7x57 Build

[harrygrey382]

I agree they are very nice indeed. Sadly, it would appear the majority of UK sporting rifle enthusiasts have little interest in the aesthetics of scope mounting.

The following extended S&K bases, comprising epoxy loaded with aluminium filings, will be machined to a level that provides perfect scope height to permit air-rifle pellet magazine use:
View attachment 426651
K

That is cool to see! Yes it does seem a lot of people are happy to put tacticool hardware on their nice sporting rifles

 

[Trilby]

you need some humidity for the rust process, and the steel may need an "acid wipe" I have found that to work in the past.

 

[HonestJohn]

Are you brushing off/carding off after each boiling cycle with a degreased carding wheel? Water, are you letting it drip dry after boiling cycles or wiping off water with clean kitchen roll? Once you remove from the boiling tank, the water needs to evaporate very quickly or be wiped off, any lingering water will stain the metal work and create blotches.

Also, after the last boiling session, you should boil in water with soda crystals to stop the rusting process, just like you do before you start rust blacking it - or it can continue by itself, esp in the bore.

But yes, after applying a coat of rust blacking solution, leave 40 mins, then apply another coat - only for the 1st cycle, after that only one very thin coat at a time applied with a squeezed out lightly damp cotton make up pad. Long even applications. If you miss a bit, don’t go over it, hit that spot in the next cycle.

After applying bluing solution, let it hang over the boiling tank to ‘rust’, about 1ft above. This will be enough humidity. You can do the whole process in 1-2 days. Then submerge in used engine oil that’s not contaminated. Let drip off, then wipe off, then flash off. Apply good gun oil daily for a week

 

[harrygrey382]

Are you brushing off/carding off after each boiling cycle with a degreased carding wheel? Water, are you letting it drip dry after boiling cycles or wiping off water with clean kitchen roll? Once you remove from the boiling tank, the water needs to evaporate very quickly or be wiped off, any lingering water will stain the metal work and create blotches.

Also, after the last boiling session, you should boil in water with soda crystals to stop the rusting process, just like you do before you start rust blacking it - or it can continue by itself, esp in the bore.

But yes, after applying a coat of rust blacking solution, leave 40 mins, then apply another coat - only for the 1st cycle, after that only one very thin coat at a time applied with a squeezed out lightly damp cotton make up pad. Long even applications. If you miss a bit, don’t go over it, hit that spot in the next cycle.

After applying bluing solution, let it hang over the boiling tank to ‘rust’, about 1ft above. This will be enough humidity. You can do the whole process in 1-2 days. Then submerge in used engine oil that’s not contaminated. Let drip off, then wipe off, then flash off. Apply good gun oil daily for a week

Thanks for your run down. I don’t use a carding wheel, I use degreased 0000 steel wool. When I pull it out of the boiling tank the outer surface is fully dry by the time I’ve reached the door (5 meters). I don’t have a problem with after rust - but I do a final boil with straight water.

My rust cycles used to be 12 hours at ambient above a yogurt pot of water in a cabinet. When I boiled it it would give a nice even black layer that would card off leaving an even finish - this is how I achieved this previous result, along with a 22 before that.

However, now sometimes even after 2 hours of rusting I get an almost invisible layer of rust that when carded has not turned black - still orange. This is with fresh steam distilled water. In fact, during the last run I switched to rain water - which surprising was giving more reliable black conversion than distilled! It was actually switching back to distilled that gave the last non conversion boil. I’ve found by bitter experience once you have a non conversion boil no matter what I try subsequent cycles will not turn black.

I’m convinced the current uneven colour is lack of significant rust cycles - I was really cutting back on the rust layer due to a paranoia of over rusting leading to non conversion. In short - I think all my issues stem from a red-black conversion problem. triggertrix - Have you come across this? I’ve spoken to a couple of experienced gun builders who can only vaguely offer it’s heavy coats of rust that don’t convert, but that doesn’t seem to bare out

 

[HonestJohn]

Thanks for your run down. I don’t use a carding wheel, I use degreased 0000 steel wool. When I pull it out of the boiling tank the outer surface is fully dry by the time I’ve reached the door (5 meters). I don’t have a problem with after rust - but I do a final boil with straight water.

