Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Mule Deer: what bullet do you like in your .257 Roy?

That's a really nice gun, beautiful wood.

Back when I was shooting a .257 Wby, The 115 gr. VLD over 71.2 gr. RL-25 shot half inch groups.

Since then, I've abandoned VLD's at uber velocity. Working with my 26 Nosler, I was told by a Berger tech that they don't recommend Hunting VLD's to be shot over 3,100 fps. Well, neither the .257 Wby or the 26 Nos should be limited to those velocities, so I swapped to bullets that will hold up.

Agree with the TTSX for those kinda rifles.

DF

Reloder 22 was once my favorite powder until I discovered its being affected by temperature. Have not used it since,





My 7 Wby pushes a 120 TTSX at a comfortable 3650 fps @ 1/2 MOA. Have yet to engage prey with it.

I tried H1000 after talking to one of my friends at Hodgdon, who recommended it for the .257 Wby.

I loaded up some 100 gr TTSX's and the little bit of Magnum that I had left. Tried it years ago but had a scope issue. After replacing the scope the first load I tried was with R22 and NAB's and never switched. Going to pick up 1 lb of H1000 tonight and try that too. I do hate waiting for the barrel to cool when testing loads in the .257

Thank you for everyone's replies.

H-1000 is closer to RL-25 burn rate than RL-22, and it's an Extreme, temp resistant, Australian powder.

For the heavier bullets, it may be even better than RL-22. As posted earlier, RL-25 worked very well with 117's.

IMR-7977 may be an interesting one to try.

DF

I tried 7977 as well when working up loads with H1000. It 's slightly faster than H1000, and with slightly lighter charges got very similar velocities to H1000 using bullets 100 and 115 grain bullets. But H1000 was slightly more accurate, so went with it.

There's some camp fire discussion material if I ever saw it.

If I read it right, JB said 7977 was "slightly faster, slightly lighter charges" for equivalent velocities, but H-1000 was "slightly more accurate", so he chose H-1000 over 7977.

Yep, us Loonies love to split hairs. Good stuff, worthly of multi page ruminations...

And 7977 will have to be pretty good to be as temp stable as H-1000.

DF

DF,

You read the post correctly. Dunno which post ".......It 's slightly faster, slightly lighter & slightly more accurate, so I went with it" came from.

IMR7977 has proven very cold-stable in the tests I've made so far. In fact all the Endurons have.

I saw data showing the Enduron series was really good regarding temp stability, just not quite as good as the Extreme series.

I guess at some point, the difference is moot.

And, reportedly Enduron powders have anti-fouling properties, never heard that said about Extremes.

DF

I will say this, ain't it great that we can actually find a powder that we need or want? Pass the .22 LR's. <GRIN>

7828 and 115gr NBT from a Weatherby Ultra Light.

John B, I wonder if the higher load density given by H1000 is making the difference in accuracy?

Maybe, but accuracy was just as good in another .257 Weatherby with 75-76 grains of Ramshot Magnum, which is spherical and so less dense than H1000.

BTW, .257 Bee Norma brass is on sale at Midsouth. Not a bad price considering what they usually sell for, and also beats Midway:

https://www.midsouthshooterssupply....herby-mag-unprimed-rifle-brass-100-count

My 257 STW is a little faster than the 257 Wby and i use the Barnes 100 gr TXS in it.

Holy Warp Speed, Batman!! Faster than a 257 Wby??!!

And this is why I don't use Quickload for everything and cross reference with a few manuals. Getting 77,000 psi and 3720 fps for your load John. Maybe I can make adjustments for a "weatherby bore"?

Barnes #4 is giving me a max load of 75.5 grs @ 3503 fps using the 100 gr TTSX, which normally shows lower pressure than typical cup/core bullets. Quickload was also indicating crazy high pressure for the TTSX.

Edit: seated @ 3.165"

My experience with QL (which goes all the way back to the original version) is that it's fun to play with and sometimes helpful, but often differs from reality! Which is exactly why the QL directions even say it isn't a subsititute for pressure-tested data.

One of the many examples I've run into came from a major pressure lab. They'd been contracted by a bullet company to do the test-shooting for the bullet company's new loading manual, and sent the lab cases of ammo, loaded with QL-generated powder charges. The pressure lab guys told me about 1/3 of the ammo was very close to spot-on, about a third considerably under-pressure, and about a third considerably over-pressure.

QL can be adjusted a lot. I agree with JB, it's a fun program and can help a lot with cartridges we don't have data for. The Weatherby's and RUMs need a different weighting factor for closer approximations. JB has it right, manual and PSI tested data is the best but in the absence I do use QL quite a lot.