Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting 257 Weatherby for long range coues deer

Who of you who shoot one, can chime in with performance of a 100 gr tsx at about 3700 fps at the muzzle, and how far you feel it will reliable expand.
Been shooting mine a few times the last few weeks, and am liking it more and more.
Switched to a 6-18 Leupold on it with the varmint reticle, and the dots are useless.
Gonna have to go turret.

I saw three consecutive 100 grain TSXs fail to expand on on a bull elk from a 25-06. I would never trust a copper bullet that small again. Never had any problems with 7mm and bigger. Smaller ones are not as reliable.

There are better bullets for hunting coues deer with a 257. I have seen quite a few killed by Ballistic tips with good results as far as 550 yards from a 25-06.

Any consideration of the difference between TSX and TTSX?

Your scope is a notorious bad tracker -

If you are going to be setup for longer range dialing for an out of state coues hunt, the bullet will matter faaaaaar less than a reliable aiming system or even headstamp. Deer are easy to kill but you gotta shoot -

Dennis,

I have a 100 TSX fail to expand on a pronghorn from a .257 Weatherby, and Eileen had one from the same lot fail to expand (or at least not open as much as it should have) from her .257 Roberts on a mule deer as well. The .257 Roberts deal could have been blamed on the lower velocity, but the range was only 50 yards and the muzzle velocity was 3150 fps.

But we haven't had any problems in the .257 Roberts, .25-06 or .257 Weatherby with plastic-tipped monolithics, whether the TTSX or E-Tip. The game taken has included a bunch of antelope, whitetails and mule deer, and one elk. And the elk was taken with the Roberts, not one of the larger 25's.

I only shoot 100 ttsx's in mine and only use it for open country mule deer but have shot many deer between 350-730yds with that combo and only recovered one in a far shoulder.

I have been using the 100 gr. TSX and TTSX bullets in my .257 Wby. for years now, and they are the only bullets I use in my rifle. 72.0 gr. of RL22 pushes them at 3700 fps.

For antelope and deer, performance has been just great. Last elk I shot with the .257 TSX was a cow at 300 yds- a lung hit resulted in a dead elk and bits of lung etc. 15' or so feet on the snow on the off side.

Coues deer are not large animals, and if I were to hunt them, there is no question what I would use- a 100 gr. Barnes. I have taken deer and antelope at ranges of 300+ with these bullets, no problem. I can't speak to maximum range at which these bullets will reliably expand, as I have yet to witness a situation in which they failed to do so.

My MkV is scoped with a Leupold VX3 3.5-10 CDS, btw.

Of equal importance, to me, is the fact that these bullets achieve outstanding accuracy out of my MkV. This target is repeatable....

I have no experience with the tipped versions myself. You will have to defer to Muledeer on his experiences. I suspect they are far more reliable expanders than the hollow points.

I agree with Greg on your scope; great for holding over, not so great for twisting knobs.

The dots are not "useless", if you have a clue.

After load development when drop data is known, all you have to do is apply the reticle subtension information to the drop data.

I think you're talking about a VX2 with the LRVD?

Check the Leupold site or your owner's manual for Reticle subtension measurements at various power settings.

At 18X, IICR the first dot is 1.75 MOA from zero, the second is 4.3 MOA and the last is 7 or so.

A little context bending but you get the point.

Yes they are long , but my rifle shoots them great there.
100 gr ttsx's are up to test tomorrow.
And there are only 2 dots in the reticle.
At dead zero at 100, half way between the center and the first dot, I hit at 400, half way between dot 1 and 2, I was hitting at 500.

Testing goes on again tomorrow.

look at the ACP bullets, they do expand in the smaller calibers

I use them in .22, 7mm and .35

they are available in different hardness compounds to suit different velocities and animals

https://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/product/productId/70212


expensive but worth it if your shooting trophy's
Sav the guy that designed them is a big Weatherby shooter and these will be designed with the 257WM in mind

The ttsx's shot as accurate as the tsx's did yesterday.
I'm going to back down the powder charge a bit, and generally, start over.
Barrel is going to get a good scrubbing.
Group size went irradict. Was shooting itty bitty groups, now not so ??
Going to check everything.
Lrv reticle is NOT going to work at 3784 fps. Even at dead on at 100, first dot is too high at 400, if I try 500, I can hit the gong, only by bracketing it between the dots. I can't click down to , nor if I go up, will I be able to use the sight in. I'm going to see what the trajectory will look like if I click up enough to use the 1st dot as my 500.
As it is now, I'm only 25 inches low at 500,or 20 clicks with a 3/4" high sight in. That puts me dead on at 200, and only 5 clicks to 300.

What powder are you using? Also if you don't want to use the reticle I'd try the new S1 dial from leupold if your rifle will accept it.

Reloader 22. I have a Kenton turret on it right now.
Scrubbed it real well today, and dropped the powder charge. Next day or 2, I'll try it again.

Sounds like your already setup. Just curious what power were you using the reticle on?

18x
Any opinions on .25 caliber ballistic tips ?

The 115gr nbt shot awesome in my 257wby with IMR7828. They are a hammer!

I use THE 110 ACCUBOND AT 3530 FPS. Works wonders at close and far ranges