My rust cycles used to be 12 hours at ambient above a yogurt pot of water in a cabinet. When I boiled it it would give a nice even black layer that would card off leaving an even finish - this is how I achieved this previous result, along with a 22 before that.

However, now sometimes even after 2 hours of rusting I get an almost invisible layer of rust that when carded has not turned black - still orange. This is with fresh steam distilled water. In fact, during the last run I switched to rain water - which surprising was giving more reliable black conversion than distilled! It was actually switching back to distilled that gave the last non conversion boil. I’ve found by bitter experience once you have a non conversion boil no matter what I try subsequent cycles will not turn black.

I’m convinced the current uneven colour is lack of significant rust cycles - I was really cutting back on the rust layer due to a paranoia of over rusting leading to non conversion. In short - I think all my issues stem from a red-black conversion problem. triggertrix - Have you come across this? I’ve spoken to a couple of experienced gun builders who can only vaguely offer it’s heavy coats of rust that don’t convert, but that doesn’t seem to bare out

Hi

I have indeed experienced this, and in my view it’s actually down to the steel being too hard, which is why old shotgun barrels blacked so well, but a tikka rifle, no bueno! I’ve also found hammer forged blacks better than cut rifled, due to the steel mainly , not the rifling process of course.

Mausers with soft hardening black well, but take a Mauser like an interwar that was in rush job manufacturing, and it’s hit and miss.

I also recommend blacking the receiver and barrel separately; whilst you don’t think it’s happening, often water from the boiling cycle can sit inside the tenon threads and slowly start to leak out through the most minuscule gaps and into the barrel or into the receiver

You might be able to spot areas on receivers that have been blasted with a blow torch in the past too, because the hardness will not match, or a claw mount dovetail on the front bridge that has been cut with too much stress induced and created surface hardness stress around it. All this can lead to blacking inconsistencies, - Mausers are of course, just a think layer of hardened steel on top of relatively soft steel

It’s frustrating, I know!

 

[Scipio]

This thread is awesome, following the build process and seeing so much constructive posting to try and troubleshoot set backs! keep up the work @harrygrey382, you'll get there soon!

 

[harrygrey382]

Hi

I have indeed experienced this, and in my view it’s actually down to the steel being too hard, which is why old shotgun barrels blacked so well, but a tikka rifle, no bueno! I’ve also found hammer forged blacks better than cut rifled, due to the steel mainly , not the rifling process of course.

Mausers with soft hardening black well, but take a Mauser like an interwar that was in rush job manufacturing, and it’s hit and miss.

I also recommend blacking the receiver and barrel separately; whilst you don’t think it’s happening, often water from the boiling cycle can sit inside the tenon threads and slowly start to leak out through the most minuscule gaps and into the barrel or into the receiver

You might be able to spot areas on receivers that have been blasted with a blow torch in the past too, because the hardness will not match, or a claw mount dovetail on the front bridge that has been cut with too much stress induced and created surface hardness stress around it. All this can lead to blacking inconsistencies, - Mausers are of course, just a think layer of hardened steel on top of relatively soft steel

It’s frustrating, I know!

Thanks for your input, you definitely are more experienced in this. There is a difference in the number of cycles to get to a good colour with the steels, but in this case it can’t be the problem as I managed to get a good even same colour on the previous rifle, and the barrel was the same steel from the same manufacturer.

It’s the converting that is the problem, why does the rust sometimes not convert? Out of interest I’m running a test piece of steel now. Have a temp/humidity controlled box this time. The first 3 hour light layer of rust has not converted! This is in a very clean pan. This seems to be pointing to the rust solution. I did in fact mix a new batch of 2% w/w sal ammoniac, which did actually coincide with the first non-conversion event. But it was the same batch of powder with the same water, into the same bottle. Maybe it somehow has got contaminated? I still don’t see why any light layer of rust shouldn’t convert?

