Well GUTS...what have you come up with mate? I'm hanging on the edge of my seat waiting to find out what round it is chambered for now.

Cheers, Vince

Here are my rough measurements of the fired case. The dimensions are very close to the .257 Roberts.

OK, the little light in my head finally clicked on and I think I'm with you now. I couldn't find any loads for a 6.5 x 57mm cartridge though.

Ok,
I am an old cartridge inventor and quite used to creating something out of nothing when it comes to dies and odd cartridges.

I would get the 6.5x57 dies as noted. You should be able to neck size the cases down at half way and resize the web to a certin point after firing. Due to the longer shoulder, about .013 inched, I do not think you can full length size. But you are going to be pretty close.

Buy 257 brass, 4831, Sierra 120s or Hornady Interloc 140s. Expand the neck to 6.5 with the expander ball in the sizing die. Do not worry about the exterior of the neck. Use the seater to seat your bullets. Fire form to the chamber and then neck size only, using the sizing die turned out to the point it does just half a neck size.

You can use the 6.5x55 or 6.5x54 starting load data if need be and if that is not good for you, try the four loads here:

www.reloadersnest.com/...iberID=113

Best,
Ed

Ps: Right now I am using a 243 sizing die with the shoulder drilled out, to neck size, and another 243 die with the shoulder cut off to base size and a 243 seater, to reload my 240 Laser which is a 280 blown out, shoulder moved .250 inches forward and necked to 6mm.

yeah case capacity is within 2% of the swede you should be ok with that data.

This may help:

(Threw in the 6.5-06 for reference.)

Remember everyone, no personal attacks... dont make me get out the Banhammer of Doom!

The cartridge comparison image is useful and will hopefully help out in this thread.


EDIT: None of those links work for me, they all lock up my browser. Anyone else having this issue?


-DallanC

Dallan- they pop right up for me...

Apologies to all, but I'm returning this thread back to the topic at hand. Deleted unnecessary comments before things get out of hand.


-DallanC

I think mikes little bar chart is a little misleading as it doesn't really show case dia's or capacities as they are affected. the 6.5x54 could either be the mauser or the mannlicher-schoenauer case it really doesn't say and the swede case starts out alot wider at the base so the capacity is closer then it appears on a length chart.

Isn't Mike's "chart" just a series of case drawings, showing lengths?

I took it out today and shot it again and this time I used a couple of .257 Roberts cartridges that I got from a friend of mine. They both chambered and fired perfectly, the chamber is definitly .257 Roberts. I was going to take some pictures of the brass but my camera batteries are dead. I'll try to get some tomorrow.

you should still slug that bore, doesn't it seem funny to you that a military barrel shrank to a .257 groove, just because it works doesn't mean its the best answer.

GUTS wrote:

I took it out today and shot it again and this time I used a couple of .257 Roberts cartridges that I got from a friend of mine. They both chambered and fired perfectly, the chamber is definitly .257 Roberts. I was going to take some pictures of the brass but my camera batteries are dead. I'll try to get some tomorrow.

Do I understand this correctly ??? Your dealing with something you truly don't know what it is but fired some ammo down it anyways just to see what you end up with ???

Now I understand you've been looking at all this in an objective manner comparing capacities and pressure and all but I think I still would be taking a different approach to this.
Besides that putting a .257 bullet down a .264 bore probably ain't the best thing to be doing if you have any plans of using this rifle.

If you just wanted a chamber casting without using casting material you could have done the cream of wheat or oatmeal thing to fire form a case.

I called the fellow that I bought the rifle from and asked him if he knew what the rifle shot because he said his Dad hunted with it. He told me he did not remember, then he called me back later and said he found a box of shells for it that said .257 Roberts. I still think the bore is original in 6.5 because of the shape of the lands and I don't really understand the danger in shooting a bullet that is six or seven thousanths smaller than the bore, accept for the fact that it may or may not be as accurate as a .264 bullet. Here is the old fashioned(probably not worth a dang)muzzle vs. bullet test.
The one with the crimp is the 6.5x51r and the one without the crimp is the handload .257 Roberts.


Here is how the .257 Roberts brass came out of the chamber.