The .25 Stevens Short was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 rimfire

Rimfire ammunition

A rimfire is a type of firearm cartridge. It is called a rimfire because instead of the firing pin of a gun striking the primer cap at the center of the base of the cartridge to ignite it , the pin strikes the base's rim....

 rifle

Rifle

A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...

 cartridge

Cartridge (firearms)

A cartridge, also called a round, packages the bullet, gunpowder and primer into a single metallic case precisely made to fit the firing chamber of a firearm. The primer is a small charge of impact-sensitive chemical that may be located at the center of the case head or at its rim . Electrically...

, introduced in 1902.

Developed by J. Stevens Arms & Tool Company

Stevens Arms

Stevens Arms was an American firearms manufacturer founded by Joshua Stevens in 1864. The company introduced the .22 Long Rifle round and made a number of rifle, shotgun, and target pistol designs before being bought by Savage Arms in 1920. After 1920, Stevens made training rifles and machineguns...

, it was intended to be a lower cost, less potent variant of the .25 Stevens

.25 Stevens

The .25 Stevens was an American rimfire rifle cartridge.Developed by J. Stevens Arms & Tool Company and Peters Cartridge Company, it was developed between 1898 and 1900; catalogs suggest it was introduced in 1898, but most sources agree on 1900. It was offered in the Crack Shot #15 rifle, which...

, on which it was based. It initially used a 4.5 gr black powder

Gunpowder

Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...

 charge; this was later replaced by smokeless

Smokeless powder

Smokeless powder is the name given to a number of propellants used in firearms and artillery which produce negligible smoke when fired, unlike the older gunpowder which they replaced...

. It was offered in Stevens, Remington

Remington Arms

Remington Arms Company, Inc. was founded in 1816 by Eliphalet Remington in Ilion, New York, as E. Remington and Sons. It is the oldest company in the United States which still makes its original product, and is the oldest continuously operating manufacturer in North America. It is the only U.S....

, and Winchester

Winchester Repeating Arms Company

The Winchester Repeating Arms Company was a prominent American maker of repeating firearms, located in New Haven, Connecticut. The Winchester brand is today used under license by two subsidiaries of the Herstal Group, Fabrique Nationale of Belgium and the Browning Arms Company of Morgan, Utah.-...

 rifles, and could be used in any .25 Stevens rifle, also (in the way the .38 Special

.38 Special

The .38 Smith & Wesson Special is a rimmed, centerfire cartridge designed by Smith & Wesson. It is most commonly used in revolvers, although some semi-automatic pistols and carbines also use this round...

 can be fired in weapons chambered for .357 Magnum

.357 Magnum

The .357 S&W Magnum , or simply .357 Magnum, is a revolver cartridge created by Elmer Keith, Phillip B. Sharpe, Colonel D. B. Wesson of firearms manufacturer Smith & Wesson, and Winchester. It is based upon Smith & Wesson's earlier .38 Special cartridge. The .357 Magnum cartridge was introduced in...

).

It was more powerful than the .22 Short

.22 Short

.22 Short is a variety of .22 caliber rimfire ammunition. Developed in 1857 for the first Smith and Wesson revolver, the .22 rimfire was the first American metallic cartridge....

, as well as less expensive, but more costly than the .22 Long Rifle

.22 Long Rifle

The .22 Long Rifle rimfire cartridge is a long established variety of ammunition, and in terms of units sold is still by far the most common in the world today. The cartridge is often referred to simply as .22 LR and various rifles, pistols, revolvers, and even some smoothbore shotguns have...

and offering no edge in performance. It was also inferior to its parent cartridge. As a result, it was not a popular hunting round.

It was dropped in 1942.

Sources

• Barnes, Frank C., ed. by John T. Amber. ".25 Stevens Short", in Cartridges of the World, pp. 276 & 282-3. Northfield, IL: DBI Books, 1972. ISBN 0-695-80326-3.
• ______ and _____. ".25 Stevens", in Cartridges of the World, p. 276. Northfield, IL: DBI Books, 1972. ISBN 0-695-80326-3.