 

[HonestJohn]

Steel is properly degreased, then cleaned with distilled water before applying solution? Are you applying to cold steel or warm steel? I always found that you get better conversion when the steel is warm, don’t let the metal go cold. In the first cycle, heat with a hair dryer, in subsequent cycles, take out of boiling tank, let water evaporate, card off with very fine wire wool that’s been degreased and cleaned with distilled water, then apply new solution whilst steel is still warm. After the first cycle, card off very lightly, don’t card it hard until your in cycle 2 or 3. Use new degreased, clean and dry 0000 wire wool for each carding. Use quality wire wool, they’re not all equal, the stuff for French furniture polishes is best.

Leave the first layer to convert for longer than the next ones.

Make sure your solution bottles are not contaminated as well of course, I recommend making a batch, and then decanting just enough for one gun into another small bottle for each project.

If the steel is very new and polished high, apply and etch solution to strike it before blacking. Don’t polish your steel parts more than 600 grit, a high polished steel will be very hard to get to react, even a 400 grit will sometimes be preferable, but 600 is best. Never polish to 1000, 1200 or 2000 grit.

And goes without saying, use degreased rubber gloves, ideally without a pattern as the pattern can make an imprint that’s a bugger to get rid of

 

[Olaf]

hello Olaf, and good spot!
O-oh, i think we risk opening up a can of worms here, as the subject of to which pressures one can safely load one many of the classic old european cartridges if it is done for strong modern rifles and actions and with good brass etc has been discussed vigorously on here before. And i dont recall any consensus being reached.
I actually myself tried to create a single thread to collect the ideas and opinions on the matter here: Pressure limits in older european calibers, - do they make sense with modern actions and brass?? But even then i dont think a final conclusion that most could agree upon was reached.
And bringing it all back home to this very thread, didnt @harrygrey382 state that he might load his 7x57 all the way up to early to mid 60 ks ? (Edit: see post #31).

But back to Jack, - Jack was a reloader, and i think a good few of his loads have been known to be "on the hot side", and not just for the 7x57 but for his 30-06s and 270s as well. This doesnt mean that they were unsafe, in his actions or rifles of course.
As mentioned i am not sure many, Jack included, has much access to pressure testing when building up loads back then, so i could imagine that Jack took an outset in what data he could get access too, and then used his experience from there, probably looking for the same typical signs of (over)pressure that many of us still do to this day, when reloading. But that is just a theory of course.
Another element that could help explain the 53 grns quoted, (other than a typo of course), could be that the specific powders and projectiles used back then are slightly different today. Changes can after all happen to a project over 50-80 years, even if the name doesnt change much.

But yes, Jack OConor might also simply have been loading his 7x57 more aggressively than what many manuals suggest today. Another gun writer, Johns Barness is also a big fan of the little 7, and writes about what he believes could be terms as safe modern loads for the 7x57. But tbh Normas quoted 7x57 loads of today seem to be pretty fast, and i assume that iswhen sticking to the cip limits of 50.565 psi max pressure.
So a valid question might also be if there is much need to push the 7x57 loads much beyond that sort of pressure to chase another 50-75 fps and a bit more energy, if the precision, power and speeds are good at 56.5ks of pressure, and the rifle still feels nice and smooth to shoot ? Maybe if one is occassionally open plains or mounting hunting and could need to stretch it a bit at times?

But each to their own, i just hope that whatever path is chosen, all follows good and safe practice.

