This shocked me a bit so I thought I would share.

Our ammo bag got delayed into Mozambique. Derek was able to hunt down a box of 7 x 57 from an anti-poaching unit near our camp.

After the bag and ammo arrived and after we killed bait and two Leopards he told me that in all the years he has been guiding (and it's many) Joyce was the first hunter to arrive with a 7 x 57.

He grew up with the caliber, respected it, and after all the animals died quickly and humanely he remarked how much the caliber is underrated and "forgotten".

It really surprised me considering when I set the rifle up for Joyce I chose the caliber (after she chose it over a 270 in the exact same rifle) because of the nostalgic African heritage.

An excellent cartridge indeed,
K

Good for sure. Personally I like the 6,5x55 so much without a single failure that I sold my 7x57, a nice Blaser K95. Which is still a very nice travelling gun and you can opt for a shorter barrel and load up to modern standards. Or you stay traditional with heavyweight softs.

I would love to have another barrel for my K95 in 7x57. Mine are 30-06, 243 and 222.

I bought a 7x57 Remington 700 Classic a few months ago and it is wonderful. Doesn't buck, and the old Weaver K5 is on point.

I had this plan to modernize it to my liking, but I like it so much I am going to keep it the way it is.

In about 12 days I will be taking my 12 year old to RSA for a PG hunt. He'll be carrying a M70 FW in 7x57 shooting 140gr North Fork bonded cores.

No better or worse then 30 cals, other 7 mm's, 8 mm's and so forth
Nostalgic? Yes. Right place and quality bullets are the keys

Showed up in hunting camp with large group all for plains game ---7mags 300's weatherbys and me with my 1903 in 7x57 mine was only rifle ph wanted to look at---his caliber as well

Well it would seem that 7x57 like .300H&H, are the far more popular preferences on internet forum polls,
than actually anywhere in the real world.

Still popular in France. Great caliber

Great tradition.. The 7 x 57 and Africa. Eleanor O'Connor made that combo famous.

quote:

Originally posted by Safari2:
Great tradition.. The 7 x 57 and Africa. Eleanor O'Connor made that combo famous.

Only in some circles as there was another chap who put the 7x57 to very notable use in Africa well before she was anywhere near the hunting fields. After Mr Bell and Mr Corbet (a tiger hunter in India who was known for use of the cartridge) Eleanor O'Connor was a johny come lately

I thought Joyce hunted with a 4-bore? Or a .600 when she wanted to go small.
Cal

quote:

Originally posted by 7MMNut:
In about 12 days I will be taking my 12 year old to RSA for a PG hunt. He'll be carrying a M70 FW in 7x57 shooting 140gr North Fork bonded cores.

Now that's what I like to hear !
Good luck and good job.

quote:

Originally posted by Safari2:
Great tradition.. The 7 x 57 and Africa. Eleanor O'Connor made that combo famous.

You mean Karamoja Bell?

Eleanor wasn't even cutting teeth when Bell was killing tuskers with the 7x57.

quote:

Originally posted by Von Gruff:

quote:

Originally posted by Safari2:
Great tradition.. The 7 x 57 and Africa. Eleanor O'Connor made that combo famous.

Only in some circles as there was another chap who put the 7x57 to very notable use in Africa well before she was anywhere near the hunting fields. After Mr Bell and Mr Corbet (a tiger hunter in India who was known for use of the cartridge) Eleanor O'Connor was a johny come lately

You beat me to it.

Just picked up one in a Ruger No.1 at a gun show last month. Wonderful little classic cartridge.

My 12 year old son has already laid claim to it and plans on taking it on our next trip to Africa.

How could I have overlooked Bell. I guess I was thinking in terms of safari hunting, vs ivory hunting, in the "modern era".

re: Bell

- a time when men studied & drew sensible conclusions from bullet paths and wound channels in actual animals,
rather than wet telephone books...

Darn fine Calibre.
Here's mine


My first experience with this round was with a Mauser in the French colony of New Caledonia about twenty years ago

quote:

Originally posted by d.unger:
Just picked up one in a Ruger No.1 at a gun show last month. Wonderful little classic cartridge.

My 12 year old son has already laid claim to it and plans on taking it on our next trip to Africa.

I look at my daughters and I think "some day we are going to Africa".

Good for you, I would have been ruined for life if the old man would have taken me on a safari at a young age.

Instead I went myself when I turned 30, and the place haunts my dreams every since.

Around my area the most popular calibers are 303 British and the various .30 cals. 308 Win,30-06, .300 Win Mag, .270, .243. I hunt with a 7x57 but I must admit it is not as common as the above mentioned calibers. The funny thing is that MANY guys are still hunting with .303's, nothing wrong with that at all but I guess I would like to see more 7mm's out there.

quote:

Originally posted by ozhunter:
Darn fine Calibre.
Here's mine

WANT!

quote:

Originally posted by Trax:
Well it would seem that 7x57 like .300H&H, are the far more popular preferences on internet forum polls,
than actually anywhere in the real world.

So what?

I own a couple. Great round.

quote:

Originally posted by ozhunter:
Darn fine Calibre.
Here's mine


My first experience with this round was with a Mauser in the French colony of New Caledonia about twenty years ago

Oz - What is that deer? And you look like a guerilla fighter in that shirt.

quote:

Originally posted by Duckear:

quote:

Originally posted by Trax:
Well it would seem that 7x57 like .300H&H, are the far more popular preferences on internet forum polls,
than actually anywhere in the real world.

So what?

NO big deal really, it just shows that the results of AR polls match the myth that 7x57 is common or popular in Africa.


