Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters JB, which has been your favorite rifle in 257 Bob and why?

While I was killing time at Wal-Mart while having the oil changed, I read your article in RIFLE about your pre-WW2 Winchester 70 in 257 Bob. I know that you've had several Bobs in a variety of rifles like the Remington 722 that you inherited and the Mexican Mauser that you put together, but could you list them all, talk about what you liked or didn't like each of them, and what you would look for if you were going to acquire another one?

Great question. Thanks for posting this.

I have owned the folliwing .257 Roberts rifles:

The Remington 722 that belonged to my grandmother.
The custom Mexican Mauser you have.
A Ruger No. 1B that was eventually was given a slimmer, shorter barrel--with a much shorter throat.
Two pre-'64 Winchester Model 70s, one pre-war and one early 50s.
A Kimber 84M Classic
An old custom rifle built on a K98 Mauser, with a Sukalle barrel and a Griffin & Howe detachable side-mount high enough for the scope to clear the military bolt handle.
A rifle I recently put together on an FN commercial 98 action, with a slim Custom Barrel & Gunworks cut-rifled barrel and a Bansner synthetic stock.

Then there's one I don't own, but do handload for, Eileen's NULA Model 24.

So far I like grandma's rifle best, with the NULA close second, but haven't had the FN/Bansner rifle long enough to mae up my mind on it.

never let the wife play with a rifle you might need to use again some day. just saying.

On the 722 257 Roberts I have one and my experience is exactly like MD's . Mine shoots 100 grain Sierra's into little knots. Killed 10+ Antelope with it. Mine is pillar bedded but it shot well from the getgo. Sadly, I don't hunt deer or lope any longer.

Which of my .257s would that be?

After I saw a picture of your 722 installed in a 700 Mountain Rifle stock, I put my 722 from 03/52 in a 700 BDL stock. I probably shoot the 700 CDL-SF parts gun more than any other, probably because it is bedded in my favorite style of McM stock, the McM Hunter.

What did you think.of the Kimber

Have had various stocks on my 722, including a custom stock made by a friend which had the wrong LOP and was very heabv, the walnut Mountain Rifle stock, a laminated from somewhere (can't remember now), the original factory stock--and another factory stock, because the original got severely damaged during a move in 1990.

Have not been able to tell any difference in accuracy between any of them, as long as they were bedded the same way--epoxy-bedded front end of the action, all behind the recoil lug, with no "support" bedding of the rear end of the barrel. Also, have never pillar-bedded any of them, which in my experience (and that of several "accuracy" rifle smiths) isn't all that helpful as long as the stock itself is made of heavy enough material in the action-screw areas.

The accuracy when I first started handloading for the rifle was around 1/2" for 5-shot shot groups with "varmint" style bullets from the 75-grain Sierra hollow-point to the 85-grain Nosler Ballistic Tip. With 100-120 grain big game bullets 5-shot groups went into an inch, or less. This included the 100-grain Partition loaded to around 3250 fps with IMR4350--the load I used when guiding pronghorn hunters in the late 1980s. Despite what would be considered a really suck ballistic coefficient these days, it worked fine for my own hunting out to 450 yards, and when finishing off client's wounded animals out to 550. This was long before laser rangefinders, when I used the reticle in my scope to estimate range.

Part of the reason 721/722s shot so well was the quality of the button-rifled barrels, pioneered and patented by Mike Walker during WWII. In fact, one of the articles on my schedule is on the 1903A3 Springfield--apparently the first rifle to feature button-rifled barrels.

I've got a Ruger Hawkeye, in a walnut stock i really like.

"What did you think.of the Kimber?"

Beautiful walnut-stocked rifle, especially for the price. Stock bedding was good, but there was a problem with misfires, due firing-pin mainspring adjustment. Tried to adjust it per instructions, but screw was frozen.

Accuracy did not approach the 722's--but then only the NULA's has matched the 722.

The Bob? I have an idea...let's just for the hell of it, call it the .257 Roberts or the Roberts if you will. Whether he alone or with his collaborators, it would be nice to honor a pioneer of his stature.
In the 1920's he publicly fired a sub moa 10 shot group with it...if you think about the components that had to made back then, the primitive (by our standards now) telescope sights, it was a huge achievement in it's day. The rooster crowing and chest pounding here on the 'fire when a member posts a three shot group with state of the art equipment...makes me yawn.

"The Bob" is the commonly used nomenclature for the 257 Roberts on 24-HCF, just a nickname or acronym, not intended to be dismissive, disrespectful, or to denigrate his magnum opus. I'm a fan of the 257 Roberts, have owned a pile of them, currently have 11 of them, plus 2 AIs, and signed copies of his hunting and caplock books.

I am chastised, the "Bob" it shall be.
In the vein of that line of reasoning I shall henceforth refer to the Medal of Honor as the "AL", for Sgt Alvin York? Or, the "Jake" for Pvt. Jacob Parrot? I think the "Wheel" will suffice for the .35 Whelen as well.

Luv the Bob, my go to Pronghorn getter....

LOL, sounds like "the wife" has good taste in rifles.

I fondly named mine "Little Ned". My favorite resident of the gun safe, by far. Do you think Mr. Roberts would have approved?

I think that the "Whelly" might be an doable acronym for any cartridge associated with Townsend Whelen.

The MOH is interchangeably referred to as the CMH. All people awarded the MOH are equal, so elevating one above another might be seen as a sign of disrespect toward the others who have received the highest of all U.S. military awards.

I have drooled over Eileen’s NULA for a lot of years. Seems just about perfect in every way...

Yeah, she really likes it--but when she ordered it from Melvin Forbes 18 years ago, she wanted a 22" Douglas #1 contour barrel, because she wanted it as light as possible. At the time NULA had an "office manager" who wasn't too efficient, and didn't put in the right order. As a result, it got a 24" #2 contour.

It's still pretty light, but not as light as the NULA .270 she already had. However, a few years later Eileen started developing recoil headaches, and had to start using long guns with less recoil. We eventually determined the heaviest possible recoil she could take was around 15 foot-pounds, and it turned out the heavier barrel just about results in about 14.5 foot-pounds with the handload she started using a few years later, the 100-grain Barnes TTSX at 3150 fps. She likes the rifle even more now!