.257 Roberts

[J.G. Terry]

There's a bunch of shooting history behind the 257 Roberts. Originally Ned Roberts and his buddies designed the original cartridge to +P levels. Remington did the downloading deal. That was done at the time of introduction. Where this customs on 93's and 95's came from is unknown. The cartridge was developed on high number Springfield and Mauser actions with barrels by Neidner and the like. From my shooting experience 243 will not blow 257 Roberts away. The levels of performance are very similar.

In the late 1920's Roberts' criteria for accuracy was ten shots into an inch at 100 yards. I have seen it done once. Roberts also did much work on ideal twist rates for 25 caliber rifles.

The shoulder angle was changed by Remington at the time of introduction. That would have been 25 Roberts to 257 Roberts. The 25 Niedner, I think, is the 25-06.

[Jim Watson]

Neidner made .25 Roberts with reformed and shortened 7mm brass to give the same case volume as .25 Krag-Mann. Not to be confused with .25 Neidner/.25-06/
G&H made their version of .25 Roberts with reformed full length 7mm brass to save the trouble of trimming.
Remington made their version of .25 Roberts, soon renamed .257 Roberts to avoid confusion with the two wildcats, on 7mm brass necked down with little if any other change.
Pictures at
https://forum.cartridgecollectors.or...7-roberts/6587

Ned and his friends never heard of +P, that term did not come along for 50 years. Have to wonder if he had the factory connections to get pressure tests run. The factories now call a .257 loaded to .30-06 pressure +P. Standard .257 is lower pressure than even the parent 7mm Mauser.

[J.G. Terry]

Roberts and his associates were working on a dual purpose hunting and target round. It was tedious work due to the nature of jacket bullets at that time. Bullets had to be checked for weight and being out of round. The shoulder angle was suggested by a person from Hercules. Roberts worked on ideal twist suggesting he or they were using more than one barrel. One group, the target folks used modified Springfield's. Roberts rifle was a build up Mauser with what appeared to be a commercial Mauser action. Niedner was the barrel maker. If fact Robert's loads are similar to our +P loads of today. This business about custom rifles built up out of 93 and 95 Mausers is simply not true-that was not a consideration. G&H was making 25 Roberts custom rifles. Also some shooters call the 25 Roberts the 25 Niedner Roberts-from your source. What did G&H call this cartridge-the head stamp? Thanks for your source with the cartridge collectors website. We get a different reading from that information. I'll stick by what I say. If in error I would appreciate some reference to get me going in the right direction. The only reference to a 25 Niedner by Roberts at the time was of it being over capacity-25-06. I might refer you to the American Rifleman introduction to the caliber in 1929 and 1930. At the time Roberts was doing his work there was no IMR 3031 but there was a 15 1/2 plus and another DuPont Powder among others. Those folks did very well with what they had. I think you will find that Remington did chronographing for them. There was no reference to them doing pressure testing.

That was not a bunch of noddle heads playing with junk. It's good to be on the green side of the grass today and not looking up at roots! Gotta get back to the house cleaning. Thanks,

[Jim Watson]

The bullets seem to have been the weak link.
I recall shotgun guru Don Zutz with a rare rifle gunzine article.
He had a prewar Model 70 .25 Something. I don't recall if it were a .257 Roberts or the uncommon (in Winchesters) .250 Savage.
He found that with current production bullets, the rifle was far more accurate than anybody reported in the 1930s.

Yes, Ned and his friends at Neidner who did the real work, studied rifling twist a lot. I don't know what Neidner and G&H used, but Remington and Winchester used a 10 twist which was just adequate for a 117 gr bullet.
Berger makes only a 115 gr VLD for which they recommend a 9 twist but that is a long nosed boattail which hardly anybody but the Army was fooling with in Roberts' day.

Sharpe said 3031 came out just in time to be used in the .257.
Earlier wildcat .25s mostly got 15 1/2 and 17 1/2.

[J.G. Terry]

The first 257 Roberts I had was a mid 1950's FN Mauser factory Roberts stocked by Bishop with an old 4x Unertl scope. The gun had not been altered. We found that even with a magazine block the handloaded rounds would be accurate and gave first class performance. We were breaking in a new Ohler 33. This was the first rifle we chronographed. When the Roberts was reintroduced there were reports of some 120 gr. spitzers not stabilizing. Personally, I never ran into problem but was not shooting VLD's like bullets. We ran up on some ancient factory 117gr. ammo that gave decent accuracy and performance. Generally, this ammo did not have a good reputation. My varmint rifle was a built up gun using a Mauser action with Douglas #5 barrel. We elected to go with 1/12 inch twist since only 75 and 87 gr. bullets were used We are currently working on a built up Roberts on a Savage 110 action with 1/10 twist. Nothing extra ordinary about this rifle. The Roberts is really a wonderful cartridge. It is a very satisfactory dual purpose round for Eastern game. There's a bunch of history behind the "Bob." You are totally correct on the powder numbers. Those became 3031 and 4064 if I recall correctly.