The most popular period & use for 7MM mauser IN Africa, would have been for hunting people, not beasts on safaris.

How many people could really afford a commercial hunting rifle like a bespoke Rigby .275 bore and also be able/prepared
to go wild remote adventuring in Africa in the early days?

Even Jim Corbett didn't buy his own Rigby .275 bore, rather, it was an esteemed gift from the Lieutenant Governor of the Provinces.

Based on the assumption that kit sometimes does go missing, I favour calibres at the common end of the scale, hence the preference for .243W, .308W and .458WM. Does the 7x57 have a practical advantage over .308W? This is not a question intended to stir things up; I am interested in the answer.

Mine is 117 years old this year, and keeps putting away big buffalo, scrub cattle, boars, dogs, donkeys, etc. It seems to hit above its weight.

quote:

Originally posted by BenKK:
It seems to hit above its weight.

Exactly,

Derek remarked to Joyce he would have no reservation in putting her on any animal after he saw the rifle and shooter's performance

From what I read up above (and since ammo was found nearby) it isn't unknown, but few visitors bring it. Also, obviously, it isn't totally ubiquitous, since most people shoot factory ammo and as such, they use American ammo.

Let's not forget its capabilities as a military round as well.

It was used in what became the most expensive war the UK had ever been involved in up to that time. I refer, of course, to the 2nd Anglo-Boer war.

Prior to that, the USA learnt about the 7x57 in Cuba as well.

Still well known, still well liked - not mainstream, since ammo makers make far less of it than they do of the "Big 5" - ie .243, .270, .308, .30-06 and the .375 H&H Mag

I killed my first deer, a whitetail, with a Ruger M77 in 7x57. Later I bought a Ruger #1A in 7x57. I used both of them a lot for a few years when I lived in Texas, and took about a dozen whitetails and lots of feral hogs. Since I moved to Utah, I have used the 7x57 on mule deer. I use 145 gr Speers, 139 gr. Hornadys, and recently 140 gr. Barnes TSX bullets. The 7x57 is an efficient killer, but there is nothing magic about the caliber. It is pleasant to shoot, and the two 7x57s are some of the last rifles I would ever sell. I also don't think they do anything a .25-06, .270, or .308 won't do just as well. The 7x57 is just a pleasant, efficient cartridge.

Dale, that is the "magic' about this little 7mm,.. it is pleasant and efficient, what more would a man want?

a 7x57 goes straight to your hart in south Africa you will be a very lucky man if you find a second hand rifle for sale and if one pops up it's sold in minutes.

the guys will sell any rifle except their 7x57 that must show how popular they really are.

it punches whey above it's weight with mild recoil and with the silencer my 7 year old daughter shoots it comfortably 1 moa

quote:

Originally posted by Cazador humilde:

quote:

Originally posted by ozhunter:
Darn fine Calibre.
Here's mine


My first experience with this round was with a Mauser in the French colony of New Caledonia about twenty years ago

Oz - What is that deer? And you look like a guerilla fighter in that shirt.

looks like a Rusa deer?? We have those in Mauritius too.

I used a 7 x 57 for a plains game hunt in South Africa. The rifle is a CZ with a 22" barrel & a 8 to 1 twist. IT WAS FANTASTIC.

The premium bullets we have available today make this caliber a real hunting pleasure. I used GSC 140 grain bullets and they performed flawlessly.

Be careful if you get this caliber rifle; it won't be your last and you'll find yourself reaching for the 7 x 57 (aside from dangerous game) for everything else.

Great all rounder for plains game. Used one as a kid, shot tons of Kudu with it

Just returned from our PG hunt. Little guy killed a zebra, impala, bushbuck, nyala and a blesbok with again 140gr North Fork BC's.

I used it to kill common reedbuck, bushbuck and springbok.

My son's zebra was a quartering to shot. Bullet impact was just to the right of center with the bullet passing over the top of the heart and lodging under the skin of the offside shoulder. The major blood vessels sheared and much lung damage, zebra DRT.

Most of the other species taken with it were also one shot DRT results. Springbok was one exception but the bullet placement was to blame on that one.

I'd happily hunt anything up to Kudu with this load.

quote:

Still popular in France. Great caliber

Now that ain't right! Until just this last year, 2014, 7x57 (in any incarnation either 7mm Mauser or .275 Rigby) was in fact illegal as a chambering in a hunting rifle in France as a "military calibre" and had been so illegal in France since 1938.

Are you mistaking this for 7x64 which was and is still popular and, indeed in Remington 760 and 740 rifles was 7mm Remington Express aka .280 Remington.

But since 2014 the "new kid on the block" in France since the repeal of the "military calibre" prohibition is the good old .30-06. About a century late...but only just "discovered", now, by the French as a hunting cartridge.

I got my first 7x57 in 1950, traded a Win. 30-30 for it, upset dad something awful!! since it was a milsurp Mauser..Since that time I have never, not once, been without a rifle in that caliber..I have hunted all over and the largest thing I have shot with it was a cape buffalo, a number of elk, bear, deer, antelope and African PG..I wouldn't chose it for elephant, but if anyone wants to pay my trophy fee and daily rate I will kill and elephant with it!

Trax,
Contrary to your post, the 300 H&H, particularly in the old Rem 721 is very popular in Africa and has been their choice of the 300s for many years. I know several PHs that use the 300 H&H and some farmers also.. I know a few Africans that still shoot a 7x57, The 7x57 was extremely popular with Africaners in the early years as they were cheap and plentiful in Mausers, and many of great granddads old 7x57 Mauser still stand in some Afrians gun cabinet or closet.