What Have You Killed with the 7x57

[Jon Glajchen]

Found another photo!

 

[Witold Krzyżanowski]

I like it Jon. Congrats.

 

[Jon Glajchen]

I like it Jon. Congrats.

Thank you !

 

[rookhawk]

I've killed nothing with one yet (I'll remedy that in 10 days)

I will say the Sellier & Bellot 175gr nosler partition factory load has proved very accurate with velocity slightly above published specs. (2427 fps average) and the patterns were excellent. Least deviation in velocity of any round of any manufacturer I've shot in ten years. I figured that this gun will kill anything up to leopard, kudu, elk or moose ethically and effectively out to 230 yards.

 

[enysse]

I killed a whitetail with one last year!

 

[Rob404]

I just picked up a 7x57, a Chilean action with a Green Mountain Barrel The previous owner had some Crappy mounts and i could not get the rifle to shoot out to 200yds,I found some mounts for a Mod 95 that would clear the hump and get the scope about level with the barrel a pair of Burris signature rings will help with any fine tuning. Now I need to work up some loads, any thought out there, the rifle will be used for Plains animals

 

[Code4]

My mate John FOXWELL with a decent sized Bull camel shot in the Australian outback. Rifle is a 7x57 Winchester Featherweight ( one of only two in this calibre that we know of in Australia ). Scope a Khales 3-9 x 42 #4 reticle. Ammunition was factory Norma 154 soft points, which are extremely accurate in this rifle.

 

[Frostbit]

http://www.africahunting.com/thread...with-derek-littleton-of-luwire-safaris.22577/

Ruger Tang Safety 7 x 57 with Sellier & Bellot 173 grain factory ammo

 

[Longwalker]

I've only a very limited experience, but I'm working on it! I have killed game with my Brno 22F carbine, a Ruger #1a and A Merkel O/U combo ( BBF) in the rimmed version.. Moose. Wolf, Coyote, Whitetail, and Mule deer. Deer were taken with Remington 140's and moose and coyote with Norma 175's, and Wolf with a S&B 175, all standard cup & core factory loads. Ranges from 14 yards to over 250. I think I should at least add a Warthog and Kudu to my list!

 

[JWB300]

Great pic Code4 - classic outback camel photo. Some good shooting by the looks too.

 

[Witold Krzyżanowski]

I've only a very limited experience, but I'm working on it! I have killed game with my Brno 22F carbine, a Ruger #1a and A Merkel O/U combo ( BBF) in the rimmed version.. Moose. Wolf, Coyote, Whitetail, and Mule deer. Deer were taken with Remington 140's and moose and coyote with Norma 175's, and Wolf with a S&B 175, all standard cup & core factory loads. Ranges from 14 yards to over 250. I think I should at least add a Warthog and Kudu to my list!

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I like it. Good luck.
Witold

 

[8x68]

I have an Interarms Mark X (made in Manchester, England) in 7x57. What a fantastic calibre! I have yet to harvest anything with it, but will be taking it deer hunting this fall. I have an old Tasco something or other 2-7x32 on it. It's not pretty but shoots like a dream.

Best load for me at this point is Hornady Interlock 154gr Sppt, over 46.2gr of H4831, WLR primer. Remington brass.
3 shot group measured 0.30"

 

[Rob404]

I have an Interarms Mark X (made in Manchester, England) in 7x57. What a fantastic calibre! I have yet to harvest anything with it, but will be taking it deer hunting this fall. I have an old Tasco something or other 2-7x32 on it. It's not pretty but shoots like a dream.

Best load for me at this point is Hornady Interlock 154gr Sppt, over 46.2gr of H4831, WLR primer. Remington brass.
3 shot group measured 0.30"

I have some 150s and some H4831 just waiting for some brass

 

[vette447]

Can we resurrect this thread and see if anyone has anything new to add? I am headed to Namibia for Leopard and some Plains Game in August (possibly up to Kudu and Gemsbok). Since the photos I posted above, I have also picked up a nice 275 Rigby and I plan to take in on this hunt. I killed my bull Sable with a 140 gr Hornady Superformance but even that load is still a little weak for what this round is capable I think (my gun has a modern action). I am debating whether I take the 140 gr Hornady again or opt for something more classic like the 175 gr Nosler Partition (loaded by S&B). I would love to see more pics and hear more first hand experience hunting with your 7x57s.

