Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters New Rifle Special Edition: Time to break out the 7x57's!

It's a very fine rifle--but then German rifles are pretty fine in general!

Cooper chambers the 7x57 in the model 52 repeater. I have one a 2012 one that I have not scoped or fired yet, the stock style on mine even has a schnabel forend.

Now all I have to do is get busy and it start shooting it.

drover

The 7x57 is in spite of its age and in spite of almost no US rifles currently available an unbelievable popular round. Part of the explanation for this is guys like Mule Deer who write favorable articles extolling its virtues, but that's not all of it. Its real strength is a solid history of outstanding field performance. It's not a big round, but it "plays" big. I'm currently having fun with one I put together on a VZ24. Maybe it"ll see some action soon.

Have a pretty sweet Blaser K95 in 30-06 and now a 7x57 barrel in-bound -- two "old soldiers".

I have a Model 70 in one, that I got real cheap, because many of the local Oregonians, up in Roseburg had no clue what a 7mm Mauser was...

nice looking Featherweight, but when they were told what caliber it was chambered in, they'd ask "what the hell is that?"

sat on the rack displayed on consignment for 3 months...right behind the register... price fell from $600 to finally $300 the day I walked into the store...

I held it, cycled it... enjoyed the aftermarket recoil pad and Leupold rings and bases already on it...

then the guy tells me, I have to tell ya, its chambered in an old 'oddball' caliber.. a 7mm Mauser.... ever heard of one? ammo is going to be hard to find, that is why the owner is selling it...

it was on consignment 3 months... it took me about 3 seconds to make up my mind on that one...

yeah, I have heard of the caliber and NO ammo isn't hard to find... I hand load...

sweet tuned trigger already on it, brought it home and threw an appropriate Leupold 3 x 9 on it, with a heavy German # 1 reticle in it... loaded some ammo... headed to the range... and found it even tho it is a Featherweight, for some reason it thinks it is a varmint rifle...tack driver!

one of the things I love living in So Oregon... you can find some real good deals on some sweet rifles.. just because they are not chambered in the usual calibers available at Walmart....

and yeah, I have a Ruger 77 mk 2 also in 7 x 57... got that one cheap, because a customer ordered it, never came in to pick it up, since he passed away before it arrived...
but it sat on the rack for 5 or 6 months and didn't move...off the shelf ammo availability and price of the ammo were the reasons why... and that was the guys who knew what the chambering was...

the guy at the gun counter told.. its sorta like a 270 they tell me...

brand new and in the box.. out the door for $300...

You must be doing something right. What a deal!

gunbroker had some new CZ's the other day when I checked.

I'm thinking a Kimber 84L would be the ticket.

Yeah yeah I got mine today. Yesterday I passed on a clean Ruger 1A in 7x57.

Same story on mine...beautiful Featherweight that got ignored because it didn't say WSM, have a belt, or ammo couldn't be bought at Walmart for $15...I got it for $375

Reading the special Edition now - great publication. I always like 7mm cartridges, but have lately gotten on the path of 6.5's.

Maybe when I have the time, I'll develop a 7mm wildcat on the 260 Remington case (I'll call it the 6.5/7mm/08 Bingo!).

Where are these available? Newsstand or subscription?

A major waste of paper. BORING!!!

As usual, Barsness succintly nailed the topic w/ a little help from Mike Venturino on the military arms.

How many references do we need to Karamojo Bell's shooting elephants w/ the 7x 57 in one magazine? Must have been discussed by 5 different writers. Bell also used other calibers and obviously didn't have the wide choice of arms that we have now.

I haven't finished reading it yet as I'm taking my time with it, especially on the 7x57 articles. One thing I would like to see, whether in a magazine article or one of the loading manuals is modern loads for the 7x57. Oh you can pick up stuff here and there but I'm talking real life full power loads that have been pressure tested and proved safe. I can think of a few other cartridges that could benefit by the same treatment with the .257 Robt. and 30-06 immediately coming to mind.I mean if it can be done with the 45-70 with three layer load data and thr .45 Colt with Colt and their clones and the full sized Ruger Blackhawks and Freedom Arms guns.
I'd be willing to bet thaat the guys that do the load work ups for the manuals have proper pressure tested data for their rifles in those calibers. Even though we're careful, this loading up for a cartridge that is underloaded by the factories and loading manual data held low by the seat of our pants could become hazardous to our health.
Paul B.

The problem with modernizing handloading data for the 7x57 is the widely varying throat lengths of rifles over the past 120 years. There really is no standardized 7x57 chamber, so there can be no standardized 7x57 data.

Here's some alternatives folks. I'm not anti 7mm Mauser. I own one. But as John Barsness has pointed out it's not really a Standard cartridge.

If you you've got a 7x57 rifle try the American ammo companies offerings. Which shoot 140 grain or 175 grain bullets. If that doesn't shoot accurate either hand load or sell your rifle.

You could then buy a 7mm-08 Remington rifle or get a 7mm Remington Magnum rifle and use the Remington the 7mm RM "Managed Recoil" ammo to get 2700 fps muzzle velocity with a 140 grain bullet. The same as the famous 275 Rigby loading, but with improved bullets.

Either way you've duplicated the 7x57 140 grain load performance without hand loading.

MD, I went out to the range yesterday to play with my new Zastava 7X57 and the throat on it is, shall we say, "European". Hornady 139 grain bullets seated to hit the lands were barely inside the case.

But handloading was easy. I looked up your article "Handloads That Work" and tried your recipe straight out of that. You listed 47 to 50 grains of H4350, I loaded 46, 47, 48 and 49 grains to play it safe. Instead of getting all looney and worrying about hitting those lands, I just seated the bullets 1 caliber deep. Velocities were uniformly progressive in 50 fps increments - 2700, 2750, 2800 and 2850*.

Results were good to outstanding as posted in the thread about the left hand Zastava Mausers in the Hunting Rifles forum.

So - thanks for that article! Handload workup is basically done.




*for the exacting quibblers, avg. of three shots at each charge level were 2707, 2751, 2815 and 2856 fps for the Hornady 139 BTSP. Results with the flat base 139 Spire Point were within 15-20 fps of those.

Speaking of your article, just noticed that I have some RL-22 on the shelf. Going to have to get some 175 grain round nose bullets, load up 48 grains of powder and go see if there are any elephants in the garden...

Hi,

I like a lot that Special Rifle magazine! The Dave Scovill part is very well written and with a lot of information! As the one of "our" MD.
As a 7x57 user since my boyhood, some 40 years ago, I see there is a standarized dimention for it: Te CIP standards!! My first 7x57 is one of the originals DWM Sporters made with the M93 actions. And I have another one with a variation of the M98 action and a barrel I recently identificated as a SIG made, military origins. Both share almost the same chamber dimentions. And are very accurate with, for example, the Winchester PP 145 grs factory cartridges, that have a long jump to reach the lands of the barrel! With a long lead, just to load a cartridge taking advantage of all the magazine lenght in the M98, but still with 1 mm of free bullet travel. I love this long free travel and gentle angle of the lands in the european desinged cartridges!!! Correctly made they are just as accurate as the short free travel chambers of other designs. And are more flexible to different loads.In my point of view!

PH

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