What is the best action length on a .257 Roberts. Need some help deciding. Advantages...disadvantages, etc. It appears the long action is best for reloading and getting the best ballistics from this caliber....true, not true. Any help appreciated from some of you .257 fans.
Thanks

I recently built a .257 Roberts on a Model 70 long action, previously a .270, so that I would have some leeway in bullet seating. It has a 24" Douglas barrel and I asked Douglas to match the contour of the original barrel so that it would be a drop-in to the original stock.

That being said, a .257 will fit into a short action and some guys like short, light, handy hunting rifles.

You want 3 to 3.1" in the mag. Some short actions can do that for you. I know you can pull the spacer out of the M70 magazine and get 3.1", though i haven't done it i have seen rifles that have. Probably the more sensible thing to do, though, is to just go with the 260 Rem instead. It is simply a better cartridge given the bullets we currently have available.

257R can fit on either action as stated above and the velocity "shortfall" from going short is nominal.

If you'd like to go CLASSIC BOB you could get a commercial Mauser action for which the cartridge was designed and have the best of both worlds? McGowan barrels has some lightweight, strong commercial mauser actions for sale on their website right now...

Shong.

Short - 2.8"
Shong - 3.1"
Long - 3.4"

I think a fine Bob could be made from a Swede action.

My short action Roberts works fine(COAL is 2.815" for hunting rounds).
Plenty of room for H4350 and 115/117's and depending on the bullet the ogive easily clears the case mouth.

I would buy another short action, 3.000" sounds about perfect but 2.800" won't cause any problems. Maybe if you sit around and gaze at loaded cartridges it might cause you mental problems.

Crap! Maybe that's my problem!

This will freak you out!

grin

Old pic of a 110 Accubond and 115 Ballistic Tip at 2.815" COAL.

Wacenturion,

This subject comes up so frequently on the Campfire that I've put together a standard answer to post:

I've owned at least a dozen .257's, including short-actioned factory rifles, custom rifles built on Mauser 98 actions (including one on a Mexican action, supposedly just perfect for the .257), a NULA Model 20, a pre-'64 Model 70, and a Ruger No. 1B with a 26" barrel and a throat so long that no bullet under 115 grains could be seated anywhere near the rifling. Right now I have three .257 Roberts rifles: a Remington 722, a Kimber 84M Classic Select Grade, and a custom 98 Mauser made by Bill Sukalle in 1947.

The only one that gained any significant velocity over any of the other rifles was the Ruger No. 1B. It could get 3100 fps or so out of 115-grain bullets. But even the short-actioned Kimber approaches 3000 fps with 115-grain handloads, and the difference in the field would be pretty much zip.

I haven't noticed any difference in accuracy, either. The rifles with the best barrels have shot the best groups, regardless of the action length. Probably the two most accurate .257's I've ever owned have been the 722 and the Sukalle, but the Kimber is quite accurate too, and has a noticeably lighter barrel.

Oh, and my wife I have used our various .257's to kill a semi-load of pronghorn and deer, including some big bucks, at ranges out to 400+ yards. Now, no doubt some other round would be more suitable at 500+ yards, but so far I haven't felt compelled to shoot at any big game animal past 500--other than one pronghorn buck that somebody else wounded. And I killed it at around 550 yards with my 722, depite the short magazine.

My only real experience with a Roberts is with Ingwwewife's Rem 722 in a Bob ( Short action)
Everything she points it at dies....so far so good!

There is a custom Winchester M70 in 257R in my area for sale,
long action with a varmint barrel, not a bad looking rig.

If you shoot factory ammo, either will work.

If you handload and want to get the most out of the Roberts that you can and have a barrel that allows you to seat the bullets out, long is the way to go. Some of my Roberts loads are well past what the action on my Remington M700 short-action .308 Win can handle.

My Ruger M77 is a long action with a long throat. SAAMI pressure for the Roberts is conservative at 54,000PSI and, quite frankly, I pretty much ignore it as my Ruger action is designed to handle cartridges like the 63,000PSI .25-06 and 65,000PSI .270 Win. The velocity gains with long bullets seated out to base of neck and with higher pressures are pretty significant and are not something I would attempt with the bullets seated further in to meet standard COL or a short action M700's magazine restrictions.