 

[Divernhunter]

Nothing. Do not own one.
A friend used one for killing bears.
I do have a 7-08 which is almost the same and have killed a deer with it.

 

[rookhawk]

7x57 bag to date for 2015:

9 Impala
2 Baboon
1 Kudu
1 Zebra
1 Spotted Hyena
1 Steinbok
1 Black Bear

Intended use for 2016:

2 Impala
1 Duiker
1 Bushbuck
1 Spotted Hyena
1 Kudu
1 Hippo (brain shot...hopefully will have the opportunity in lieu of using less accurate .500 Express)

Intended use in 2017:

1 Leopard
1 Nyala
1 Waterbuck
1 Klipspringer
1 Grysbok
1 Oryx
1 Croc
1 Eland

The most surprising kill was the Black Bear. He did not present a side shot so I center punched him head on at 50 yards with the 7x57. The lungs and liver literally were jelly and the heart was destroyed. I was astounded at the amount of damage...what do you call it? "Cavitation damage", "Gas damage", "Hydrostatic Damage"? Whatever it is called, getting the impact damage of a 2400fps 175gr bullet is effective, but the secondary shockwave damage that occurred for 10" radius around the bullet path was astounding and equally mortal.

Wish I had handy pictures of all of this but I'll have to hunt around for them and then resize them to post. Hopefully someone else on here will have some spectacular shots of the 7x57 in action to honor your request.

 

[vette447]

rookhawk, that is a very impressive list. I love it!

In regard to the 175 Partition load, what do you think a reasonable (comfortable) max hunting range is for that load? 200 yards or so? I am thinking they would be dropping pretty fast at that point. One thing that surprised me on my first trip to Naimibia is how many shots I ended up taking at 200+ yards due to the open country which has made me consider sticking with the 140 gr ammo. Of course, there was a lot wider variety of plains game on the menu for my first trip while Leopard and a few select species will be the main quarry this time.

I have a few boxes of the S&B 175 gr Nosler Partition loads and my gun seems to like them. However, they are really hard to come by here in the US for some reason. Do you have a good place that you order them from? The last time I got some, I think I had to get it special direct from S&B.

 

[rookhawk]

Vette447,

In answer to your questions.

The S&B 175gr is not "officially" retailed in the USA. It just so happens that the VP of sales for Magtech (owner of S&B) is a 7x57 guy so for his own purposes, he has imported the coveted 175gr Partitions. They are available directly from magtech I believe, or they can direct you to a retailer that can special order them. Not quite sure of the authorized process but bottom line is they have/had them in their US warehouse. The VP is also a regular reader on this forum and that is how I learned of their availability 18 months ago.

Yes, drop is a factor with a 175gr bullet at those speeds. With a 200 yard zero, at 50 yards you're 1.37" high. At 110 yards you've plateau'd at 2.72" high. At 200 yards you are back to zero. At 235 yards you're roughly 3" low. So for Maximum point blank range, I'd say its a gun suitable for out to 235 yards which happens to be about the maximum ethical range for shooting off sticks in my opinion. My longest kill was a 221 yard impala shot off sticks in Zimbabwe and that's about as good as I could do.

Now if you ignore the maximum point blank range because you have a ballistic calculating rangefinder (Highly recommend the Leica HD-B 10x42 range finding binos) then it will give you firing solutions. I'm a believer that the partition bullet and the caliber itself were designed to kill game between 1900fps and 2400fps. Therefore, at 340 yards the bullet is traveling 1905fps with a significant 17.5" of drop. That's I'd say about the maximum drop a reasonable shooter can hold over on a medium sized animal like a kudu, zebra or impala. Everybody knows what a foot and a half looks like and it means if you shoot just above their shoulders, you will hit them in the kill zone.

