I've been working on my wife's 257 Roberts now for a few years. I gave up on it a few times and now I'm back to trying to make it a shooter. I gave up on the rifle's barrel after trying bullets, powder, new stock, bedding etc. I recently had Randy Selby re-barrel it with a 1:9 Douglas SS barrel. It's a Ruger M77 action with a newly bedded Boyd's stock. Hopefully the old barrel will make a good tomato stake.
So, I saw some Nosler E-tips pop up on Midway and now have 150 new bullets to load up. I want to do this right from the start, so I'm curious to know if there's any experience out there I can learn from with this combo. Seating depth, powder, etc. I'm in California, so lead bullets are out of the equation.
The E-tips and the 257R have their quirks and combined, there's even more quirkiness.
!) +P vs non-+P load data available is a bit lacking and frustrating. The new Nosler manual says it's +P, but the load data looks the same as the old manual and hardly looks +P to me..
2) E-tip loading data from Nosler suggests beginning at starting loads and not surpassing mid-loads. Kind of screwy when combined with a sticky bullet and what seems to me underloaded load data from Nosler. We'd be well served to have E-tips with data developed from E-tips and not lead bullets.
I have Rem brass and Win +P brass. The Win brass was much harder to resize for some reason. Much harder on the upstroke even though the necks measure almost exactly the same. The Rem brass was smooth resizing. The Rem brass is more concentric than the Win brass and both brass are more concentric after fired once and resized.
I have all the recommended powders in stock, (which I found after scouring just about every website and forum on the internet about the 257R).
So any help is appreciated.
Last edited by Yaddio; 02/22/21.
