Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Question for MuleDeer on 7x57 throat dimensions!

John,

Then I apologize to you for arriving at the wrong conclusion. Not my first mistake, not my last. Furthermore, I appreciate your presence here at the 'fire.

Thanks.

I probably should have worded my question differently. More than the number of deer taken, I was curious about the ranges and sizes of deer. There's quite a bit of deer hunting where I'd prefer heavier bullets in the 7x57 myself! The 156 Norma Oryx and 160 Sierra GameKing are particular favorites at 7x57 muzzle velocities.

Well 90% of the game I shot with a 7 x 57 and I had my current 7 x 57 since 1975 has been with either 139 gr Hornaday SP or 140 gr Nosler Partitions. Never found those bullet weights to be lacking in any real sense that I could tell. Make a good hit and the herbivore dies. I had a ZKK in 7 x 57 that liked 160 gr bullets better you could cover the group with a dime vs a quarter for 140 gr bullets. Shot just about as flat too. Here the thing, there is way to much over thinking in all of this. I abandoned endless load development and experimentation years ago. If your rifle likes the 160- 175 gr bullets then settle on a load and just shoot it enough to know where those bullets strike out to how ever far to tend to shoot and go hunt. All you need for accuracy is minute of grape fruit, with that you will keep your freezer full of prime venison till the end of time.

I tend to agree with you, especially about the 139 Hornady Spire Point and 140 Partition, but one of the realities of the Campfire and rifle loonies in general is a desire to experiment.

From the sound of it you've done considerable experimenting yourself. Obviously you've been doing it for decades, and now you've apparently decided it was mostly a waste of time. But how would you have come to that conclusion if you hadn't experimented?

This is definitely true of me. I would never hunt with a bullet or load I thought inadequate for the task, but trying all the cartridges and bullets in real life really shows a guy the differences. My preference for the heavy bullets comes from their terminal performance on the shots I take, and prior experience with relavitely light bullets at higher velocities in other cartridges. I used to be enamoured with high velocity, but not so much any more. Another deciding factor for me is an unwilingness to pay the prices demanded for the superpremium bullets that stand up to high velocity. But you guys have already read this ramble from me too many times.

Onward and upward.

Or, in many instances, sideways.

If we did a survey of Campfire members, we'd probably get as many votes for relatively light monolithics at 3300+ fps as heavier soft-points at no more than 2700 fps. And we'd also get some for "target" bullets started somewhere between those extremes.

I'm forced by my occupation to try a bunch of different bullets at widely varying velocities, and can only say that they all work when applied correctly. This may seem like a cop-out but there it is.

Now, if somebody claims they've found the perfect bullet (whether weight or construction or both) for THEIR hunting, as bea175 did for 160's or gmsemsel did with 139 Hornadys and 140 Partitions in the 7x57, why then that's obviously correct.

Safariman would claim light Barnes TSX's at more than 3500 fps are perfect for his hunting of non-dangerous game, John Burns obviously finds Berger VLD's make a wide variety of animals dead, BobinNH likes Nosler Partitions for just about all his big game hunting, and saddlesore prefers cup-and-cores at very moderate velocities. All of these guys have hunted a lot, and have come to very different conclusions for THEIR hunting.

I do find that lighter bullets (even 120's) in the 7x57 TEND to kill deer-sized animals quicker than heavier bullets, but have also shot plenty of big game with the 7x57 with bullets of 156 grains and up.

In fact my present 7x57 (which I hope is the last, after owning at least a dozen others) will put every 156-160 grain bullet I've tried into the same group at 100 yards, with anything from very good to adequate accuracy, with the same powder charge. Consequently it's a very handy test-tool, and I tried a bunch of different 156-160 grain bullets over the years, often on the same hunt. Went on a couple of cull/meat hunts in Africa with the rifle in 2007 and 2008. and using five different bullets to take a bunch of animals, but also used it considerably in a few states and one Canadian province, all with 156-160 grain bullets.

Did that prove anything? Hell, no. All it did was provide a few more bits of information. Eventually I shot enough animals with various 156-160 grain bullets to say they all work. At that point I decided to test some lighter bullets, as I'd done more randomly with the 7x57 in earlier years.

I also did much same thing with a bunch of other cartridges and bullets from about 2000 to 2012, partly because there were so many new bullets on the market. The cartridge/bullet combinations included ALL the favorites listed above from other Campfire members.

I did this because people kept asking about different bullets and cartridges and calibers, and I wanted to provide a reasonably informed answer. But a couple of years ago I decided that I'd tested enough different bullets and started using one bullet for almost all my hunting. It worked fine, as I knew it would, since I'd shot a lot of animals with them over the years. But then yet another new bullet company came along with an interesting variation on monolithic bullets. It wasn't totally new, but did combine certain features of other monolithics in various ways, so I had to try it too. Guess what? It works!

And that's what I'm saying. They ALL WORK. Some work in a wider range of conditions than others, but ALL will fail to a certain extent some conditions. In general, though, the rate of failure (however it's defined) is lower with today's big game bullets than it was in the past, because hunters have gotten more demanding--and understanding.

After all this experimentation, all I'm really certain of is putting any bullet in the right place is at least 90% of the equation. Now, everybody else can go back to arguing about the very best bullet weight/make/diameter velocity. I'm done.