Many people will suggest you go with a really powerful rifle to avoid these limitations so lets look at the most commonly recommend rifle for Africa, the 300 Win Mag. 3000fps pushing a nosler partition 180gr bullet with a BC of .474. (this contrasts to 2430fps with a partition 175gr with a BC of .519 in 7x57). We know what you lost by going to the .300 Win Mag. You have heavy recoil. You have a heavy gun. And what did you gain over the puny 7x57 in the important areas of Maximum Point Blank Range of 3" and reasonable kill speed of 1900fps?

The 300 Winmag is at 3" of drop at 265 yards with a 200 yard zero. All that extra bucking recoil and heavy lugging gun bought you 30 yards of Maximum Point Blank Range of 3".

The 300 Winmag does afford you a 1900fps minimum effective operating speed for proper bullet expansion at a very distant 600 yards, a 260 yard further distance than the 7x57. BUT, BUT the .300 Win has an astounding 66.66" of DROP at that 600 yard mark or put simpler, the bullet is dropping 5 and a half FEET at 600 yards. Unless you're playing mil spec with drop tables and fancy adjustments to windage and elevation, you're probably not able to "hold over" 5.5 feet to get your kill.

I also question the efficacy of a Partition bullet hitting at OVER 2400FPS because jacket separation can be a real problem. The 300 Win Mag doesn't hit that performance sweet spot in our example until the 300 yard mark. Simply put, the bullet is really traveling too fast to operate optimally until the bullet is beyond most people's comfortable shooting distance. I even had jacket separations occasionally at close shots with a 7x57 so I can't imagine the problems that would happen at hyper velocities out of a 300Winmag.

So at what yardage does the 300 Win Mag provide you with that 18" maximum responsible hold over in the scenario outlined? Answer: at 390 yards. A 50 yard further shot can be made with a 300 winmag using the 18" hold over maximum as the basis for a reasonable approach.

It seems that the 300Win Mag provides much more pain to shoot and gun weight to lug around to provide an extra 30 yards MPBR and an extra 50 yards of theoretical "aim for top of back" shooting. I'd say the picture gets a bit more grim when you consider there are probably fewer than one shooter in 1000 that can shoot an animal at 390 yards off sticks responsibly which in turn completely neuters the "bring a faster gun" argument for me.

In conclusion, not trying to bash the 300 Win Mag but trying to exalt the 7x57 because it provides such an amazing group of capabilities with no pain to the shoulder in a lightweight stalking rifle. Consider the fact that you may not have come halfway around the world to hunt game at great distances and you're left with the reality that for spot and stalk (why most come to Africa) the 7x57 is absolutely ideal for most applications.

 

[rookhawk]

Another data point for you vette:

A 7x57 shooting a 140gr bullet with a .485bc at a typical 2650fps.

It's MPBR of 3" is at 245 yards. It's max holdover drop of 18" occurs at 365 yards. It hits minimum operating speed of 1900fps at 440 yards.


You lose:

20% mass going from 175gr to 140gr.

Potential adequacy for good kills on medium sized game.

You lose optimal BC to buck the wind.

You lose 100 foot pounds of muzzle energy going from 175gr to 140gr bullets.



You gain:

a marginal 10 yards longer MPBR based on 3"

An insignificant 20 yards range for 18" max holdover distance

A reasonable additional 100 yards of minimum operating speed





So unless you're in desperate need of killing options from 340-440 yards with a 7x57 (assuming ballistic turrets and drop calculations are used) , I can think of no other reason why you'd want a 140gr bullet in lieu of a 175gr bullet by the numbers cited.

 

[Sand Rat]

Discussions such as this one on the forum are what convinced me to purchase my CZ 550 in 7x57 last year. I just don't find my M77 30-06 a joy to shoot anymore after 36 seasons even though it's taken a dump truck load of whitetail, hogs and varmints over the years. I absolutely love the way the CZ shoots in this caliber. Took this East Texas whitetail with it in November. Remington core lokt 140 gr.