Does anyone here own one ? what do you think of it ? is it hard to reload for ? i have heard that it is ? barrel life ummm how bad is it ? if its faster than a swift ?

I have been whanting one all my life, havent got round to it yet though.

The thing, not the problem, with the round is the thick walls in the neck, by design the round will only shoot and function well with full power loads.

i have read that the thick neck design was partly because that means one can use a .22 Win mag in one of those reducing cases, to lets say shoot a coup de gras or other, perhaps even for som easy target practice.

The round is wery hard om barrels and with the heavier .224 bullets or a TSX bullet the round outclasses the 220 Swift, according to my readings.


If you own a Blaser, your a lucky one, thus they have barrels for the round.

/C

tank,

I don't own one but had a longtime hunting buddy who used his exclusively for just about everything he ever shot at except his night time Piggie Basher which was of all things a Remingtion Woodmaster in .30/06 Sprg with a monster Zeiss mounted on it.

Over @ 15 years I saw Dieter make some pretty impressive long distance shots & spectacular kills with this cartridge although for the life of me cannot remember what make of rifle it was (Voere or Krico somehow rings a bell) but his Boomer sure was a looker, engraved to the hilt w/stock carving etc. and had an especially long-g-g barrel on it. Anyway, he loved the thing & swore by it; for daytime hunting I never saw him use anything else. It certainly left a lasting impression on me.

He never reloaded for it and exclusively used RWS ammo with the 74 grain Cone Point (which is the only loading I've ever seen for this cartridge).

The cases certainly have thick necks but why not? If the cartridge is simply a 7x57 necked down then the brass has to go somewhere and around the neck is the most obvious to me. Like Husquie says there are numerous adapters available for this cartridge allowing .22 Magmum, .22 Hornet, .222, .223 and a couple of others as well to be used as in it. Even with the thick neck cannot imagine that it would be any different or more difficult to reload for than any other cartridge but that's just my opinion.

The 74 grain Cone Points are some really stout bullets for this cartridge and can be obtained from RWS. I've loaded them for years in .222, .223 & 22-250 Remingtons for use on Roe Deer and as far as I'm concerned they are the original "Premium" bullet when used in these "lesser" cartidges and from what I saw with Dieter's 5.6x57 - they are accurate and perform excellently, not damaging alot of meat either.

I don't imagine that barrel life is gonna be too much of an issue unless the barrel gets absued (shot too hot) any more than some of the other hot numbers, like Weatherby's or the Swift but then again, just how much does someone shoot a hunting rifle? If you torch off enough powder down a 5.6mm tube it's gonna get hot real quick anyway so judicious sighting-in and shooting would be the right way to treat a combination like this to begin with.

Even here in the Fatherland it's not a cartridge one stumbles across daily and even then there are the legal considerations for cartidge limitations to deal with and logistically it may be a little bit more difficult to feed than more mundane offerings but if these issues can be overcome it certainly offers some impressive performance if you're willing to go the extra bit.

I have a swift and if I had it to do over again I'd choose the 5.6x57. The swift normally has a slow twist that won't stabalize heavy bullets and it's hard to find a light bullet that can handle the high velocities. I finnally ended up using a 50 gr. barns x bullet to get the accuracy I wanted without slowing the loads down to what I'm getting out of my .223's.

If 22 centrefire is made legal for roe as well as muntjac I will have a 5.6x57 made but using my own reamer which will actualy be a 22-6mm remington with a 10 twist and throated for the 65gr sierra gameking BTSP.

The Hornady load book shows the 5.6x57 producing 100fps more than the the 220 swift, not much of a difference until you see that the x57 is from a 22" barrel and the Swift from a 26" barrel.

I reckon barrel life would last me out on roe. A box of bullets for load development and shots on game thereafter.

In moments of sanity I hear my brain telling me that this will do little more than my beloved 243 with 70gr bullets.....

I too have always wanted one. The idea of the round is fantastic, Blaser used to make a barrel for the R 93. I would think a 1 in 10" 26" barreled rifle would be perfect

Aleko