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John,is Hornady brass stamped .275 Rigby identical to 7x57 brass? Can I use the .275 Rigby brass safely in my 7x57 rifles?

Yes.

In fact I have been tempted to buy some of the .275 Rigby brass, most recently when a local store had some on a shelf, simply because of being a rifle loony. But my 7x57 is marked 7x57, so managed to suppress myself.

Thats actually pretty impressive.....

I'd be tempted to buy some and I don't have a rifle marked for either.

John, You are a master of digression.

Some of us would have had a discreet "pocket" milled into the barrel shank to remove the obviously errant cartridge designation.

Then, we would have had .275 Rigby proudly engraved.

I'd have used English Script with a few added flourishes.

By the way, one part of the jewelry biz I miss is the engraving. It was fun.

Steve

Thanks John.Im a loony,and a very weak one when it comes to buying things for my 7x57s.Ill have to get some .275 cases before theyre gone!

Steve,

Well, in firearms I’m somewhat of an Anglophobe, and pro-German. Despite the reputation of British rifles and shotguns, many of their bolt-action rifles were made on German actions and sometimes even German barreled actions. Essentially all the Brits did was add sights and stocks, and even had the gall to rename some perfectly fine German rounds, such as the 6.5x54 Mannlicher-Schoenauer and 7x57 Mauser.

Am also more of a fan of German double shotguns. They’re just as good as British doubles, if not better, because German guns usually have a third fastener so hold up for years of hard shooting, when many of the British guns have to be periodically tightened. Yet many modern shooting snobs will happily pay two or even three times as much for any sort of British shotgun. (And yes, Germans also know how to make light, finely balanced doubles.)

I also like drillings!

And conversely, I used brass marked 7x57 and 7mm Mauser in my John Rigby .275 Mauser. It worked fine as it should, being the same thing.

A model of restraint.

A true loony would have the rifle re-marked to match the brass.

MD-
Hmmm!

It's pretty certain that the 6.5x54 M-S rimless was developed not by Germans, but by Austrians at Steyr, possibly including Ferdinand M. himself. Holt Bodinson's article in the Jan 2015 Guns is pretty clear about this.

I think, however, that Bodinson erred in the same article in writing that the 6.5x54 cartridge was anglicized by calling it the 256 Jeffrey. I can find no other references to that name.

If Cartridges of the World and some other references are correct, the cartridge was named the 256 Fraser Rimless by Daniel Fraser, and the 256 Swift Rimless by some person or persons unknown. It's unfair to blame the Brits for the former name, since Fraser was a Scot from Edinburgh. (Fraser photo below.)

Datig says that the 256 Swift was an English wildcat, with some known samples having 6.5x54 headstamps. More information about this cartridge name would be helpful, particularly dates. (Did it predate Wotkyn's Swift?)

Other British names for the 6.5x55 may include 256 Gibbs Rimless Nitro Express.

Following Solomon, Hemingway split the Austo-Anglo baby in two and used "256 Mannlicher". However, with all such use I can recall he was describing the rifle, not the cartridge.

Sorry, I'm feeling picky today.
--Bob
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I'll digress further and relate a story about the British perspective on this subject.

I was loafing at Rigby's in London about 35 years ago, no customers, one gunsmith also minding the front counter. Wonderful time as he told tales of "Old Man Rigby" shooting with his .416 and cussing at Germans overhead in London during WWII.

He discovered I was a rifle fancier, hands me a rifle to inspect (rather plain, no embellishment, Mauser action) which he says has a very famous owner. I ask why, given the exact same case as the original German designed 7x57, Rigby marks them ".275 Rigby"? His answer, "My dear chap, it wouldn't do to mark Her Majesty the Queen's rifle with a German caliber." No fooling, he handed me the queen's rifle (which sported a Mauser 98 action, BTW).

Hence the .275 Rigby...

Bullshooter

Jeffery referred to the cartridge as ".256 Mannlicher Schoenauer" in their catalogue.

Oh and Scotland is part of Britain, so Fraser was indeed British.

Bob,

You’re right about the 6.5x54 being Austrian, of course, and I’ve written exactly that enough to know better. Apparently like a lot of people I tend to lump Germany and Austria into the same general term.

Dunno about the renaming except that British (and Scotsmen) just about universally refer to the 6.5x54 as the .256 in all the published stuff I’ve read, including Maydon’s big book.

ummmm, 256 --- 264 (6.5) ? ? ?

And a darned good thing you did.

The bullets get to the barrel stamp, read it, and go back.

I didn't know that! Thanks for the warning.

British convention (not always followed) is to name by bore diameter, not groove or bullet diameter. Hence, for example, ".303" for a rifle which fires bullets of about .311" diameter, ".275" for a rifle firing bullets of about .284", and .315 for the 8x50R (.321" bullet).

dan_oz-
Thank you for the information about Jeffery's catalog. I think confirms my interpretation of Bodinson's oopsie.

For clarity in my post I should have used "English" or "Anglo", rather than "Brit" and "British" that I used once each. I doubt that Mr. Fraser would have been pleased at being called an Englishman.

--Bob

Thank You Dan ! !

In amongst the cobwebs (spider webs) and R U S T of my 'memory', thanks to you I have a 'cloudy' recollection of KNOWING that 'in the past".

In La. they'd say "I've been knowin that" !

Jerry