Caliber choices.

S

SaxonPig

New member
What's the best caliber? Always a popular question. Of course there is no definitive answer. Too many variables. But I do have my own personal favorite. Not the magic caliber that can do it all (which doesn't exist) but a good choice for hunting most big game American hunters would pursue and a darn good cartridge for fun shooting.

The 7x57 Mauser is well over 125 years old and I have a long love affair going with it. Not all 125 years, mind you. I'm not quite THAT old.

The .284" bullet in 160 and 175 grain weights have great ballistic coefficients for long range shooting. The 7x57 is powerful enough without being in the least bit punishing on recoil.

A few years ago a big surplus outlet was selling military 7x57 ammo for about a nickel a round if you bought a thousand. I bagged three thousand. Stamped 1970 this ammo is loaded with a 139 grain pointed, boat tail, FMJ bullet. It is loaded pretty hot. It clocks 2925 FPS over my Chrony and is incredibly consistent. No more than 5 FPS variation.

Here are a couple of the 7x57 rifles I currently own.


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The majority of US big game hunting is for the whitetail deer. The majority of all kills are inside of 200 yards.

There is no "best" package of gun/cartridge, but there's a boatload of "plenty good". :)
 
The 7x57 Mauser is kind of ignored in North America. Mostly due to NIH but also because its military days didn't include W.W. II too much. Not many rifles chambered in it either.
Wally Bell used it for elephants. 800 of 'em according to James Passmore on Chuck Hawks' page.
There's still no 'best' anything though.
 
I've had several and not one bad thing to say about them. Don't have one now and probably never will again. More into 6.5's. I think there are a couple all around cartridge's and I think they are the 30-06 and the 7x57. I suppose you could also throw in the 7mm-08 and the 308. I don't shoot magnum's any more. Of course they could be called all around but who want's that much recoil to kill a deer? The beauty of the 7x57 is the bullet's and the velocity it shoots them at. 140 up to 175 gr. Light for deer and heavy for whatever you want. The 308 and 30-06 have more choice's avaliable but I'm quite certain you can only shoot one at a time! It is the heavier bullet's that raise's the 7x57 above the 6.5's.
 
Deer gun

The 7x57 is a sweet round for deer-size game in the good ol' USA.

The last several years I've been using a 7x30 Waters and find it extremely accurate, easy on the shoulder and perfect for deer-size game.
 
7x57 is ballistically close enough to the 7-08 to make it a very useful cartridge. Just like the 6.5x55 vs the 260......(and both of those are close to the other two)

All are good for NA game animals
 
As mentioned, there really is no best choice.
Myself i'm building a 284 Winchester on a commercial Mauser action.
 
Those are two beautiful rifles you have there, SP. I love European rifles with double set triggers. The BRNO you have is sweet, sweet. My sole Ruger No. 1 is a .218 Bee. Ruger did a fine job with those as well. I always wanted a 9X57, I dunno why. Best caliber? The question gives me a headache. I'll have to pass.
 
I agree with Saxon Pig on the 7X57, it is one of the world's greatest cartridges. Easy to shoot, accurate, and effective on everything I have ever shot with it. I own several 7X57 rifles (1916 Spanish Mauser, a Ruger 77, 3 commercial Mauser 98s, a pre-war Model 70) and have been in love with the cartridge for the past 40 years. I bought my first 7X57 in 1977, a Spanish 1916 short rifle. A few years later, I bought a Ruger 77 in 7X57 and hunted all over the West with it. Three years ago, I rebarreled an Interarms Mark X to 7X57. Two years ago I built a custom M98 in 7X57, I just finished restoring a pre-war Model 70 in 7X57. I almost have enough of them now. :D
 
I've shot 40 +/- deer with a M-98 type 7x57 using mostly handloads. It's effective no doubt about it. I switched to a 25/06 due to personal preference-slightly less recoil and 100 yards more range, but wouldn't hesitate to take the 7x57 to the field again.
 
I've never owned a 7X57. But as I get older and actually look at cartridges and what they are capable of I'm amazed that cartridge designers seemed to have gotten it right the 1st time. We have spent 125 years designing new cartridges that are in reality no better.

The 6.5X55 was introduced in 1891, the 7X57 in 1892 and were 2 of the 1st smokeless powder cartridges. While I do agree there is no best, you can't convince me that any cartridge developed after the 7X57 is any better for general, non-dangerous game hunting.

And while few of us would do it today the 7X57 was the preferred cartridge of WD Bell. Probably the most prolific elephant hunter in history with over 1,100 kills in his lifetime.
 
there are maybe a dozen or two old school rounds that are literally "perfect" medium game rounds, hog up to elk, and the seven mauser is one of those perfect rounds. this has good trajectory and ballistics, and can cause enough damage to incapacitate anything that it hits. It is inherently pretty accurate and it's versatile, and seriously, in the past, it was a very common and popular round. Jack O Connor loved it, owned many of them.

Perfect deer cartridges have been redefined many times, and through the years, lots of perfect cartridges were just erased from the list. Really, the .25 caliber has been completely obliterated, people either stay with the .243 or new fangled 6mm, or they jump to the 260 range, skipping the gap entirely.

The 7x57 is a perfect cartridge but I guess that the 7-08 is a bit more perfect.
 
As you already mentioned, too many variables to truly answer that question. That's why I have many different guns and almost all of them are in different calibers.
But IF I had to pick one round, it'd be the .308. It's a well rounded round that can hunt most game out there without a problem. There are better performing rounds out there for sure, but I also take cost and availability into consideration. You can get .308 as cheap as $0.20 a round (probably Wolf ammo) if you're looking for cheap plinking ammo and the high performance hunting/target rounds aren't hard to find either. Almost every ammo company out there makes .308 ammo and almost every store that sells ammo will have it available. Plus with it as a NATO/military round, it's easy to find surplus ammo as well.
Finally, it's probably the most versatile round as far as different firearm platforms go (except for the 5.56). Almost every company that makes a bolt action rifle has many different models in .308 and tons of semi-auto .308s such as the AR-10, M1A, FAL, SCAR 17, FNAR, etc.
 
It is interesting, that at least IMO, the .308 never gained the overarching popularity of the previous military standard, the 30-06. at this point, I suspect that the .308 outsells the 30-06 both in rifles and ammo, but I can't prove that. Information I find reports both ways. Then there is the .223 that I believe blew away every sales record.
 
Which in itself is interesting that it beats both 30-06 and .308 (maybe combined) in non-military sales.

I think
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Not really - just about everyone (except me) has an AR or 6, that's a lot of .223 downrange
 
I've been lusting for a modern rifle chambered in 7x57 for several years now. The list of guns on my "grail" list is short, but a Satterlee 7x57 would be on it. :D
 
1st off, those are 2 beautiful rifles. That Brno!

Ok, now, im a 270win man. I know theres several great "do all" rounds out there but every man has his fav. When folks argue over calibers most of the time they either argue for the one they have or the one they took a liking to but either way theres always another caliber thatll outperform that one at some end of the spectrum.

I really like a few 6.5's and 7mm's and also the 308/30-06. The 30-06 is more versatile imho if you handload cause you can cover a wider range of power but i still tend to like the 308win more. Its not just real world performance as much as its just what tickles your fancy. Truth is, theres several that are awesome all around calibers. The 7x57 is one of them to me.

Again, really nice rifles
 
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