Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles What’s the attraction with Heavies in the 7x57

And recoil, what a sweet round.

What some folks like to refer as 'long throated' , is actually just the std. 7mm Mauser throat.
Prewar Rigby mausers in. 275 bore had regular
Mauser spec. 7mm Mauser barrels.
Rigby regulated such rifles for either the
Heavier load or lighter 140 grain 'HV' load,
And designated the rifles accordingly as a catalogue
item.. #1, #2, respectively.
RIGBY ledgers show WDM Bell purchased a number of .275 bore HV catalogue rifles, yet he fired 173 grain DWM ammunition through them in the course of his African safaris.

This! I have been using the 7X57 long enuf that I had to form brass from 30.06 because 7X57 cases were either sky high or unobtainium. I started with 139 gr Hornady ILs and never saw a reason to change (although I have used others occasionally....just because). They worked quite well on AL whitetails. There was one exception. I built a scout rifle out of a Venezuelan 98 and used 175 gr Hornady RNs in it at 2300 fps, primarily for nostalgic reasons. They also worked very well. I seemed to have more DRTs with the 139s than any other bullet/caliber I have used over the years. Very few failures to pass through as well. IME, long throat/short throat has never made much difference WRT accuracy, either.

If I were starting with the 7X57 today, and were likely to have opportunities at animals larger than our 200 lb and smaller whitetails, I would follow Ingwe's advice and use the 160 NP or something equal to it.

Awhile back I was more than happy to run across a bag of 100 rounds I had put up in brand new Norma brass for the 7x57, loads are topped off with the old style 175gr Hornady round nose bullets, note in the bag reads H-4350 and 2408 fps, I bet they will work very well on most, if not all stateside game inside 300 yards.

I bought a bunch of pulled ones from Rocky Mountain Reloading last year. Not only are they accurate in my rifles, but even at the old classic velocity of 2300 fps they'll pass right through a big ol' pig anywhere inside of about 200 yards. I haven't tried them any farther than that.

That’d be a slick one for woods killing I’d bet. Hard to imagine it wouldn’t leave plenty of blood on the leaves.

Federal sells them in their Blue Box loaded ammo..

Elephants. There, I said it

g

Prvi Partizan makes 173 gn SP in both 7x57 and 7x57R. Component bullets too. IIRC Woodleigh also makes a 175 gn PPSP.

For my part, while I've given the heavies a run in a 7x57 and a couple of 7x57R, I'm happy to use something around 139 - 150 gn for the use to which I put them. Something like Prvi Partizan 139 gn, or Speer's 145, or a Winchester 150 gn Power Point. All of these seem to do a good job on pigs and deer and such, and shoot a mite flatter than the heavy ones.

Thanks all for the conversation...going to load up some 140 and 160 partitions and see what the rifle tells me.

I came across a box of these many years ago in a trade and was amazed at the accuracy I got from them. A few weeks ago, a friend acquired a nice sporterized 95 Mauser and brought it to me because it jammed when trying to cycle ammo from the magazine. He was using this ammo that came with the rifle. It would fail to feed every time with this stuff in the magazine. It fed everything else I put through it. Go figure!

I shoot the 173 SPCE's in my stainless M77RSI. You are correct, they are superbly accurate. Also when shooting paper, the SPCE cuts a nice crisp perfectly round hole in the target just like a wad cutter bullet in a 38 SP. Of course, thats what the "CE" in SPCE stands for Cutting Edge. A lot of hunters here in Romania use them on boars, (although mostly in the rimmed version), and they drop them really well. I killed a small boar on Sunday (about 220 pounds) but I just happened to be carrying my 308, shooting Geco plus 170's. It did a great DRT job at about 60 yards, 2 holes and enough blood to make you think the hog was gutted right there. RJ

I load the Sierra 140 grain Game King for mine. It does a fine job.

That'll work Rev, glad to hear it.

I think you're right Big B, would have to be plenty of shiny red on the dead brown ; ]

Interesting how this cartridge isn't subject to your "less is never more" line of thinking.

This thread is relevant to my interests, I just acquired a 7x57 and have been thinking about how to approach handloading for it. The place I hunt right now is thick and brushy with lots of up close shots. Since light-for-caliber bullets and high velocities tend to equal more bloodshot meat, I've been considering a slower and heavier round for this one. Lots of good info here. The rifle didn't really like the 140gr Federal blue box stuff, but shows much more promise with the 145gr Winchester power point. I'm thinking a 160gr partition might do the trick one I start handloading.

I think one of them worked on a big Axis buck IIRC.....

Steel Traps, M M


Jerry

No Professor, note in the bag read 1998, I loaded those spec for a '96 Mauser at my 'smiths waging finger of CAUTION, my other 7x57 fires 175's at 2700 fps, the 7x57's saving grace is it doesn't come with a brokeback mountain fanboy cheer squad, iirc, the only ones that ever cheered for the 7x57 were the ones getting the chit shot out of themselves with 'em in a war way back when ; ]

Almost, I hit that bull with an old style 175gr Speer Grand Slam, the other buck on that trip got smoked with a 530gr paper patch bullet from a 45-110 Sharps bull barrel rifle, still should have punched those two pigs when they lined up at less than a hundred with that Sharps, didn't want to make a 'pig' out of myself ; ]