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Could the Ruger steel-belted "recoil pad" be to blame?

The 7x57 is not too far behind the 308win as far as recoil. I have found that my win mod 88 with its hard plastic butt-plate can be less fun to shoot than any of my 375 that are outfitted with decelerator recoil pads.

One of the reasons the smaller cartridges can be surprising as far as recoil is the fact that we are not as mentally prepared as we would be with the larger stuff.

Think about the charge increase. Mil-surp 7x57s are 2300fps, a modern load 160gr is 2600-2700, thats 400 fps. 400fps is the difference between a 308 win and 300 win mag!

Perry

My 7x57 on a 1909 weighs 7# even and has a neidner steel buttplate. I shoot 175gr Nosler Partitions exclusively. I am very recoil sensitive and do not find it particularly uncomfortable. I only load it to about 2450 and find that more than adequate for African game up to and including Kudu which is the largest game I have used it on. Accuracy for 3 shots from cold is well under 1" consistently. I can percieve no use for a 7x57 using a bullet lighter than 175grs. Personal opinion of course.

The first real gun I ever had was a sporterized 7X57 Mauser my dad, after much nagging, let me buy at Sears. Being Norwegian and very practical and frugal, he didn't want me to get something very expensive and it was cheap. Even at that tender age, I thought the recoil wasn't all that bad even with the handloads I made with my Lee Loader on the kitchen table without adult supervision.

Actually, I think the recoil on a 300 Win. Mag. and 375 H&H Mag. is pretty light. I would recommend taking a good dose of Pamprin and shooting a 458 Lott a bit; then a 7X57 Mauser will then seem to have powder puff recoil.

My 7x57 also has steel butt plate as did my previous two or three. My 160gn Woodleigh load gets away at about 2700 and even prone is hardly noticable. The lack of recoil coupled with exceptional effectiveness is what has made this cartridge universally endearing for 115 years or so.

Von Gruff.

I confess that I read this thread with some surprise that anyone could find the 7x57 (7mm Mauser to old Americans)to have any particularly uncomfortable recoil. In my youth (when dinosaurs walked the earth)it was sometimes referred to as a "lady's gun" - suitable for the rare woman on a hunting trip in North America. I happen to love the 7mm Mauser and know it kills very effectively. Rifle shooters simply have to learn to adjust to the fact of "recoil" - and sometimes it can be in varying levels of discomfort. (Hey! I don't like muzzle blast - but shot a 220 Swift using a 48 gr. bullet that moved out at 4140 fps as a teenager on woodchucks -and took precautions against the noise and otherwise endured the noise. It has to be the same for recoil)

This web site has MANY readers who are not totally familiar with ALL cartridges and rifles. The 7 x 57 does not have uncomfortable recoil.

BUT, for the uninformed the cartridge is often described as having "light recoil" in comparison to other big game cartridges. Loading a 7 mauser to its meaningful capacity a shooter learns that the recoil is not too different from say a 30-06 (still not uncomfortable but not as light as an uninformed shooter might have been lead to believe).

I realize there are those who would mount a "one seven five" on a tree trunk & claim it's not that bad. Some readers jumped from "it's not light recoil" to it's uncomfortable recoil.

boltshooter:

The whole subject of "recoil" is at the heart of all rifle shooting, of course. You mentioned the 30-06. Any trained rifle shooter handles the 30-06 with ease (as anyone who ever went through an M-1 range in basic years ago very well knows) I found the 375 H&H to be verye asy in recoil. I shot my PH's 470 N.E. and enjoyed it. (Both calibers, to me, were a "push" rather than a "kick" -which may be what is the real difference in discussing "recoil".

My little (4'11") wife loves her 7X57 and shoots it very well. She's never said a word about recoil from it.
kh