Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Why No Love For The 7 Mauser?

One is on my bucket list for sure. Just because.

The 270 Winchester is a better mousetrap no doubt.

Hi,

Zimbabwe has said what I think and have experimented with te 7x57 during the last 40 years.
First of all te 7x57 Is al cartridge ideally suited for a standard lenght M98 Mauser action. And a round for handloaders. Period.
For me, a 7x57 MUST be made with an European CIP standard made barrel: 8,7 rifling twist and that throat. It allows to shoot great with ANY 140 to 177 grs bullet weight. And is good for ANY big game
to the size of the biggest species of deer or ant�lope. Period!

PH

I just saw this thread. I've been out killing stuff with mine. You mean there are people who don't like the 7x57?

Tragic!

Wicked looking cast bullet. Do they call it the Phillips head ?

And yet you call the 270 gay........

I have been out hunting and missed this thread.

It is simply too complicated. Pressures, throats, twist, action size and the list goes on.

Besides, I can easily load my 270 down. And it certainly will not do anything above my 270.

Ahem......It has already done what the 7/08 will never do. Achievers don't need to brag, the points are already on the scoreboard.

We run with three in the house. A Model B Walther Mauser, a SS Ruger Mannlicher and mine built on a Swede, about ideal IMO.

I think it's called the "Fast Twist Screw It".

Gotta run 'em in the traditional 1-turn-in-22cm twist.

Damn..All these years we never picked up on the fact that the .30/06 was adopted in 1901.
Just think, the ultimate and perpetual "typo".

Seriously, actions and cartridge suitability is really fluff if it works and it does, did and is extant for that reason.

What the 7x57 did, and its greatest contribution is in the teaching in provided that a hunter and or a good rifleman can achieve results the theorists can only hope to equal.

Bell was both hunter,stalker and shooter. He placed his shots rather well. He chose his ammo for the task. Corbett, was a hunter we will never be...who among us would attempt to stay out after dark or stalk a tiger after sunset?

My kills are modest by comparison. My first was the newly released 1981 Featherweight. That was replaced by a John Rigby & Sons, Pall Mall Build .275 version topped off with a factory fitted 2-7 Kahles in EAW QD mounts. It was a good shooter and grouped all bullets to the same point. I killed a lot of animals with it up to Red Stag and Wild Brumbies at around 1000 pounds on the hoof. I tested an awful lot of bullets on game.

Just picked up a new Super Grade marked down a grand. Mistake? who cares. It will sit beside the 280AI and 7mm Remy in the rack and it will do what either of those can do, in a modestly priced well made package.

The 7mm Mauser/.275 Rigby/7x57 is a hunters rifle. Criticism is invalided by historical achievement. Better options are subjective and invalidate nothing. It is what it is....a mild shooting rifle with light report that makes it more pleasurable to use and use often. It will kill any animal in the lower 48 without challenge to its competency.

I never killed a stag that moaned to me about the action length I used, or the push or claw manipulation of the casing that housed the charge of demise. None of it matters to a hunter. None of it matters to a shooter who likes to use guns for recreation or the simple pleasure of challenging his own marksmanship using his own handloads.

The 7mm Mauser is as good as the man behind it. If there is an attribute that stands out, I would say it is the balance its velocity has with 122 years of adventurous bullet design and progress. It shoots them all well enough that the cartridge has delivered in all the decades before any of us. The alternatives proposed may do many of these things, but they do not have the history and track record.

In today's world of throwaway whims, it is likely they will never be a peer and only be another "me too" option instead of the "already did" lifespan the 7x57 has had to this point.

I couldn't stay away from it because I know what it and I can do together. I hope you can say the same of your choices.

John

Well stated, John. My favorite cartridge. Haven't been without one or more since 1972.

No love for the 7mm Mauser?

I'm not a gunwriter, a poobah or a reverend, but I'm quite fond of it. This dink wasn't so happy with it earlier this week:

WHEW! A lot of editing went there.

Great post AGW ! I repeat I am not a hater of the. 7x57.

However I would like to point out that the 30-03 (no typo) is almost as old as the 7Mauser.

Also the 270 W got it's start in 1922 or 25, so it ain't a newbie either.

Aren't we all glad we have so many CHOICES ??

Serious handloaders like many of us put a lot of study and thought into choosing their rifles, cartridges, bullets and loads.

Then we serious loonys put a lot of time and effort into tweaking our rifles and loads to arrive at excellent final loads for that particular rifle and the game it is to be used on.

It seems only proper and fitting that we devoted riflemen should have a few very excellent hunting cartridges that are relatively unavailable to the non-handloading, general public.

The 7x57 is a cartridge that stands at or near the top of this list. Those of us that appreciate the 7x57 deserve to have such a fine chambering mostly to ourselves. I am actually glad that Joe Blow can't go to the big box store and buy a 7x57 or the ammo for one. He is welcome to his .308 or .270 in whatever tupperware-stocked package rifle is on sale that week. How long will it be before we see these rifles sold in a clear-plastic blister-pack?

Having not been without a 7x57 since 1979, I say,"Long live the Queen, the 7mm Mauser/ 7x57".

Some have said that they have never run into a 7x57 in the hunting field. That hasn't exactly been my experience. I can't count the number of times I have run into another hunter in the field and lo and behold one of us was carrying a 7x57. I am sure Ingwe and some others will say the same thing.I can't help it if the other guy was usually carrying some inferior chambering, plus being handicapped by factory loads.

It is not that their rifle is inaccurate or the cartridge won't do the job. They just lack the class and heritage and history of one of the best balanced chamberings ever designed.

Some people appreciate these aspects. Those that get it, do. Those that don't, won't. And it certainly is great that we have so many choices, or discussions like this couldn't take place.

My mint 1983 vintage Model 70 Featherweight 7x57 sat ignored on my dealer's shelf also. I picked mine up a couple years ago for $375. The guy behind the counter said it wasn't a magnum or .270 so people weren't interested.

As for its popularity, it and the .280 are almost unknown to the common guy. I have both and more often than not people have a deer in the headlights look when I answer the typical "What is that?" question.

The .280 isn't the 7mm Mag and the .270 was first. The 7x57 is either too short or too long eventhough it was around before the others. The factory loads for both are perfectly adequate for anything but seem rather pedestrian.

Ultimately, people's wants are just weird and without real good reason.

Wow, this one took off!

So no one knows an FN-49 doctor?

GFYs!

Awesome post - you really are 100% correct!