Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 257 Roberts whats the attraction

.257 Roberts should do it. See? We brought it back around full circle. Next question?

About 50 years ago my old rifle mentor, in response to my ramblings about a Roberts said, " you have a great 25-06, a wildcat at the time, just load it down if there is the need". The implications suddenly became very clear. I have no experience with a Roberts.

Not to throw cold water on the 257, but I have had two and both went down the road. So I agree with the OP.

The main reason to own a Roberts is simply because you want one

Maybe you should have pondered the "Why" before you got one. What rifle do you have, details, pic, etc.?

''cause the .257 Bob is far less common in hunting camp. Guaranteed conversation starter.

Debates about caliber/cartridge choices are the bread and butter of the Campfire. The cold hard reality of the matter is they're all good- close your eyes and pick one. We forget about the awesome energy we release with every pull of the trigger and what it does to living flesh, even with pipsqueak rounds. Every cartridge, with the possible exception of the .22BB Cap or 4mm Zimmerstutzen, can pretty much kill anything (and I wouldn't discount Digital Dan killing wild hogs with a Zimmerstutzen at that). I think Pugs came closest to the meat of the matter when he said it's more about the platform not the caliber. To whit, I would rather take on a grand daddy buck with a .22 K-Hornet Model 54 Winchester, re-chambered by Lyle Kilbourn himself, than with a rusty greasy old Spanish Mauser in 7x57 even though a 7mm has it all over a K-Hornet, on paper and in the minds of uninformed folks.

.308W who?????

https://www.rifleshootermag.com/editorial/the-fantastic-5/83665

.257R is a classic and hits well above it's weight class. This group was shot with a Brux (24") barreled LA M-700; this COAL won't fit in a SA. This load whacks WT's and hogs with authority. What's not to like. Check that velocity. No pressure signs at all.

Gun also likes 115 gr. NBT's over H-4350 at around 2,950 fps. That load whack'em and stacks'em, groups just as good or even better.

DF

Why did they go down the road?

If you don't get it, you don't get it.

The .257 Roberts was introduced commercially by Remington in the 1930s, when there weren't many widely available commercial bolt-action cartridges between the .220 Swift and .270 Winchester. It became pretty popular, but started losing steam after Winchester introduced the .243 in 1955, and lost even more when Remington made the wildcat .25-06 a commercial round in 1969.

Today there are dozens of commercial cartridges in the same basic class, including not just the .243 and .25-06 but 6mm Remington, .240 Weatherby, .260 Remington, 6.5 Creedmoor, blah blah blah. I have a soft spot for the .257 due to owning my grandmother's .257, a Remington 722 made in 1953, which also happens to still be VERY accurate, but there's no "need" for any of them, especially if you think the .308 works better for deer.

However, I have LOTS of experience on deer with all the cartridges listed above, including the .308 and several other rounds like it, including the .270, 7x57, 7mm-08 and .300 Savage. (My wife has also taken elk with both the .257 and .308, and they worked just about the same there too.) My conclusion is just about any halfway popular cartridge kills deer well, as long as the hunter puts the right bullet in the right place.

But if you're convinced the .308 is better, then that's what you should use, especially since one of your criteria is easily-found ammo. And you should give or sell the .257 Roberts brass to somebody who gets it.

What's not to like?

Nice,

Is that a Super Grade?

DF

Interestingly,most of the stores I have been to still have 257R remaining. I guess because not enough people get it.

If you’ve shot it at the range next to your .308, you wouldn’t be asking that question. I bought one for the kid and I wondered where all the recoil went? What a pleasant shooting cartridge! The kid doesn’t hunt and my butt is still sore from kicking myself for selling off that 760 .257 Roberts. I started a thread once on another hunting forum asking what cartridges killed out of proportion to their paper ballistics? The .257 Roberts and the .44 Magnum tied for first place. The ammo companies load those .25’s with bullets designed for deer size game. Not always the case with the larger 30’s. In the Cedar Ridge deer shooting test some years back, they measured the distance 400 plus deer ran after the shot using different cartridges. The .25 caliber deer travelled the shortest distance on average. If you load your own, you can get a Roberts right on the heels of a .25-06 if your rifle will handle modern pressure levels.

Yep, vintage '51.



It seems to like the Remington lightweights too...

I killed my first deer with a Roberts. I personally think most deer hunters are needlessly over gunned in this country. Guess it all started with people thinking you needed a 30'06 to shoot Germans.

The really sad thing is, that rifle is not in my rack! That is a very classy rifle.
If one wants to be entirely practical, he could hunt everything with a Savage 110 in 308 but I can't imagine such an existence. GD

Kinda like dating an ugly girl. You'd always be just a tad ashamed of her...

Salvages shoot, but they way too ugly for me. Sitting in a box stand or on a hunt, I'd have to look at it, at least occasionally. I'd rather be looking at that Super Grade, any day.

DF

Greydog, be careful what you wish for!



Probably true. They scaled that down for the 5.56 'cause dinks are, well, dinky I reckon.

I have owned several pre'64 Winchester M/70's to include a Super Grade and a Featherweight custom barreled Roberts in a Jaeger custom stock. All were capable of fine accuracy with both factory loads and handloads. Sadly all have gone down the road, I miss the Jaeger custom the most as It had a beautiful stock and fit me and pointed like a fine rifle should.