Well, I sat out for some wild boar this Friday evening until about 23.00 and the 7x57 schultz and larsen had its first use in the hunting field.
1 Überläufer Bache came out with her 3 Frischlinge so 4 shots, 4 wild boar harvested . All fell to the shot and died instantly. The first shot was at about 80 m with my 40 odd year old Zeiss Diavari scope set to 10x magnification. The other 3 I shot on the run with my scope on 2.5 x magnification . A very nice rifle and chambering combination. The 140 gr ttsx doing about 2600 -2700 fps ( I haven’t got a Chronograph) did a super job , good expansion and instant knock down, and with such a soft shooting 7x57 rifle new target acquisition was fast and easy. All in all I’m really happy with my new 7x57 Barrel in the Schultz and Larsen M97 DL. It shoots really nicely.

I’m looking forwards to getting the vets Trich test back and starting to enjoy some wonderful butchery , charcuterie , and cooking next weekend. I will celebrate my first successful 7x57 Mauser wild game food hunts by cooking one of my favourite meals next Saturday evening once I’ve finished the butchery work.
I love it all, from carefully selecting the right rifle and cartridge to planning my hunt , to butchery charcuterie and cooking. More importantly, I enjoy being able to share it with my friends and family by making them a tasty and healthy meal.
Kindest regards, Olaf

 

[HonestJohn]

Well, I sat out for some wild boar this Friday evening until about 23.00 and the 7x57 schultz and larsen had its first use in the hunting field. View attachment 427494
1 Überläufer Bache came out with her 3 Frischlinge so 4 shots, 4 wild boar harvested . All fell to the shot and died instantly. The first shot was at about 80 m with my 40 odd year old Zeiss Diavari scope set to 10x magnification. The other 3 I shot on the run with my scope on 2.5 x magnification . A very nice rifle and chambering combination. The 140 gr ttsx doing about 2600 -2700 fps ( I haven’t got a Chronograph) did a super job , good expansion and instant knock down, and with such a soft shooting 7x57 rifle new target acquisition was fast and easy. All in all I’m really happy with my new 7x57 Barrel in the Schultz and Larsen M97 DL. It shoots really nicely.
View attachment 427495
I’m looking forwards to getting the vets Trich test back and starting to enjoy some wonderful butchery , charcuterie , and cooking next weekend. I will celebrate my first successful 7x57 Mauser wild game food hunts by cooking one of my favourite meals next Saturday evening once I’ve finished the butchery work.
I love it all, from carefully selecting the right rifle and cartridge to planning my hunt , to butchery charcuterie and cooking. More importantly, I enjoy being able to share it with my friends and family by making them a tasty and healthy meal.
Kindest regards, Olaf

The way hunting should be. Well done

 

[Scipio]

The way hunting should be. Well done

I fully agree! And great feed back and hunting report from @Olaf . Weidmannsheill! Hopefully you will soon hopefully get a negative Trich test back for all 4!
Also very good to hear that 140 ttsx at 2600-700 or so, doesnt pencil through even the small ones, where resistance might be less, or did you hit the shoulder plate/bone on all of them?

PS. there is a cooking game thread called food porn or such in the forum, should you feel inclined to share your game/boar recipes at some point I a getting hungry just thinking about it tbh

Let's hope that Harry get's that barrel fully rust protected soon, so he too can soon report on a 7x57 hunt! And i too need to accellerate my preparations as well, with the reloading!

 

[Olaf]

I fully agree! And great feed back and hunting report from @Olaf . Weidmannsheill! Hopefully you will soon hopefully get a negative Trich test back for all 4!
Also very good to hear that 140 ttsx at 2600-700 or so, doesnt pencil through even the small ones, where resistance might be less, or did you hit the shoulder plate/bone on all of them?

PS. there is a cooking game thread called food porn or such in the forum, should you feel inclined to share your game/boar recipes at some point I a getting hungry just thinking about it tbh

Let's hope that Harry get's that barrel fully rust protected soon, so he too can soon report on a 7x57 hunt! And i too need to accellerate my preparations as well, with the reloading!

