Poll - M98 rebarrel - 7x57 Mauser or 7x64 Brenneke?

[dgfavor]

If bullet makers made bullets that really made me happy in .257, a 257 Roberts would 100% be in my future, LOL. Even 6.5 - which does have a fairly nice selection of bulelts, to be fair, but 7mm just has the better and broader selection of bullets that @NorthIdahoDude would be happy take hunting.

I shot the 133gr .257 Bergers in my Mauser 98 25-06 build (1:8 twist PacNor barrel) - killed paper and made noise on steel really well. Currently lobbing .257 Hammer HHTs 120gr - also killing paper and ringing steel well.
Fun gun and was a fun build.

 

[left hunter]

7x57 gets my vote but have it stamped .275 on the barrel and turn your nose up at your fellow hunters when they look confused as to what you are carrying

 

[NorthIdahoDude]

7x57 gets my vote but have it stamped .275 on the barrel and turn your nose up at your fellow hunters when they look confused as to what you are carrying

I'm pretty sure everyone has ever hunted with me is confused about me for more things than just what I'm carrying, hahahaha.

 

[NorthIdahoDude]

But yeah, of all the things I've actually tried, the 7x57 feeds like it was made for the gun, everything else feeds like it works good enough for govt work.

Now that I think about it, the case dimensions are close enough, I bet if I took some 06 brass, mashed it through the 7x57 die till it just touched the shoulder, and then seated some dummy bullets, I could get so close an approximation of 7x64 as to be able to test it 'for sure for sure'...

Well, that worked. Fed some 270 brass through the 7x57 die, just far enough to touch the shoulder. As far as I can tell with calipers, I am within .002 of the body diameter dimensions of a 7x64, just borderline oversize on the case head area. With 270 brass, the shoulder is obviously slightly farther back than a real x64, so I sacrificed one of my few pieces of 280 brass to do the same trick, and rotated that through each position in the magazine just to see.

Five of them fit comfortably in the magazine, and I would say they feed 100% as good, possibly better than the 7x57 does...

Damn... Part of me was hoping they wouldn't feed as great as 7x57, and that would help make a decision...