7x57 isn’t weak. I haven’t used a book for anything in many years to load anything. Every rifle , brass , powder , bullet , and primer max load is unique to itself. If you actually understand how pressure makes things fail and you load progressively from low to high in small increments you’ll see the signs as you approach real useful maximum. Modern bolt actions don’t fail until well past 150,000 psi. The primer or case is going to fail long before the action is damaged in the slightest. Running it hot will ruin cases and barrels faster is all. 7x57 loaded up is plenty to kill anything with the right bullet and shot placement and is completely adequate and appropriate of anything other than brown bears here in North America. For me the right bullet is going to be a Berger in some weight for almost everything. No 7x57 me for brown bears. I want something that any angle is drt. For brown bear I want to be able to heart shoot them from behind through the hip and blow a hole out the opposite front shoulder. Being shredded to death by a bear isn’t high on the list of ways to go. Idiot intellectuals at the range abound and make me fantasize about gut shooting them and watching them die. I haven’t tried with a 7x57 because I don’t own one currently but I’d bet you could run Lapua brass in a tight chamber with CCI primers to close to 70,000 psi but the brass would be toast in one or two firings.
