The 25-06 and 257 Roberts are for my money the best two varmint/smaller big game calibers. The 6.5's (.264's) are a little heavy for varmints in my opinion, and the 6mm's (.243's) are on the light side for deer. Both will do o.k. but are slightly less than ideal, the .25's though seem to have a good combination of bullet weights for varmints and deer, and they seem to do better in this role than their larger/smaller counterparts. In fact this application is exactly what Ned Roberts had in mind when he created his little .257.

Gordon