Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Jack O'Connor wrote about the 7x57

"For almost forty years I've been having an off-and-on romance with a sweet little cartridge known as the 7X57, the 7mm Mauser, and the 7mm Spanish Mauser. There is nothing spetacular about the 7X57. It does not have a big case. Even when the charge is tightly compressed it is possible to get only about 53 grains of 4350 or 4831 powders into the Western 7X57 case, which is roomier than Remington's. This modest little cartridge does not have a belt. It isn't a magnum. It doesn't bellow like a 105 mm howitzer and scramble the brains of the firer. It doesn't shoot through three elk, one moose, two grizzlies, and a forest ranger and then mow down a grove of jack pines on the far side. The hole in the barrel is so small that even a small, thin, underprivileged mouse would have difficulty in entering, and the cartridge itself isn't as long as a maiden's arm.

Yet I think I have seen more game killed with fewer shots from this modest little cartridge than with any other. The explanation for its deadly efficiency does not lie in blinding velocity, in big bullets, in a frightening number of foot pounds of energy. It lies in the light recoil, coupled with the excellent hunting accuracy of so many 7X57s. Those who use it are not afraid of it and, as a consequence, they tend to shoot it well-and to place their shots well. In case no one has told you, the most important factor in killing power is putting that bullet in the right spot."