RE: 7X57
Ive shot about 30 or 40 deer with 7x57. And I slowly gravitated to the heavier bullets as I used that cartridge. I think the original engineers had the right idea about bullet weight in this round. Heavier is better. What I ended up using was the old 160 gr barnes original bullets in mine. It works good for deer and I suspect it would work good on 400 lb animals too. I had to quit using it when deer started getting so tough that a bullet wouldnt penetrate their hide at anything under 3300 fps. I think it would be a lot more popular if it wasnt for affordable chronographs. As most deer hunters know, a 160 grain bullet driven at 2500 fps would bounce off a deer these days. Any cartridge for deer that wont split your ear drums and render you sterile from the muzzle blast is probably not powerful enough. Mine never would shoot 1/4 inch groups either, so its a wonder I ever hit a deer with it at all. Anyway, it was a wonderful cartridge until I found out all that was wrong with it from reading gun magazines. Seriously, I was using a 7 mag about the same time I was shooting the 7x57 and I now own two 7x57 rifles and have culled all three of the 7 mags I had. Thats what I think of the 7x57.