Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Your .257 Roberts whitetail load ?

I have shot a couple deer with the Hornady 120 gr hollow point, both were DRT, can't remember how many grains of 4831.

My XTR FW likes IMR 4350 with 100gr Speer Hot Core and IMR 4831 with 115gr Partition. One thing to consider when looking at loads people post is that brass brand seems to matter…load data for WW +P brass is a couple grains less due to thicker brass/less capacity.

Not whitetail but fallow which are of a similar size. The 100gn Swift Scirocco has performed well for me with 46gn H4350.

Just wheat field Muleys and Pronghorn with a M77 tang safety custom built almost 25 years ago now.

All taken with the 110 grain NAB with 45.5 grains H4350 for a MV of 2,984 fps. Could go faster, but it's just so darn consistent and accurate from the 24" barrel I've left it alone.

This Spring I worked up a 110 grain ELD-X load, backing off a 1/2 grain from the NAB load for 3,034 fps MV. Also, in this year's project of backing up all my H4350 loads with another powder, I used StaBALL 6.5 with that ELD-X at 45.6 grains to essentially duplicate the load at 3,090 fps MV. 2,900 - 3,100 is a sweet spot for this particular barrel.

Lots of good load choices out there for a whitetail rifle at reasonable ranges. Probably a lot more good ones than bad. I had one for a few years and would look hard at the 115/120gr Partition at 2800-3000fps. This was a very effective no-fuss killer for me. If I wanted speed, I'd reach for a 100gr Partition or Barnes TTSX/LRX. I tend to lean more toward the premium bullets in the 6mm and .25cal rifles, as history has shown me less frequent exits with cup/cores in those calibers versus generic cup/core performance in standard .270/7mm/.30cal deer rifle chamberings. Dozens of kills with controlled-expansion hunting bullets like a Partition or mono in the 6mm/257 rifles never caught a bullet in my deer.

Roundoak,, is that you?