If your going to shoot factory ammo SA is fine.

If you are going to build either use a LA or if using a SA make sure its throated such that you can get to the lands with the bullets you are likely to use.

My one experience in trying to shoehorn in a intermeadate cartridge in a SA.. I had the SAAMI spec cut and at the limit allowed by the magazine (.035" off the lands) I can shoot groups in the .75" range, If I seat out another .030 to get within .005 of the lands and single load, the groups shrink to about half that(good enough that the limiting factor is likely my bench technique)

Thanks everyone for all the responses, appreciate it. Initially I was going to go after a Remington 700 Mountain (short) or a 700 1982 Classic (long). Then I see that Winchester has a 2012 Shotshow addition .257 Roberts long action. The problem of choosing gets confusing. Weight wise the new Model 70 is listed at 7 lbs. and the 700 Remington Mountain is general around 6 1/2 lbs., thus no real noticeable difference in weight between the two. Barrel length is the same at 22".

Yeah could go another caliber, but that not in the equation as I have always wanted a "Bob". Last question....is there any down side to a long action, outside the weight issue on some guns?

Again...............Thanks!

Mule Deer knows what he's talking about.....PERIOD.

2.825" COL in a short action Remington will do EVERYTHING a 3+" Roberts will do in any long action. You won't know the difference and the deer will die with the short action just as fast as they'd die with the long action.

If you're going to buy a long action, seems to me you'd be better off with a .25-06 instead of a Roberts....

You can get 3,100 fps or more with a 100 grain bullet in a short action Roberts. If you need more than that, IMO you might as well step up to the 257 Weatherby.

Can always go with the Kimber 84M in the Bob, either a Montana or a Classic Select. They work just fine...

I have a M77RL in 257 Robts with the 3" box much better for me than the 2 SA bobs I had. I use the 100 gr Horn SP, atleast now I can seat them to the cannelure which I couldn't do with the 2.8" box. Maybe that is not important to the next guy but it was to me. Magnum man

Left hand Winchesters only come in long action (except for the WSM's but the bolt face is wrong) and I've been contemplating this same thing - converting a .30-06 to a .257 Roberts, 6mm Rem, 6.5X55 or something on a medium length case. I made up a pseudo .257 Bob round by necking down part of a 7X57 case to see if it would feed okay. Yeah, it feeds just fine.

The M70 magazine handles 3.4" COAL and my 3" faux Bob doesn't look too swallowed up at all. One has to remember that Model 700 magazines handle 3.7" COAL and most .270's and .30-06's run around 3.34" or so, so there is about as much extra mag room in those as a long action Model 70 would have with a .257 Roberts. That long action does give you tons of leeway for seating depth. Plus if you are fortunate enough and have the time to really shoot away the throat of a Roberts the longer mag let you chase that throat until the bullet no longer fits in the case.

Thought about the .25-06 since it is a long action and in a way it makes sense, but I like to gear stuff toward a specific performance range. Having "more" doesn't make it better. There is the argument that one can always load down, and you can, but you still end up using a tad more powder than the smaller chambering and as a general rule of thumb most accurate loads tend to be toward the top end of the performance range anyway.

Long story short, I wouldn't worry about the minute differences in a SA vs. a LA. You can find those differences in the dictionary under the heading "pure gack".

I'll be the odd man out here.

I've had two LA Rob's, two SA Robs and one MA Rob... I prefer the mid-action (Mauser 3.1").

The Rob, after all, is the 7x57 Mauser necked-down. It's not a true SA nor is it a true LA.

In a SA the jump to the lands for most spitzer's is substantial as SAAMI chambers are standardized for the 117 Gr Round Nose... that yields a looong throat.

The ability to seat bullets up to the lands can often make a finicky Rob shoot VERY well. With a 2.8" magazine you just can't do that, unless you want a single shot.

For me, it's not about speed or extra case capacity by seating out bullets (that's all Gack). It's about handloading flexibility.