Waidmannsdank Scipio, yup, all four wild boar were clear and free of any Trichinella ; as confirmed by the standard vetinary laboratory tests that all good vetinary practices offer here in Germany.
I skinned and prepared all the meat this afternoon and it’s all vacuum packed and labelled and ready for consumption now. Most of it will get sold, but I kept a Frischling for myself plus some of the joint trimmings for mince , to top up my freezer. Hopefully there will be plenty more of them before the autumn brings forth the serious hunting season.
I sat out again last night, but it was a very very still and warm night and was , in my opinion just that bit too wind still. But it was a nice full moon lit night so it was a pleasure to be out.
I tried out some 120 gr barnes ttsx at the range last Saturday, they should be doing a touch over 2900fps , I had a four shot group of about 20mm with a couple making it Into the same hole. I just wanted to see how ell they grouped from a freshly cleaned cold barrel straight out out of the gun safe as I’d loaded them up a while back. I will Report on their terminal performance as soon as I’ve shot a couple of wild boar. The 140 gr Barnes ttsx Performance was exemplary, I was really happy with them, all four wild boar went straight down to the shot, all were hit just behind the shoulder with two of them ( both Frischlings) receiving a slightly damaged offside shoulder , but nothing drastic. The permanent wound Chanel was very similar to the that which I’ve seen on several hundred fallow deer that I’ve shot with 150 gr Nosler bts using my.30-06 barrel on the Schultz and Larsen. Ie , very good controlled expansion and penetration. Deadly. On the four wild boar shot with the 7x57 barrel using the 140 gr ttsx there was no blood trail, but that’s because none of them moved a single meter from where they were shot, all were dead on the spot. On a broadside shot though, I like to try to tuck the bullet in behind the shoulder and just below the spine as that always seems to anchor them pretty much to the spot every time.
Anyway, I was really impressed with the performance of the 7x57 using that load and it’s such a lovely cartridge to shoot In that rifle.
Of the four wild boar, meat loss was as good as none, I only threw half a shoulder ( exit side and shank end) away as it had quite a bit of bone fragmentation and I couldn’t be bothered dealing with it as it wasn’t worth the effort.
Everything else was super clean and no mess.
It’s very early days in my learning the 7x57 as a hunting cartridge, but It’s a good and positive start and as I said, it’s a really lovely cartridge to shoot in that rifle.
Kindest regards, Olaf

 

[harrygrey382]

Well it’s been a while, but I’ve been slowly working out the rust bluing. Finally cracked it - it wasn’t my process, the finish or the water but the bloody Sal ammoniac! Turns out the powder goes off in a sealed bag stored in a cool dark place… Ended up using a zinc chloride/HCL acid formula I found. I have to say it is a fantastic solution, quick, even and converts fast and completely to a thick dark finish. Blasts through chrome moly, hardened and mild all alike. The finish is a lusciously smooth even black - very pleased! Unlike the lens cover on my phone case…

The final stage has now started. Even managed to find a supplier of Dem-Bart cutters out of the UK.



And on a separate note, I went to load up some more ammo for my Type B. I’m still going through my once fired collection of RWS cases I got from this forum. It’s chamber is cut with the same reamer, and set to exactly the same headspace so is good to fire form brass. I’ve been really struggling to resize some (not all) of these cases with my Redding body die. They seem to be sized down but won’t chamber, even with the shell holder hard against the die. Ended up making a cartridge comparator and found they are bumped back more than enough. I’ve narrowed it down to the new Redding die not sizing the head enough, and a bit of googling picks up quite a few instances of similar issues - (including with a Redding body die) - hence the existence of small base dies. The plain Jane Lyman FLS sizes them plenty, but the RWS necks are a bastard and much nicer using a body die then neck sizing. I have a 257R FLS die I picked up at a show for cheap I’m going to bore down to a body only (no shoulder) sizer to squeeze them down. Hopefully it’ll only ever need doing once and was caused be a previous sloppy mil-surp or something

 

[Scipio]

how is the build going @harrygrey382 , is she going to come out hunting with you this season ?

 

[harrygrey382]

how is the build going @harrygrey382 , is she going to come out hunting with you this season ?

I’m in the final stages of checkering now so I’d say so! Just got to do the final pass in one direction then clean it up. Looks like it’s turning out good.

