[taylorce1]

Here is my buddies buck from 2009, he shoots good deer and if he doesn't find one he generally passes.

Thursday morning I shot this Buck. With the help of my brother and "Graybird" we got it out in several trips on packs. I shot it quite a ways down a canyon from the road.
The Buck kept giving me the slip from the first time I spotted him but I kept trying to outwit him and he finally gave me a poor shot opportunity thru 200 yards of deadfall/burn. Shot him thru the small window while he was walking over the next rise. .257 Roberts, Sierra 117 grain SPBT, 41.5 grains of IMR-4350, struck him in the shoulder and exited in his neck. Dropped so fast I thought I may have missed him.
My brother got a Buck that morning too and Graybird got one Friday morning. He will post his pictures in another thread of his nice buck. I posted my sons Buck in an earlier thread that he killed monday. All required packframes and mileage to get them back to the road. All in all we did good for public land hunting, hope you like the pictures.

I'll probably build a .257 Roberts in the future as I have a HVA small ring 98 sitting in a box without a trigger, stock, or barrel. While the cartridge can be built into a small action I think it is better off in an intermediate action wtih a mag length over 2.8" so you don't have to seat bullets deep. Here is my buddies build on a small ring 96 commercial action back in 2007 and he has basically put away his .30-06 that he had hunted with for nearly 20 years.

Last time I shot my new Roberts it was real windy and I left it shooting just a bit off the bullseye so today I played hooky from work and took my youngest son out with me to shoot a few rifles at the farm. I shot a nice 3 shot group .75" left of the bullseye then I over corrected and shot another 3 shots .75" right of the bullseye. I then adjusted correctly and shot 3 again.
I'm real happy with this rifle and the groups it keeps turning in for me. Not bad for a whippy ultra light barrel on an old M96 action!
The load is shown on the target if you can read it 41.5 gr IMR-4350, WW cases unfired, CCI Large rifle primers, 117 gr Sierra SPBT's. So far the only thing I've killed with it is a Coyote and milk jugs!
The taped over holes are .22's that my sons lob into my targets from the 100 yard bench when I'm not shooting.
The groups measure (left to right) 9/16", 9/16" and 3/8" center to center. I know the gun is truly capable of one hole groups its just that I'm not a great bench shooter. The scope is an older Leupold Ultra Light 3-9x32 and seems to be working pretty well. I'm getting a little vertical stringing but I am reluctant to do anything to the bedding the most it ever climbs is about 1/2" or so and then stops so I think I'll leave it alone.


I started off with a Husky with the solid left side reciever ( mid to late 1940's) then I had Kevin Weaver of Weaver Rifles add a Pac Nor 23" barrel, cock on open and speed lock kit, Gentry 3 position safety, Timney trigger, new bolt handle and a beautiful semi matte blue to the whole thing. While he did that I did an amatuerish job at re-shaping the clunky Husky stock and whittling my own version of a Schnabel fore end, then I full length bedded it from stem to stern floating the barrel. I've showed pictures of it too many times here but I am kinda fond of the whole thing.

If you build or buy a .257 Roberts I'm sure you'll be very happy with it.