257 Weatherby Bullets

257 Weatherby bullets ready for a spot at your reloading bench!

Introduced by Roy Weatherby in 1944 as one of the first standard length magnum cartridges, the 257 Weatherby Magnum remains popular to this day for its positively laser-like trajectory. When equipped with a 115 grain bullet and loaded to a 3,400 fps muzzle velocity, the 257 Weatherby closely emulates the ballistic and terminal performance of the ubiquitous 30-06.

This is a hunting round in full, never embraced by the long distance shooting or tactical crowds. That means you will have an easier time finding specialized hunting bullets such as Nosler’s Partition and generic soft points than you might HPBT or V-MAX. The relatively lightweight and narrow .257 bullet doesn’t have an especially impressive sectional density, and is thus best suited for medium game with more accessible vital organs.

Whitetail, pronghorn, goats and mountain sheep, and African deer species weighing less than 450 pounds are the most common targets for the 257 Weatherby shooter. (This is not to suggest that a 257 Weatherby can’t definitively kill a varmint or predator, but the sheer cost per round is prohibitive when a smaller cartridge would serve just as well.)

Note that the 257 Weatherby may deliver a relatively high muzzle velocity, but its .257 bullet’s inherently low ballistic coefficient means it tends to lose more energy than other magnum loads at farther distances downrange.

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