Have been doing a bit more load developing - looks like the reduced don’t have the accuracy of full house. 1.6” at 100y, but it’s still usable at reduced ranges so if I can’t get it better I’ll stick with it. That’s with ADI 2209 (H4350), interestingly 2206H (H4895) was significantly worse with velocity all over the place

 

[Scipio]

Nice!!! I am looking fwd to seeing the first pics of it finally being in the field, - that will provide an awesome alfa to omega path to this thread

How do you checker wood like that?

As for the reloading/accuracy, i will start reloading for mine in the coming weeks, and before i do that i'll start a 7x57 dedicated reloading thread. Maybe we can figure out the key to better accuracy for your loads there. With "reduced loads" what sort of velocities are we talking vs the projectile mass ? Could it perhaps be case fill related?

 

[harrygrey382]

Thanks, well pics-in-anger will follow in due course…

How do you checker wood like that?

Just patience and a steady hand I guess. I’m a long long from being a master but I’m satisfied with my results. I have to admit I have completely copied the original Oberndorf Type B cheating pattern, so once that’s laid out including master lines it’s just a case of laying all the lines out with a spacing tool then making them deeper!

Which I finished last night, so here it is. Stoked with how it’s turned out - love the scope, mounts and the way the satin rust blue brings it together with the pure tung oil finish. Now I’ve got a fair bit of organising to do for our 4 day backpack hunt with it at the beginning of next month.

 

[harrygrey382]

As for the reloading/accuracy, i will start reloading for mine in the coming weeks, and before i do that i'll start a 7x57 dedicated reloading thread. Maybe we can figure out the key to better accuracy for your loads there. With "reduced loads" what sort of velocities are we talking vs the projectile mass ? Could it perhaps be case fill related?

Good idea, I’d like to see other people’s take on it - providing it doesn’t get trolled by people wanting to keep it at 19th pressure limits in modern rifles…

I’ve already seen what accuracy it’s capable of with full loads, and seeing the ES I’m getting with velocities I’m sure it’s classic fill issues. IE 38.5gr 2209 (H4350), which is at the minimum of book loads, giving 2240 fps. Nice recoil for my son especially with the heavy barrel. But I’m not convinced I’m getting consistent neck tension (despite Lee collet die and annealing previous firing) either which could be clouding the issue.

I’m interested to see what it’ll print with 47+ grains with this scope and now I’ve lightened the trigger a bit more. My Magnetospeed sporter is playing up so don’t think I can do much testing this weekend but have a V3 display coming next week

 

[Scipio]

Sounds good @harrygrey382 ,-and i'm sure you'll be able to get to bottom of it!-
And what a great idea of your son learning steadily on the x57, with the potential of him growing into the adult loads as he matures himself. How special would it be for him to litteraly grow up as a hunter, using a rifle his father built, and which can serve him his own entire hunting career as well, before he maybe one day choses to start of his own son, or a nephew or the son of friend learning on that very same rifle again. That would be a quite beautiful cycle, actually.

PS. I've just started the 7x57 dedicated reloading thread in the reload section of the forum, so should you want to pop in there, i am sure there will be ample advice and trouble shooting input for your loading, should you fancy some

 

[Scipio]

Thanks, well pics-in-anger will follow in due course…


Just patience and a steady hand I guess. I’m a long long from being a master but I’m satisfied with my results. I have to admit I have completely copied the original Oberndorf Type B cheating pattern, so once that’s laid out including master lines it’s just a case of laying all the lines out with a spacing tool then making them deeper!

Which I finished last night, so here it is. Stoked with how it’s turned out - love the scope, mounts and the way the satin rust blue brings it together with the pure tung oil finish. Now I’ve got a fair bit of organising to do for our 4 day backpack hunt with it at the beginning of next month.

it looks beautiful! sleek, simple (in a good way) and elegant, and personally i really like schabel forends look wise. Congratulations! How much does it weigh?