Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Hunting Cartridges , Better in the field ..than on paper

Another vote for the 257 Roberts, seems to knock the snot out of the few deer Ive shot with them.

I ran this same question on another hunting forum and the two most listed cartridges were the .257 Roberts and the .44 Magnum. I would concur with the op on the .30-30 as well. As a kid my first buck fell to a .30-30 and it just fell over like a rabbit. It just stands to reason that the ammunition companies load a whitetail rated bullet into a .30-30 whitetail rated cartridge. If you loaded that same 150/170 grain .30-30 bullet into a faster .30 caliber magnum you would have a bomb. It is the same reason that you won't find a 180 grain round nose Core-lokt loaded into a .30 caliber magnum larger than a .30-06. Our entire deer camp used that round nose Remington bullet for a number of years and we never lost a deer hit anywhere with that bullet. One day without much else to do I tied up a bunch of phone books together and shot into it with a .308 180 round nose Core-lokt and into the same stack with a 180 grain pointed Core-lokt. The round nose was punching a thumb size exit hole out of the first book and the pointed Core-lokt did not catch up to that size exit until the third book. The pointed bullet also penetrated farther by a couple of phone books than the round nose.

The plastic tipped bullets are opening faster now as well and just in the last few years they have started manufacturing "deer" bullets with an even larger plastic tip or thinner jackets. A deer on average is only about a foot wide and lots of the magnum loaded bullets are designed for larger animals. I've killed deer with the 7mm RM and .300 WM and in my experience, they didn't even work as well as that first .30-30 bullet did back in my youth.

Agree with .257 Roberts, would add 7mm-08 and .35 Whelen

I like the 250 SAV with 87g HC and Win PP in 300 SAV

358 Win.
I have taken deer out to a bit less than 200 yards but up close it will kill anything it hits.

yeah but that has never stopped the spin merchants attempting to influence the naive and gullible.

Agreed.

Have to agree with DropShot. I've only taken one deer with my 358 Win but it dropped as quick or quicker than any rifle I've ever used; 25-06 or 300 Win Mag. Mine is a Ruger M77 and is accurate, fairly light weight and is a great little rifle and caliber for hunting.

Glad to hear the old 358 Win is still used by more than just me.
I have killed bear,hogs,deer and never had to shoot twice at the same animal.
I like the old 300 Savage also.

Other than you and me, I wonder how many others have actually hunted with the .257 Roberts?

Me...used the Bob and the Better Bob ALOT. Can't ask for better performance.

POI/angle counts for almost everything. What you like is most of the rest.

I first heard, many decades back, the "kills better than it should" by someone who killed a charging lion with a .243 as he had no choice.

Someone else, (Carmichael maybe?) took a trophy class Cape buff with a .338WM wit 250 gr. (Partitions probably) when offered the chance while hunting other species, and seemed impressed by the feat... one shot did the deed.

I've not noticed any real difference between the .243 and the .338WM in my own big game taking.

I can tell you tho, the .375 is hell on middle of the night porcupines chewing on the tent-cabin frame when they take a tree.

Another vote for the 338 Federal, its a sledgehammer on anything. I've taken a lot of game with it since it first came out, up to and including bison and bears. Amazing that its not more popular, IMO its the best cartridge to be developed in the last 50 years. The 358 Winchester is great too, and I've taken a lot of game with it as well.

Good Post

25-06 for me but all these listed are good ones. Really for me the 25 callibers, 250 Savage,257 Roberts and the 257 Weatherby, have performed better than I expected. The 22-250 looks good on paper and has been every bit and more so I would have to put it in there too.

I am in awe of how well the old cartridges were designed and work looking at technology now & then.

My Ruger M77MkII in 257 Roberts is my favorite deer/antelope combo

I vote for any cartridge running at roughly 50K psi or under. This would encompass the Swede, 7x57, .30 carbine, .30-30, .300 Savage, etc. They got stuff dead long before our march toward, "a little bit more."

Plus, I don't like recoil, and I hate muzzle blast. Makes me wonder why the hell I like this sport...

FC

Back in the early 70's I shot the 257 Roberts and killed everything I shot at if I did my part.
I had a load for a 100 gr Interlock at 41 gr of IMR 4350,I could have loaded for more speed but I never needed it.
The 117 gr Interlock also was used some on larger tougher animals like hogs.
A strange thing happened with my 257 Roberts and 300 Savage,7x57 and a few others,everyone laughed at me for having such a slow and weak cartridge so I magnumized and regretted losing most of my favorite and most accurate shooters.
Man I wish I had them back.

When you figure that the ammunition companies need to tailor the .257" diameter bullets into a very narrow velocity range for the 117 grain bullets between the .257 Roberts and the .25-06 for the most part is it any wonder that they expand perfectly on the deer size game that most people hunt with those two cartridges?