Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Deer Hunting 257 Roberts deer bullet

Common occurrence with those bullets when fired at full throttle '06 levels or higher. I swear by them still, but learned 30 years ago to throttle them way down for close range woods work. This on the advise from a Sierra tech when I called and bugged them about it back in another lifetime. On the rare instances when I'm faced with a hunt in the wide open, I throttle them back up and hope I don't end up shooting one inside 100 yards. One thing is for certain, those little hand grenades are awesome killers at high vel/close range, and perhaps sometimes a quick death overrides less meat spoilage. Different philosophies for different pholks.

As for 100 grain .25's, if y'all ever stumble onto some old Norma 100's (the ones with "brassy" looking jackets), snatch them up. They were my all time favorite bullet in the .257 Roberts, both for accuracy and terminal performance. I know not whether they still make them.

Any limitations for the discontinued Hornady 87 gr SP @ 3258 fps?

Nice looking rifle there. I wouldn't use that bullet on deer.

That 87 grain Hornady worked at 250-3000 speeds. I thought it was a little stouter than the Sierra version.

Speer makes two 87 gr bullets still. Make sure to get the Hot Core version not the Varmint version.

I like the 100 TTSX at 3,250 over H-100V.

Same speed, more bullet and as accurate. Great WT killer and with better penetration.

DF

Used a plain old 100 gr BT on a buck this year that traveled maybe ten yards.

The nice thing about those .25's is that the bullet manufactures don't need to design a bullet for the likes of moose or bears that will be too strong for the deer hunting guys. Kind of like the .30-30 bullets only for the .25's because most guys with .a 25 something will be loading it into Roberts or .25-06's which have a pretty narrow working velocity range. I read a deer killing study once of 400+ deer kills comparing the distance traveled by deer shot with various caliber bullets. Not surprisingly those shot with the .25's traveled the least number of yards after the shot. Softer bullets kill deer faster than harder ones.

I've had good luck with the 80 grain Barnes TTSX at 3350fps in my 257 on deer, so I vote for the GMX. It can be argued that monos aren't necessary for deer, but that load has performed well for me and load development was easy. The third powder charge I tried yielded 1" groups and enough velocity.

I’ve had excellent results from that GMX on game as well as the 100 GR Interlock & ballistic tip. Not a big fan of Sierras over 2800 FPS.

I’d run the GMX personally.

Maybe OK at 3,360 fps, but an 80 TTSX out of my .240 Wby at 3,600 fps was not a good WT bullet. When you push low SD bullets, as in <.2,, at hypervelocity, you can get less than desirable terminal performance. This combo blew a huge, gaping hole in a WT chest wall, not that much internal damage. The deer ran over a 100 yds, had to be found in the woods after dark with flashlights. That's the last time I tried that. Accuracy was great, probably a good 'yote load...

DF

That's the SC study. I've posted it before.

Looks good for those of us who like the quarterbore. Except, there wasn't large enough cohort to statistically prove that to be the case. When the difference is small, it take a MUCH larger sampling number. Even with 400 kills, you may have an association, but you'll never prove causation.

The results on softer bullets killing faster than harder bullets shows enough difference to have merit. Especially if one is going to chest shoot WT's, that difference is probably valid. Shoulder shooting, shooting from odd angles, etc. where penetration may trump expansion, not as clear.

Interesting study. http://www.dnr.sc.gov/wildlife/deer/articlegad.html

DF

I know that it's off OP's question but I've had two DRT with Hornady 120 HP's in two shots.

Muskrat

Ahh. The 120 Hornady HP. Another great bullet that Hornady dropped.

The Hornady 100gr Interlock shoots very well in my Remmy 722 Roberts, and does a fine job on deer sized critters.

I am not sure why Hornady dropped these, possibly too boring in these times maybe. ?

I have many hundreds stocked up, more than I will ever shoot.

SMH better bullets than that.Great for wounding an animal,

I have 4 to 500 Hornady 100gr SPs here that have worked well over the years. Going to start working up a load with 100gr NPs to replace the Hornadys.

In my 25-06 I have had trouble finding any bullet that hasn't worked great on deer. Current load is the 117 Interlock but the 115 Ballistic tip is another favorite. I am mixed on Sierras but like the GMX, Barnes and Etips. I know the monos won't always provide the quickest kills but I have had so many DRTs with them I am not concerned about this anymore.

Whatever shoots best in your Bob is the ticket. I shoot heavier than 100 grain bullets in the 25s just to make it different from my 6mms but the 87-100 grain bullets are made to order for the Bob.

According to my hunting notes, my wife and I have used the following bullets from various .257 Roberts rifles (including one Ackley Improved) on big game, mostly deer but also plenty of antelope, quite a few feral pigs and goats, and one cow elk:

Barnes 100 XLC, TSX, and TTSX
Berger 115 Hunting VLD
Hornady 100 Spire Point and 117 boattail Spire Point
Nosler 100 Ballistic Tip, Partition and Solid Base; 115 Ballistic Tip and Partition, 120 Partition and Solid Base
Remington 120 Core-Lokt
Speer 100 Hot-Cor

With rare exceptions, they all worked fine, both expanding and penetrating well, and usually killing pretty darn quickly.

The penetration exceptions were a very early 115 Ballistic Tip that failed to penetrate a Montana whitetail doe's chest on a frontal shot, but later 115 B-Tips have all exited. A 117 Hornady Interlock boattail Spire point broke up on the shoulder joint of a mule deer doe, again failing to penetrate the chest cavity. Both deer were quickly killed by a second shot.

Had a 120 Nosler Solid Base fail to open up much (if at all) with a broadside rib shot on a big mule deer buck. It eventually killed him, but it took an hour of searching before finding the buck, having traveled over 200 yards before fallingThe only blood was a single drop about the size of a match-head where the buck was shot.

Have had a few bullets fail to kill pretty quickly even though they obviously expanded well, judging from the interior damage. But that happens occasionally in hunting. Those animals didn't go over 100 yards. The most consistently quick-killing bullet has been the 115 Berger.

If I had to pick one bullet to use in the .257 Roberts for the rest of my life it might be the 115 Nosler Partition. It has always shot under an inch in several rifles, penetrated well, and killed quickly.

The Swift 100gn Scirocco is a good tough little bullet in the Roberts. It doesn't seem to get a lot of air time though for some reason. Price maybe?