By utilizing its own Ordnance department the U.S military created the Mauser style Springfield rifle and flat shooting .30-06 cartridge, adopted in 1901.
Damn..All these years we never picked up on the fact that the .30/06 was adopted in 1901. Just think, the ultimate and perpetual "typo".
Seriously, actions and cartridge suitability is really fluff if it works and it does, did and is extant for that reason.
What the 7x57 did, and its greatest contribution is in the teaching in provided that a hunter and or a good rifleman can achieve results the theorists can only hope to equal.
Bell was both hunter,stalker and shooter. He placed his shots rather well. He chose his ammo for the task. Corbett, was a hunter we will never be...who among us would attempt to stay out after dark or stalk a tiger after sunset?
My kills are modest by comparison. My first was the newly released 1981 Featherweight. That was replaced by a John Rigby & Sons, Pall Mall Build .275 version topped off with a factory fitted 2-7 Kahles in EAW QD mounts. It was a good shooter and grouped all bullets to the same point. I killed a lot of animals with it up to Red Stag and Wild Brumbies at around 1000 pounds on the hoof. I tested an awful lot of bullets on game.
Just picked up a new Super Grade marked down a grand. Mistake? who cares. It will sit beside the 280AI and 7mm Remy in the rack and it will do what either of those can do, in a modestly priced well made package.
The 7mm Mauser/.275 Rigby/7x57 is a hunters rifle. Criticism is invalided by historical achievement. Better options are subjective and invalidate nothing. It is what it is....a mild shooting rifle with light report that makes it more pleasurable to use and use often. It will kill any animal in the lower 48 without challenge to its competency.
I never killed a stag that moaned to me about the action length I used, or the push or claw manipulation of the casing that housed the charge of demise. None of it matters to a hunter. None of it matters to a shooter who likes to use guns for recreation or the simple pleasure of challenging his own marksmanship using his own handloads.
The 7mm Mauser is as good as the man behind it. If there is an attribute that stands out, I would say it is the balance its velocity has with 122 years of adventurous bullet design and progress. It shoots them all well enough that the cartridge has delivered in all the decades before any of us. The alternatives proposed may do many of these things, but they do not have the history and track record.
In today's world of throwaway whims, it is likely they will never be a peer and only be another "me too" option instead of the "already did" lifespan the 7x57 has had to this point.
I couldn't stay away from it because I know what it and I can do together. I hope you can say the same of your choices.
John
When truth is ignored, it does not change an untruth from remaining a lie.
