Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Mule Deer - Magnificent 7x57

A nice little truck gun.

Good thing for Mr. Hall them guns had such loose bores and long throats. If he run them loads through much of anything else he would have probably suffered some physical discomfort from flying debris.

Yeah, ole Dennis should have been a Fire contributor as he had his own "SAAMI" pressure ceilings...

Those old 77 tangers were chambered loose as a goose and long, and he took full advantage of a sloppy chamber and a very strong action to produce those data.

Like they say on TV, don't try this at home...

Interesting Loony stuff, nonetheless.

DF

Yep.

Handy in a box blind.

A rifle with a 26" tube can be a pain, sticking it thru the blind window without bumping something and making noise. A short gun can be a real asset in close quarters.

DF

The Ruger 77 (1974) I use will group well with some rather different bullets. It likes most Partition bullets and Sierra 160 gr. game kings. But the tightest groups it has ever shot came with 160 gr. Trophy Bonded Bearclaws(original style) and IMR 4831??? It has also shot good with 140 and 150 gr. Ballistic tips.

Can someone post a pic of the cover? I made a special trip to one of the few bookstores left in my area and they had the March issue on the stand.

I just want a visual of what I'm looking for as far as the cover goes.

If this was true, generally speaking, is it a bad thing or a good thing?

Well now I need to by that mag!

That's the $64 question...

Dennis Hall evidently thought it was a good thing...

If I want to push 7mm, 160 gr. bullets at 3K+ fps, I'll reach for my 7RM.

DF

A pleasant surprise I found when I started loading the 7x57mm's is some of them shot the stubby Speer 115 grain hollow point very well. My current 77 tanger does sub-MOA with 48.5 grains IMR4320 @ 3100 fps.

Thanks for all of the good comments and observations above.

We live way far from any magazine source and it has been many years since I have bought any kind of gun rag (I do read some now and then at the dentist office, barbershop, etc.) but the comments in this thread will have me looking for Mule Deer's article.

Much of that has to do with the fact that my first rifle was a Chilean M95 in 7X57 that I got in the mail from Sears ($13.99 + postage) in 1963 - and slowly did my own pure novice "sporterizing". The barrel is almost 27" because that is where I set the hacksaw to chop it off from mil length at the time. But, then, this is the SW and I never have had it in a box blind.

After the simple successive "improvements" and it was settled down, and then when I learned to load for it, the rifle became a 1 MOA or better shooter - still is. I was a "one-gun" hunter/shooter for many years and just loaded a good 140 gr. Sierra with as much 4831 as reasonable - and it simply killed mule deer, coues deer, elk, antelope, javelina and varmints every time.

I rarely use it any more - seems like a guy has to justify having gotten these more modern and exotic rifles/cartridges - but this old banger will stay with me until the end.

(Yes, that is a mil stock for a Swedish M96 6.5X55 in the background - thinking about making that one into a 26" mannlicher type sporter. The old yens and habits don't die easily). Thanks again.

Here you go.

Is there any decent 7X57 factory ammo?

Finally found it! Thanks Mike.

If you can't easily find the May issue of GUNS, you can download it off their website for $2. That is what I did when I couldn't find the issue in town.

http://gunsmagazine.com/store/products/guns-magazine-may-2015-pdf/

Probably - but someone more knowledgeable than me will have to say. I reload, so until recently I had bought no commercial 7x57 for over 50 years - since the original Winchester 175 gr. round nose stuff from the 60s. But, those did kill deer and elk.

I have seen both Federal and PMC 7X57 loaded at about 139/140 gr. (which BW I feel is about optimum for this cartridge). No doubt a web search will ID other commercial brands.

BUT - recently found an odd box of loads at a gun show - 116 gr. cone point bullet, is labeled SINOXID and was made by Dynamit Nobel in Germany. This stuff shoots fabulously in my old 7X57. I contacted the company on the net - they had none of that same load currently for sale - but one of their "engineers" was very nice and eventually sent me their load data - although I can't match the powder and don't know where to find that bullet over here. I am going to try.

There is some, if you can find it. A few years ago I got curious so went to my LGS and bought a box of every brand of 7x57 factory hunting ammo they had, which wasn't much: Federal Vital-Shok with the 140-grain Nosler Partition and Power-Shok with the 175 round-nose, and Winchester with the 145-grain Power-Point.

I shot them in my Kilimanjaro custom rifle with a 21" barrel and short throat. The two lighter-bullet loads both chronographed around 2700 fps, and the 175 around 2400, all a little faster than advertised. Of course, they'd all probably be slower in a more conventional longt-throat chamber. Accuracy was pretty good as well. The lighter-bullet loads were only about 100 fps behind 7mm-08 ammo in a 20" barreled Model 70 I had then.

Hornady used to offer a Light Magnum load with the 139-grain Interlock BTSP. This got around 2900 fps from the 24" barrel of another short-throated custom 7x57 I had back then, and shot VERY well. In fact I used it to take a good Coues deer buck in Sonora. But they discontinued that load, and today offer two Superformance loads, one with the 139 GMX and one with the 139 SST, both listed at around 2750 fps. But I haven't tried either.

What powder did you use with the 160 gr North Fork bullet in your 7x57 to take the Moose

I've had very good luck on Whitetails out of my Remington 700 Classic shooting factory Federal Premiums with Nosler Partition bullets. Sometimes after the shot the deer try to climb trees!@!

Nice buck, first photo.

Tree climber didn't make it far...

DF