Stopped buy my gunsmiths shop yesterday
need to stop doing that ! last time i bought a 300 H&H.
This time i walked out empty handed. But i handeld a Rifle i cant get out of my head.
It was a .257 Roberts AI 40 degree. Built on a Mexican 98.
Barreled with a Douglass , light sporter of i think 24 inches.
I had a Roberts improved before, and it was fun , but mine just had a slow barrel, could not match the velocity of my shorter barreld Standard Roberts.
I liked this rifle. Bluing was beautiful. Nice walnut stock.
I will probably Buy it.
I looked at dies and brass on line, And die prices are not bad !
Would you guys go with Full length of just neck size. I will probably just buy factory ammo and fire form them. The only brass i could find was Nosler at 74.00 a box. That's Nutz, Cant be that good. Your thoughts please ?

I'd go with a FL die. Midway offers a FL Forster for $41.50. If it's adjusted properly it won't overwork the brass.

Sounds like a lovely rig. What scope will you put on it?

you can just NS the Ackley cases for a number of firings.
they don't flow brass like a normal case shape.
I would buy the full length die, and a separate 7mm NS die.

as far as brass you can use anything you can find in the X57 family.
I mainly use Winchester +p Roberts brass in the regular 7x57, Remington 7x57 in the Ackley.
6mm Remington Brass in the 6.5X257.
Remington in the improved 257 [an odd one with weatherby shoulders]
and regular Winchester cases in the win featherweight 257 Bob.

I could use any of those cases in any of the others.

8mauser brass doesn't neck down well and needs the shoulder shaped down with a 358 win die before necking it down to 30 cal. then fire forming back to the chamber.
that one is easier to make from Hornady 275 Rigby brass.

I just boutht one on the internet from a store that had no idea what it was and couldn't get 257s to go into the chamber. It is a nice rifle, With a medium light weight Lothar Walthar barrel, 4x12 (2) Leupold scope, 2LB. trigger job and it had a bench rest chamber glass bedded, and some nice add ons.. I decided after talking to to the sales person who really wanted to dump it so I asked his bottom dollar..I got it for $430. shipped with scope and they paid my FFL guy..played with it and went to cut out the neck so it would take factory 257 Robts ammo, but decided to run a Ackley reamer in it..It shoots great even with fireforming loads..Got some new factory WW brass in boxes for 53 cents each and some once fired factory for 40 cents each on AR so have near 200 rounds I loaded to fireform..Loaded most with 257 Robts near max loads to fireform and hunt with..and its super accurate even with the fireforming loads.

Im likeing this rifle for sure, the only other change I made was putting the 4x12 on my 222 and a 2x7x28 on the Ackely..Nice gun, no recoil and fun to shoot. Perfect deer and antelope rifle and I think it will compete with the 25-06 or close with handloads.

I might just have to do with out this one, i like it but its pretty spendy.