Tested out the 257 AI

ShadeTree

Handloader
Mar 6, 2017
3,515
3,019
The old girl shoots. Yippee yay. A guy never knows. Nice rifle, I'm gonna be happy with it.

I remembered I have an almost full box of 100 gr Speer HC's I had bought to try in my slow twist 250 savage as they are the shortest 100 gr bullet available. An overall length of 2.950 with that bullet put it .075 off the lands and .100 out from the neck base. Figured that was a good compromise between the 2.

Used Nosler's 257 AI data for a 100 gr bullet and loaded 7 up with IMR 4350. 46.5, 47.5, 48.5, and four at 49.5.

Knew right off it wasn't gonna be a stinker when the 46.5 - 48.5 shots were within an inch, with the 47.5 and 48.5 about 1/2" apart. Marked those 3 and shot the 49.5's.

Problem is they shot in with the 47.5 and 48.5 loadings which I wasn't expecting. So I don't know exactly which is which, but bottom line is it put 6 shots ranging in charges from 47.5 - 49.5 under 3/4" The last shot went somewhere in that bottom 3 cluster because those 3 and the top 2 were already there.

Load workup with this rifle and whatever bullets should be easy down the road. The 49.5's averaged 3080fps, got room to go up yet based on lack of pressure signs and speed, but seems like an easy load on the rifle and plenty fast enough, so I'll probably stick where it's at.

 
DrMike":335j5j43 said:
Well, that has to be gratifying. Good job, and congratulations.

Yepper it is Dr Mike. I don't know if I helped it or not as I didn't shoot it before, but I relieved some of the bedding that had squeezed out into the mag well area of the stock causing it to be tight in the stock, and I used a needle file and took some bedding off where the breech face sits against.

I'm pretty sure the 47.5 shot is the top right of that bottom cluster, and the 48.5 is the top right of the top 2. So that makes the 4 shots at 49.5 what the total group size is which was in the high 6's.
 
Already amazing groups!
One heck of a find!
Congratulations!
Look forward to seeing more load development in the future.


Hawk

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ST,

Nice shooting. Looks like a great load that's easy on the shoulder and wicked on White Tails. Hopefully you can run one into the jugs.

JD338
 
Thanks fella's.

JD, probably not the optimum bullet but I might as well make use of it for now. Will likely be a death ray on whitetails at normal ranges but might make more blood shot than I care to deal with. I'll try to jug test one at some point.

I'd like to try some 115 BT's when they are in stock. That might be a while though.
 
Nice looking gun and group. It will be a death ray on white tails as you stated. Used the 25-06 for several years and this is in the same ballpark. Those 115gr BT and PT worked great for me. That 110AB might be good also if you get the chance to try them out. Hope you get lots of enjoyment with it. Dan.
 
Looks like you're in a nice node there. Almost takes the fun out of load development when they respond like that. Good shooting.

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Electron":38fgwgca said:
Looks like you're in a nice node there. Almost takes the fun out of load development when they respond like that. Good shooting.

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True, but still way more fun than a gun that wont shoot and whittling down to the reason of the dozen possibilities of why that is. Ha.

Truth be told I enjoy shooting even problem guns and trying to make them better........enjoy the whole process. But I'm trying to be somewhat conservative for the time being so I am thankful this one doesn't appear to be any kind of a problem gun to work out, otherwise it would just be sitting for a while.
 
Time to go shoot some steel, until fall anyway. Looks great good work


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Thats a great first range trip. I would say she is prolly gonna be a shooter.

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