In the late '60s, I had a Springfield M1903 built into a 6.5x57mm Mauser, it was a great little mountain rifle, extremely accurate, and did a heck of a job on Yotes back then. I sure wish I'd never sold that old rifle, I should've kept it, but… time marches on. Is anyone here still showing the old cartridge any love with today's great bullets and powder? Cheers
6.5x57mm Mauser
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sable tireur
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Bullets selected for testing the 6.5x57mm Mauser included the (1) Nosler 100-grain Partition, (2) Hornady 120-grain ELD Match, (3) Berger 130-grain VLD Hunting, (4) Hornady 135-grain A-Tip and the (5) Lapua 140-grain CEX Naturalis.
From:
https://www.handloadermagazine.com/6-5x57mm-mauser
top: rimless bottom: rimmed
Serbian ammunition maker PPU offer four factory loadings for the 6.5×57; a 123gn Soft Point, 139gn Soft Point Boat Tail, a 139gn Full Jacket Boat Tail target loading, and a 156gn Soft Point Round Nose. This is the 139 grain SPBT @ 2,591fps.
Yep, I should have kept my old one, I think the cartridge punches above its weight, and as I said my old 6.5x57mm was super accurate with just about everything I shot in it back then. Cheers
8x68s
Well-Known Member
I have a good story...
My best friend of 50 years had me down for a visit and we took an afternoon to go visit his 92 year old father. It was Dad's birthday so we were bringing him a bottle of his favorite Scotch, Scapa. Dad asked what I'd been doing as I hadn't seen him in nearly 20 years. In part, I explained about my hunting and fishing after which he told us about his early days wanting to, but not hunting... family, kids, job... we all know the story. Says he has a rifle in the closet that he never got around to using! My buddy and I look at each other. He had no clue his Dad had the rifle. He goes to the designated closet and out comes a sporterized Steyr 1899 in 6.5x54R or 6.5mm Dutch Mannlicher. The barrel and other exterior metal work was hard used but not rusty and the slim, lightweight aftermarket stock was in great shape but had no markings. Evidently Dad had wanted to go hunting with his buddy's in the early 50's and bought himself a surplus rifle and aftermarket stock for a project to get himself up to speed with his friends. Alas, as mentioned, hunting never happened.
Dad thought that it was time to give the rifle away and offered it to me. I looked at my friend and asked if he didn't want it. It was a family heirloom, for goodness sake! I even offered to get it back to shooting shape for him. Nope, nope... he's not a hunter or even much into firearms and besides, it'd scare the bujeezus out of his missus. Well, ok, I guess I have a new rifle!
I took the rifle home and discovered the barrel was toast. Between being full of grease covering up massive pitting and rust, it was a loss. I sent the barreled action to PacNor here in Oregon to have it rebarreled in the same profile as the original and then Cerakoted. The one thing I changed, after a bunch of research into cartridge availability, was a chambering of 6.5x57R in hopes of having better luck with ammo. I found enbloc magazine clips for the original rifle cartridge hoping they would work for the new cartridge. Nada, dangit... I can't get them to work properly. The fix was to make a single shot sled out of Delrin that would snap into the mag slot so that I could use single feed.
I needed sights as there were none on the rifle originally so I bought a DNC brand, footed AR mount and figured out a conformation that could be machined and mounted to the front action ring. Bingo! The rifle now carries a lite weight, 1" Leupold 3-9x and weighs 9.0# and easily shoots an inch @ 100 yards.
What a lot of fun that rifle has been!
My best friend of 50 years had me down for a visit and we took an afternoon to go visit his 92 year old father. It was Dad's birthday so we were bringing him a bottle of his favorite Scotch, Scapa. Dad asked what I'd been doing as I hadn't seen him in nearly 20 years. In part, I explained about my hunting and fishing after which he told us about his early days wanting to, but not hunting... family, kids, job... we all know the story. Says he has a rifle in the closet that he never got around to using! My buddy and I look at each other. He had no clue his Dad had the rifle. He goes to the designated closet and out comes a sporterized Steyr 1899 in 6.5x54R or 6.5mm Dutch Mannlicher. The barrel and other exterior metal work was hard used but not rusty and the slim, lightweight aftermarket stock was in great shape but had no markings. Evidently Dad had wanted to go hunting with his buddy's in the early 50's and bought himself a surplus rifle and aftermarket stock for a project to get himself up to speed with his friends. Alas, as mentioned, hunting never happened.
Dad thought that it was time to give the rifle away and offered it to me. I looked at my friend and asked if he didn't want it. It was a family heirloom, for goodness sake! I even offered to get it back to shooting shape for him. Nope, nope... he's not a hunter or even much into firearms and besides, it'd scare the bujeezus out of his missus. Well, ok, I guess I have a new rifle!
I took the rifle home and discovered the barrel was toast. Between being full of grease covering up massive pitting and rust, it was a loss. I sent the barreled action to PacNor here in Oregon to have it rebarreled in the same profile as the original and then Cerakoted. The one thing I changed, after a bunch of research into cartridge availability, was a chambering of 6.5x57R in hopes of having better luck with ammo. I found enbloc magazine clips for the original rifle cartridge hoping they would work for the new cartridge. Nada, dangit... I can't get them to work properly. The fix was to make a single shot sled out of Delrin that would snap into the mag slot so that I could use single feed.
I needed sights as there were none on the rifle originally so I bought a DNC brand, footed AR mount and figured out a conformation that could be machined and mounted to the front action ring. Bingo! The rifle now carries a lite weight, 1" Leupold 3-9x and weighs 9.0# and easily shoots an inch @ 100 yards.
What a lot of fun that rifle has been!
Nice rifle and a great story... Cheers
sable tireur
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Great story, wonderful rifle and a fine Scotch Whisky to celebrate with!
I still have a Steyr somewhere around here. They were fun to work on when they were plentiful and less expensive...
Thanks for the story!
I still have a Steyr somewhere around here. They were fun to work on when they were plentiful and less expensive...
Thanks for the story!
8x68s
Well-Known Member
My local gunsmith was amazed at the Steyr's simplicity. I'm a little disappointed I can't get the clips to feed properly. It's such a slick idea! Only thing I can see is that the rim diameter or thickness may be too great for the stamp-formed clip. 