My preference would be to build on a SA M70 with the magazine block removed, fixed ejector shortened, and LA follower retro fitted. Yields a 3" magazine and greater latitude.

+1

Anybody know how long the magazine is on a Zastava Mauser in 7X57? It would be the same action as a Whitworth Mark X or I think the Zastava is the Remington 789 or 798 or whatever.

Supposedly we have a guy who can import left handers and I've got dibs on a 7X57. It's probably the same magazine length as their .30-06 but I was just wondering.

What Brad said, or as I already said to the same question on the other thread.

If you want to shoot the longer pointy bullets then a 2.8" action isn't enough, but you don't need a full length action either.

I've had an M70 SA magazine with block removed and LA modified-follower sitting in a drawer for over a decade just for an M70 Rob project... may even do it one of these days!

Brad, about a year ago I bought a short action Classic 243 fwt for just such a project. In truth I made the mistake of setting that barrelled action beside a pre-64 fwt barreled action. There is very little difference between the two actions in length, maybe 3/10"? The Classic went away. If I build a Roberts it will be on a pre-64.

And here's where that plan really goes off the rails. I always end up back at the 25-284 in a M700 short. It fits better in a short action. The difference in the field is of course invisible but that's where this sickness takes me.

It's a sickness I tell ya!

Personally, I have no issue with the Rob on a LA and prefer it to 2.8" versions.

As to various 25's, I like the Rob best... it's an American round with a lot of history, nicely balanced, and is the highest and best use for the evil, non-American, 7x57... make sure you tell Ingwe that

One nice thing about Partitions and some other old fashioned bullets is the fact that they have a chunky ogive. As in they shorten up the jump to lands quite a bit compared to sleek high BC slugs when seated to same COAL.


117SGK for example.






I PM'd JB 3 or 4 years ago about his take on the Kimber 84 action and the Roberts. Of course he said go for it and 'luckily' mine shoots like a house afire!

SamO,
You are right, it will work, but to my eye, it just doesn't look right. So many times I have heard that Perception is reality. This is one case where that isn't the truth. I KNOW that the Roberts will work in a short action, but it just doesn't look right to my eye. All I can do is relate it to my jeans. I can wear 36's, and I know that 38's leave me with some slack. I just prefer to have a tad extra room.

The difference in weight means nothing to me. I like being able to seat those bullets out, see cannelures, and not feel like I have jabbed them down too deep in the case.

Just perception, really. But it is enough to me.

+1 Was exactly my point,my first bob was a M70 pf Fwt on a long action with a 2.8" mag box and long ejector . The ammo shot well seated to the lands but to long for the magazine. I don't need anymore SA bob's .. Magnum Man

Bob does kinda look like a pinhead seated that short....grin

+1 for LA

In 1985 I bought a Winchester Model 70 XTR Featherweight in 257 Roberts. It is a long action that came with a blocked magazine. I had Randy Redmond throat it out to the "Magical 3.0" Bob", and had a gunsmith replace the follower, bolt stop, magazine box with new ones made for the 7x57 Mauser. This rifle will accept bullets seated to 3.1" or greater. But it has always been a finicky rifle to get to shoot well consistently for me (confession, I am not the sharpest pencil in the box), smarter people may solve the problem. Was it worth it --- hmmm -- don't think so.

But if one has the article by Finn Aagard in the August 1987 American Rifleman you can see how a long bullet can impinge on the powder capacity. Finn had his rifle long-throated.

A few years ago I picked up a custom 257 Roberts on a Mauser Model 98 action. It is throated long but not as long as the throat on my Winchester. Some bullets such as the 120 g. Nosler Partition will fit the Mauser at 3.0", most others will not so they are normally seated at about 2.95" OAL. This rifle is not finicky at all about bullet weights, powders or seating depth.

I prefer the appearance of the longer seated bullets and the bullets do not have to extend below the neck into the case (JOC called this a "minor ballistic sin") and loads are not compressed. But my recollection is that the Winchester shot a little better with 100 g. bullets before being throated out.

