouth to about .256/7, excellent!
So, now you have a completely formed .25wcf case! Congratulations, you've taken a step to advanced handloading!
This is what the finished product should look like:



Now just process this brass the same you would with brand new .25wcf, you must trim it to length, it will be too long, with all the forming you've displaced alot of brass and it has to go somewhere, that would be to the case mouth and it will now be too long, so you have to trim, then chamfer.
I won't go into all that, it is just basic handloading and you should know how to do it or you would not have read this whole missive.
One tip on loading .25-20 I can pass along is this:

When seating bullets unless you bell the case mouth somewhat you will collapse the case, to do this I use a Lyman Universal Case mouth expander. It is a handy tool that has 4 tapered plugs which you set up in different ways to put a bell on the case mouths, get one, it works great.

ADDED:

I can't believe I failed to mention this: After going thru all this you must remember this: You now have a potentially dangerous scenario, that is you have a lot of .25-20 brass that is headstamped .32-20. MAKE SURE TO KEEP IT SEPERATE FROM YOUR ACTUAL .32WCF BRASS!!
I can't stress this enough, keep it in a marked container with a note in it as to what you have done in case others get ahold of it. Especially if it is loaded ammo, since this round headspaces on the rim, it will chamber and fire in a .32-20!! I don't know what the results would be, but I wouldn't want my face next to the reciever when it happens, so USE COMMON SENSE, MARK THIS BRASS AND AMMO!!


Hope you enjoyed this, sorry if I bored you. I'm going to post and proof read this, so some pics etc. may change.
Thanks for your time.
RD

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Got a Phd from Hard Knocks U

Smithhound; An additional source of brass for your 25-20 WCF is 218 Bee Winchester. You could neck it up or fire form. You will probably have cases that are a little short. I have a 218 Ruger #1 ans a Marlin 32-20 and 2 revolvers in 32-20 so I have never reformed any of the brass. Ivan

You are doing it RIGHT and showing what you are doing very clearly. Something I really appreciate. Though I probably won't be doing this, thanks for the lesson.

I admire your ambition, compliment your abilities, and am envious of your results but my god man. Just put the rifle on the shelf and wait til you see some brass on Gunbroker!
I love the Remington 25, I have one in 25-20 and 32-20 along with several Winchester 92s in those calibers. They are all fun to shoot but admittedly not the easiest to find components for and the 25-20 is not the easiest round to reload. My Redding die set only has 2 dies so I have to do a good job of chamfering to get the bullet stated.
Again, my compliments and well done.

Yes, .218 Bee is also derived from the basic family, but I didn't have any and I had to use what I had.

And Yes, I could have just waited for some brass to become available, but where's the fun in that? I don't watch much TV, I'm not a 'club' person, other than a beer with some Vet friends now and then I'm pretty much a home body. I take care of elderly Parents and some property here and that's about it.
I basically enjoy the challenge of Handloading and trying something new. Acutally, once you get set up it doesn't take that long to form 100 pieces of brass.
It's not for everyone, but shows if you don't have what you need, there are ways to make it. I've made .222 brass for a friend from .223, and a few others. Basically ,it's just part of the hobby.

RD

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Got a Phd from Hard Knocks U

Nice job! It's been awhile, but I have fond memories of forming 7mm TCU from .223 brass, and 7X30 Waters from 30/30 brass. The lube is critical, especially inside the neck for 7 TCU. I recall several cases with the neck turned totally inside the case body. With the 7X30 Waters, necking down, I found I needed to turn the necks for consistent wall thickness. I'm still using some of the 7X30 brass from time to time.

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H Richard
SWCA1967 SWHF244

Very good information, many Thanks. I reload for the 25-20 & know the cases are getting pretty hard to find now a days. I bought my first wife a Rem. Mod. 25 years ago. She was a dead shot with it. My youngest daughter has it now. I still have a Marlin 94 25-20.

I have tried this method but my 25/20 dies both Lee and RCBS don't work for the intermediate step. They are both just straight cylinders inside. Has anyone tried the Redding Form and Trim die? Without the intermediate step the Starline 32/20 brass is a no go.

The Redding Form/Trim die is the way to go when converting Starline 32-20 brass to 25-20. No problems with a properly lubed case. FWIW, even cases with the longitudinal wrinkle in the neck shoot fine. (The F/T die didn't do that).

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The triple smoker

Thanks for taking the time and effort to post your experience resizing to 25-20. I plan on taking down to 218 Bee as the next step. Is there any chance you've done that? Long shot but I thought I'd ask.

I load for .25-20 also. My rifle is a Winchester 1892 (1914 production). Having loaded .32-20, .218 Bee, and a few others of that series of WCF cartridges I had no surprises. Relatively thin case necks, shoulders collapse pretty easily, etc.

About the only difference in my method of case forming is the use of the Lyman M-die for forming and flaring the case necks. This eliminates the need to use the standard expander button at all, which relieves a lot of the pressures on the necks and shoulders.

I started using cast bullets in rifles many years ago and quickly adopted the Lyman M-die for consistent and precise neck forming and expansion for seating. I have removed the resizing dies' decapping rods and expander buttons, so I just decap everything as a separate operation (actually that is the first step prior to cleaning the brass, which also works out very well).

Another thing I would offer is that when necking down cases there are two things that can be helpful. First, do each stage separately and allow a few days to pass between operations; this allows the brass to "relax" a bit rather than being heavily worked all at one sitting. Second, if possible I try and do the necking down in multiple stages (like forming .25-06 from .30-06, for which I will neck down to .270 first, then let the brass rest, then neck down to .25-06), which also removes some of the stress on the cases.

Good post, very well presented.

Do you think annealing first would help?

I have done many 25/20s from 32/20, I always anneal the cases.
After you get the feel you will not loose many cases.

Drm50,, Did you use New or Once Fired brass? What Dies?

Used once fired Winchester brass & RCBS dies. Lose to many
brass with Remington When you anneal make sure to play
torch around on case, do not hold on one spot. I very rarely
screw one up with this method. I have no experience with the
other brands of brass. I recently made a batch of 375 win out
of 30/30s, with same annealing process. Never lost a case with
Win, lost very few with Federal, lost a bunch with Rem. I think
they skimp on copper in their brass. To my good luck there is
a couple guys that love to shot their Marlin 32/20s, they don't
load, save their brass for me.