John, I think you just put yourself out of a job!

John to answer your question, I been fooling with this stuff for better than 50 years now and I played with a lot of guns. I stopped chasing loads back in the winter of 88 more or less, It was more of a question of time and money and a convince of a rifle range 5 min from my house that had closed more than anything else. Now I just settle for just one bullet and load for a rifle and go shoot. I like hand loading as much as I ever did, I still load with the Rock Chucker Press I bought in 1968! Then there was the time issue, most of the year I am busy with flying, thou the last few years have been hard to the the problems with the economy. Also with reduced cash flow means stick with what works. Its why I been shooting the 7mm RM @ 150 Fusion from Federal since 2006. My rifle likes the load, the ammo is reasonably priced, the bullet works well on the game I shoot. So I have extra cash for an extra license or tag and the fuel to get me there. Have I over thought this stuff, you bet and then some, but some times life brings you back to reality- I didn't know in 1971 that what I had then would be what I would be shooting by choice in 2014! I could have save a boat load of money that could have gone into a few more safaris or other places. Wisdom comes with age, and youth and vigor is wasted on the young.

Loonies need the Fire, the Fire needs Loonies...

You and others make it just that much more interesting, make it what it is that keeps the rest of us coming back, day after day, year after year...

DF

gmsemsel,

Again, I agree with you more than you'll ever know.

Let me tell you a little story. In the late 1980's I was approached by a custom riflemaker (the kind that makes rifles on highly modified military Mauser actions with fancy walnut stocks) about a "trade" hunt. I would take him pronghorn hunting in Montana, and he'd take me Coues deer hunting in Arizona. I didn't know him except through a number of phone conversations and trying one of his rifles, and since I didn't have much money, I agreed.

Turned out that except for making very nice rifles he was absolutely incompetent. The pronghorn hunt came first, and after missing a very good buck I found for him on public land, shot it in the ass running at 300 yards, then insisted he'd missed it. If I hadn't insisted he hadn't, he would have just walked away.

I'd already bought the plane ticket and tag for Arizona, so went. It turned out he'd never hunted Coues deer in his life, and within an hour on the first morning he wanted to quit glassing and shoot at distant rocks. On the second day he got lost half a mile from the pickup, and if it hadn't been for me we'd have kept walking directly away--in a rainstorm.

I decided to quit hunting and watch him work in his shop instead. Since he was fat and out of shape, he agreed--and was lucky, because otherwise I might have walked him off a cliff.

He told me any average guy could afford one of his $12,000 rifles (the equivalent of $25,000 today) if he really wanted one. I said that if I had $12,000 I'd buy a $500 rifle and go on an African safari with the rest of the money. He got a little huffy but at that point I didn't care.

A few years later I did just about exactly that, taking a "parts rifle" made out of a J.C. Higgins FN Mauser action, a slightly used Sako .338 barrel, and a Bansner stock to Namibia. The rifle cost just about $500, and I had a hell of lot better 14 days in Namibia than I would have with one of his fancy rifles.

I've been very lucky since, and have been able to afford some fancy rifles AND go on some nice hunts. But life takes some funny turns, and I do not regret taking my $500 rifle and spending $10,000 on Namibia. It was a wiser investment than one of his rifles, both professionally and in memories.

It was fun�.

I thoroughly enjoyed that place too.

MD
Great story and a very good point. Take what you have or can afford and go hunting! Sometimes it's frustrating to listen to advice which insists that you need to spend XXXX$ on a scope and XXXX$ on a rifle or don't bother hunting. Reminds me of the advice given by a famous photographer (? who)when asked about equipment. He stated f8 and BE THERE.

I've been hunting with the 7x57 as my primary big game rifle for over 40 years, one particular rifle for half of that, and this will echo much of what has already been said. I haven't kept good records but at least 50-60 head of deer, either variety, and prairie goats have gone in the freezer via the 7x57. By actual count the same cartridge has accounted for eleven elk.

The 160 Speer flat base and 160 Nosler Partition have been used when deer and elk are the equal quarry with an anecdotal edge to the Partition on elk. When hunting strictly prairie goats and deer the 130 Speer flat base is just about the only bullet I've used.

In several rifles including a tang safety Ruger 77 the o.a.l for the 130 has been 3.0" and 3.15" for both of the 160s'. The Speer bullets have demonstrated exceptional accuracy in spite of the "long" throats. H414/W760 for the 130s' and most recently VV N160 for the 160s'.

Don't currently have a 7x57 (Went off the deep end for a .300 H&H on my Sako L61R last year) but I'm putting together a new rifle for my favorite cartridge on an FN 1922 Brazilian intermediate action. These actions were originally 7x57 and the intermediate length will save me a ton of weight and all that tiring bolt travel, just like a WSM.

I've flirted with other loads for the 7x57, briefly flirted with other cartridges and rifles, and even killed game with some of them. I always come back to the tried and true 7x57 and my favorite type loads.

I do like my new "Super-Thirty" and look forward to when we take an elk. I also like to hunt with my very first "real rifle", an 1898 Krag, when rifle season rolls around. Before I started reading gun magazines the .30-40 did the job just fine.

Mr. B. made the most accurate statement, it's bullet placement that counts the most and what you shoot the best will do the best job.

I have plenty of other firearms to keep me busy and interested which is what it's all about, having fun.

A.J.