Nostalgia.. ive got an article where Jack O'Connor talks about the cartridge from the mid 70s. He shot 140s and 145s out of his and killed everything he shot at in Africa and NA. His wife shot 160s. Jack was a handloader, so it's a very good chance they were shooting these very same bullets back then. Without any specific load info, im trying to reproduce as close as possible what he was using. Also the guys on the terminal ballistics webpage were very convincing in the write up for the 7x57. The Speer145's will kill anything I ever plan on shooting with it in a very convincing way.

I'm not saying I wont try the heavier bullets at some point, but for right now I'm stepping back in time to Mr. O'Connor's day.

I would seat the bullet out so far hopefully the bolt will barely close and it will still feed. Experience has taught me to let the rifle determine what to do next. Step #1 is to start there not somewhere else although I think most of y'all probably start off the lands. I never do that.

The bolt will easily close when a bullet is just sitting on the mouth of the case. I will be tweaking my best combos of powder, charges, and seating depths. Im close to what I want. I just had to try something other than 4350. The good news is that when I finish tweaking these hot cors, I'll get to try the speer boat tails.

H414 with the 145's. Thank me later.

Interarms Mark X's were built when it was in vogue to throat the chamber for the old military 175 gr RN bullet. They were made, as I'm sure you know, in what is now 'Serbia. At that time there were a LOT of old Mausers floating around over there and ammo was reasonable as long as it was military surplus, which meant 175 gr. I have run across several and it is a real chore to get them to shoot anything that far from the lands. The 175 Hornady 7mm bullet is worth a try and it wont ruin a lot of meat at 7x57 speeds. Jimmy McCollough (McCollough Rifle Co in Valley Grand) can fix this with a Douglas barrel. Good Luck.







Che

Swapped over to the 145 gr speer boat tails today from the flat base 145s. Shot 6 different recipies and man what a difference. Three of the six produced 1" groups or smaller... one of them produced a cloverleaf. Pretty amazing that it can make that much difference.

I have a youth ruger 243Win American that likes sierra boat tail game kings over the prohunter, but it will still do fairly well with the prohunters. This 7x57 takes it to the extreme and spits the speer flat bases out like watermelon seeds.

Good groups with H380, IMR4350, and the sleeper was IMR3031.

I’ve been waiting on this post ^^^^. I knew it was only a matter of time before you dialed up a winning combination. Nice work