Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Reloading "experts"

"Is 2800 pushing the 7x57 to the edge of its capability with a 150? Never worked with it."

I don't think so. I've run the 150 gr. Nosler partition to 2900 FPS and brass life has been good. IIRC, Mule Deer said that 2800 FPS was reasonable in a modern rifle and that's most likely the level I will load to.

I have three rifles chambered to the 7x57, a Winchester M70 Featherweight push feed, a Ruger #1A and a custom built on an FN Mauser action. The original chambering for the FN was the .270 Win. BTW so should be appropriate for the 7x57.

Most load work up has been done with the M70 FWT with some tried in the Ruger. The Mauser on the other hand has been problematic regarding pressure. For one thing the Mauser's chamber is at the very minimum AKA very tight. So titght that the pressure ring is almost not there. Chambering at the neck is sufficiently loose that a bullet slides easily into the fired case so that's not where the problem lies. Damned if I know.

I did an interesting experiment. I looked up the average charge for the 175 gr. round nose bullet to duplicate the original 1893 load (2300 FPS) and loaded up five rounds for each rifle. The M70 and Ruger ran 2320 and 2330 FPS but the Mauser was close to 2450 FPS. All three sets of loads used the same powder charge.

I just might have to change powders for the Mauser The M70 and Ruger are happy with Rl17.

If I hadn't gotten messed up in a vehicle crash I'd have found out just how well the 7x57 would've worked on a cow elk. The crash was just four days before my scheduled date to leave for the hunt.
Paul B.