Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Factory load velocity for .257 WM?

Has anyone chronographed the velocity for the 100 gr TTSX in .257 WM? What is your barrel length?

I am curious where my hand loads stand in relation to the factory load.

Out of curiosity, what is your load and what does it produce? I get 3,600 with 100's and IMR7828 in a 24" barrel.

74.0 grs of H1000 and 100gr TTSX is giving me 3570 in a 26" barrel. Max book load in Barnes #4 Is 75.5 grs

In another rifle with a 26" Bartlein I am getting 3550 with 75.5 grs of H1000.

Both rifles shoot 3/4" MOA

I have had half a dozen Weatherby's factory, and two customs.

100's with 72-73g of R#22 with a fed 215 is a normal load shooting the smallest groups. I have never tried 7828.

257 WM with zero to .030 freebore is hell on wheels with 100's doing 3850 shooting tiny bug holes and the 115's doing 3600...you just have to see it to believe just how accurate this chamber is with a good quality barrel, Krieger, brux, Bartilne 4 groove, Lilja 3 groove. NO wonder why this case was Roy Weatherby's favorite round. I put a muzzle break on my factory guns and see the water vapor fly off a deer's hide, and 300 yards is a chip shot if you like neck shooting.

You can stil get the Weatherby bullets available from Norma if you like them.

Yessir, it is a very cool cartridge and the recoil is more than tolerable. BTW, my COAL is 3.160".

Roy didn't realize the TTSX would bring it up another notch!

Just got my 257WM earlier this summer and am having a lot of fun working up a load with it.
Been using 117Hornady BTSP with RL 26. I couldn’t find any data for RL26 in the WM, so I started with 71.6 and got the first pressure signs at 72.6. 71.9 ended up being the sweet spot at 3600fps.
I thought this wasn’t right cuz the closest data I could find was with H1000 and max book was 3300.
But you guys confirmed that the data I got is reasonable so I think I’ve found my new hunting round.

[quote=keith]I have had half a dozen Weatherby's factory, and two customs.

100's with 72-73g of R#22 with a fed 215 is a normal load shooting the smallest groups. I have never tried 7828.

257 WM with zero to .030 freebore is hell on wheels with 100's doing 3850 shooting tiny bug holes and the 115's doing 3600...you just have to see it to believe just how accurate this chamber is with a good quality barrel, Krieger, brux, Bartilne 4 groove, Lilja 3 groove. NO wonder why this case was Roy Weatherby's favorite round. I put a muzzle break on my factory guns and see the water vapor fly off a deer's hide, and 300 yards is a chip shot if you like neck shooting.

>> i get these same velocities with my 257 W.mags. with Reloader 22 also,i see no reason to change powders. and these 257 W.mags really do a number on a big deer.

Have no idea what the factory TTSX load does, but have found Weatherby .257 ammo generally gets close to advertised muzzle velocity. Have tried different powders with the 100-grain Barnes TSX/TTSX, Hornady Interlock and Nosler E-Tip, and from 24" barrels the most consistent accuracy has come with Ramshot Magnum and H1000, with muzzle velocities around 3550-3575 from 24" barrels.

Am not crazy about Reloder 22 for my hunting, since it's pretty temperature-sensitive. In fact it was one of the two powders that first got me into testing handloads at zero Fahrenheit. Magnum is probably the most temperature sensistive of the Belgium-produced Ramshot rifle powders, but a lot depends on the cartridge, charge (including density) and primer. In my tests in the .257 Wby. it was far less temp-sensitive than RL-22, but not quite as good as H1000.

By the way, I often hear about how X-charge of RL-22 gets fantastic velocities from the .257 Weatherby, but often X-charge is far above pressure-tested data. Here are some maximums with 100-grain bullets from different manufacturers:

Alliant--68.0 grains, for 3545 fps from a 24" barrel with the Speer 100-grain Hot-Cor.
Barnes--69.0 grains, for 3505 fps from a 24" barrel with the 100 TSX.
Nosler--71.0 grains, for 3574 fps from a 26" barrel, with their three 100-grain bullets, though they strongly suggest always beginning with the starting load with E-Tips.

The load I eventually settled on in my present .257 Weatherby, a NULA Model 28 with a 24" barrel, is 76.0 grains of H1000 with the 100-grain E-Tip. This is two grains less than Hodgdon lists as max with the 100-grain Speer boattail, which gets 3575 fps from their 24" test barrel--which is just about the same velocity obtained in my rifle with 76.0 grains and the E-Tip. At zero and 70 F. tests the velocity differed 5 fps.

Not a gunwriter, and I don't think I ever shot the TTSX, but have used the 100 TSX Weatherby factory load over the years It seems that load achieved around 3,500 in my 24" Vanguard, 3.650 in my 26" Mark V and 3,850 (!!!!) in my 28" Ruger Number 1 and shot spectacularly in all three rifles.

Yeah, I used quite a few 100-grain TSX's in a 24" Vanguard from the time they were introduced in 2004 until the Tipped TSX came along in 2007, using Ramshot Magnum. They grouped great, averaging around 1.5" at 300 yards, but had one fail to open (or at least not completely) on a pronghorn buck. My wife had something similar happen with one on a mule deer buck from her NULA .257 Roberts. It may just have been that batch of 100-grain .25 TSXs, but after the 100 TTSX appeared we never had that problem again.

Thanks all. In another thread in this forum I spoke about R22 in my .257 on a very hot day. It was the first time I had a HEAVY bolt lift. I will not use R22 again and got rid of what I had left.