Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Finn Aagaard on the 7x57

I'll save Angus the trouble of posting a photo: On the left is the 8x57, and on the right the 7x57. As noted earlier, all but two of their case dimensions are just about identical. The 8x57's body from the case head to the shoulder is about .1 inch longer, and the case necks obviously have different diameters. But the head and body diameters are just about identical, as is the shoulder angle.

I took two other fired 8x57 and 7x57 cases and weighed them, then filled them with water to the mouth and weighed them again. The 8x57 case held 61.0 grains of water, and the 7x57 case 59.8 grains.

Anybody who's done much research on the two cases knows that Paul Mauser was involved in the development, along with other folks, of the original version of the 8x57, designed for the Gewehr 1888--and the 7x57 was developed by his own Mauser company in 1892. It's not a vast coincidence that they're so similar.