If I were to make one again; it would be long-throated, but I would be happy to live with a Kimber even though the stubby look of Sam's cartridges gives me the creeps!

My first Bob was in a Rem 722 and never felt the need to seat bullets out past 2.80" and lengthen the magazine box. I hung out with some guys across the river in Iowa. They were Model 70 fans and a couple of them found out their 257 Bob's had long throats and modified the magazine box and substituted 30-06 mag. followers. Their OAL's were 3.1 plus. We did not have chrony's at the time, but they thought if they were dumping more powder in the case they were getting superior velocities than me.

Later on, one fellow purchased a chrony and we all got to check out our loads. Pffttt, the lads were only besting me by 60 to 75 fps for equal bullet weights.

I have twin M77's long actions and their mag. boxes are 3.360", the same length as my M77 7x57 mag. box. Nice long boxes but standard throats, so big deal.

TSX don't care how long the jump is and usually shoots better with COL A good ways off the lands. Never an issue for me and I've had both long and short. I'm sticking with short or the Kimber. I still just load all mine to 2.825" if the throat allows.

Baloney.

I have actually found that to be trueish.

Have loaded TSX in 6 mm Rem., 7x57, .30-06. , 8x57, 9,3x64 and .45-70.

Load work up -

Make sure they are of the lands and then level under the next groove.



Just the way I do it. Through this, procedere is quicked up -

and, while I like with any bullet, notice an effect on precision - it by no means had me worry for hunting.

Ive found the seating of the TSX varies with the rifle...like any other bullet...That being said it seems more rifles will tolerate a good jump of a TSX better...but each rifle seems a rule unto itsaelf...as it always has....

Really depends on what you want to use for an action. I think of it like this:
2.8" short action = 250 Ackley
3" "shlong" action = 257 Roberts
3.6" Long action = 25-06

Can anyone tell me if the new Winchester Model 70 Featherweight .257 Roberts (2012 Shotshow Edition)is either the...

3" "shlong" action or the ...
3.6" Long action

I guess I should have said in my experience. You've had different experience with them? Do you kiss the lands with your TSX's? Barnes even recommends a good jump on their website.

My experience with them is "it depends"...

Oh.

Before I knew what little I now know about Mauser rifles, I bought a used 257 Roberts on a WWII military M98 action ("medium" length? for 8x57 with Nazi eagle stamped on the action). I don't know who did the work, or what type of barrel (make) it was but it was a nicely done sporter job with double set triggers and bedded walnut Feinhart (sp?) checkered stock (not a "Bubba job").

I was able to load 46 grains of IMR 4350 with a 100 grain Hornady flat base bullet to the cannelure, and it fit in the magazine fine. I sold the rifle 15+ years ago, so I can't tell you what the overall length was, or how much room was left in the magazine in front of the loaded bullet-but it was enough that IF it was a "medium" length M98, the loaded cartridge had ample room.

The other factor to enter into the equation is the overall length of the cartridge with the bullet you wish to shoot, and then the amount of freebore in the chambering. Everything needs to make sense to get a balanced outfit. No sense in having a "medium" action, and a long throat-even too long for 120 grain bullets (deeply seated). Then, consider barrel twist (probably 1-10" if you want to shoot 120 bullets).

For the records, that 257 Roberts shot very well with the above load, like in the 0.5 moa range. It had a 1-12" twist barrel, 22" long. If I was smart, I would've kept it. It would have served me well for all my shooting/hunting needs.

It's a long action. See the site and note the LA designation and the longer overall length:
http://www.winchesterguns.com/products/catalog/detail.asp?family=001C&mid=535109

Duh.....why didn't I see that. Looks like a half inch longer between short and long action.

Thanks

I have a SA Rem classic in 257 AI rechambered from a 250 Savage
(that way when I bought it) it has extended mag, & bolt stop.

Best of both worlds allows me to set out bullets beyond 3.1".

I do like the ability to seat bullets where I want to rather than
have the mag confines dictate.

Had a Rem 700 SA in 7-08 rechambered to 284 Win got rid of it for that reason.