Major Ned H. Roberts (1866 Goffstown, N.H. -- 1948), was an American hunter, competition target shooter, gun writer & editor, ballistician and firearms experimenter. Roberts was a prolific contributor to sporting publications, including Outdoor Life, Outers, Arms and the Man (later renamed as American Rifleman, [1] and to Hunting and Fishing magazine, for which latter publication he served as Firearms Editor. His work on cartridge design in collaboration with Adolph Otto Niedner, Franklin Weston Mann, Townsend Whelen, and F.J. Sage led to a commercialized version of his own original .25-caliber wildcat cartridge introduced by Remington in 1934 and named the .257 Roberts.
Development of the .257 Roberts
Roberts announced in the March 1928 issue of American Rifleman [2] the creation of a new "ideal, or perfected" .25-caliber cartridge superior in ballistics and accuracy to any other cartridge yet produced in that caliber. Dr. F.W. Mann and Adolph Otto Niedner had previously developed wildcat cartridges in .25-caliber made by necking down the .30-40 Krag and the .30-06 Springfield cases. The two .30-caliber cases held too much powder, however, and could not be filled with any existing smokeless powder. Although good results had been obtained with the Krag cartridge case, a rimless cartridge compatible with the best (Springfield and Mauser) actions was desired.
He originally intended to base the new cartridge on the .30-06 case, as proposed by Townsend Whelen, but Whelen's friend and correspondent Harvey A. Donaldson pointed out, in a letter to Whelen that it would save work to modify the shorter 7x57 Mauser case. [3] Roberts was a perfectionist and there followed years of trial-and-error testing which involved the making up of literally dozens of barrels for his .25-caliber wildcat, with different chambers, groove dimensions and rifling twists. Colonel Whelen once told Ken Waters [4] that he doubted if any man ever spent so much time perfecting a cartridge as Ned Roberts did with his .25 Roberts, as he originally called it.
Colonel Townsend Whelen and Mr. L. C. Weldin, ballistic engineer of the Hercules Powder Company advised using a shoulder angle of 15° in order to hold down pressures with the rather fast-burning powders of the late 1920s. [5] This suggestion was adopted and the 7mm case necked down, formed to the new long-sloping shoulder, and trimmed approximately 1/16". The Neidner Rifle Corporation of Dowagiac, Michigan proceeded to offer barrels and complete rifles in the new caliber featuring A.O. Neidner's usual close chambering. The result was availability to an elite audience of especially keen and affluent shooters of the original wildcat .25 Roberts cartridge, designed to be capable of firing 1-inch ten shot groups at 100 yards from a rest with a telescopic sight.
Griffin & Howe, the great New York custom gun-making firm, soon followed suit, making custom rifles chambered in their own slightly-modified version of the wildcat cartridge. The .25 Griffin & Howe differed from the .25 Roberts only with respect to the New York company, skipping one step and opting for a slightly longer cartridge by leaving the 7x57 Mauser case untrimmed.
In 1934, Remington decided to make the new .25 Roberts cartridge available commercially. Remington eliminated case-trimming and modified the shoulder angle from the original 15° to 20° for greater ease in manufacturing. The resulting cartridge had a 1/16" longer case, and was given the slightly different designation of .257 Roberts. [6] The new Remington cartridge went on to become, for decades, one of the most popular North American hunting cartridges.
Schuetzen Rifle and Other Target Shooting
Roberts published extensively on match target, Schuetzen, and long-range hunting rifles of both the 19th century black powder era and the early 20th century smokeless powder era. After his death, a number of his articles and letters on these subjects were collected and published by Gerald O. Kelver [7] in 1951.
In firearm designs, the term single-shot refers to guns that can hold only a single round of ammunition inside and thus must be reloaded manually after every shot. Compared to multi-shot repeating firearms ("repeaters"), single-shot designs have no moving parts other than the trigger, hammer/firing pin or frizzen, and therefore do not need a sizable receiver behind the barrel to accommodate a moving action, making them far less complex and more robust than revolvers or magazine/belt-fed firearms, but also with much slower rates of fire.
The 7×57mm Mauser is a first-generation smokeless powder rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It was developed by Paul Mauser of the Mauser company in 1892 and adopted as a military cartridge by Spain in 1893. It was subsequently adopted by several other countries as the standard military cartridge, and although now obsolete as a military cartridge, it remains in widespread international use as a sporting round. The 7×57 Mauser was a popular stalking cartridge and sporting rifles in this chambering were made by the famous British riflemakers, such as John Rigby, Holland and Holland, Westley Richards and others. British cartridge nomenclature designated caliber in inches, and the cartridge was known as the .275 bore after the measurement of a 7 mm rifle's bore across the lands.
6.5 × 55mm Swedish, also known simply as 6.5×55mm, or in its native military as 6,5 mm patron m/94, meaning "6.5 mm cartridge model 1894", is a first-generation smokeless powder rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It was introduced in the 1890s, and is still one of the most common cartridges in modern rifles built for the Scandinavian market today. The cartridge was developed in a joint Norwegian and Swedish effort starting in 1891 for use in the new service rifles then under consideration by the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway. In 1893, the cartridge was standardized and adopted under the name 6.5×55mm to facilitate logistical cooperation between Norway and Sweden. The two nations had independent armies and consequently the normal procedure at the time was for their respective governments to use the same ammunition and then purchase small arms of their choice. Norway adopted the Krag–Jørgensen M/1894 rifle, while Sweden adopted the Mauser m/1896 rifle design that was based on a Mauser service rifle designed around the 7×57mm Mauser cartridge.
The .30-40 Krag was a cartridge developed in the early 1890s to provide the U.S. armed forces with a smokeless powder cartridge suited for use with modern small-bore repeating rifles to be selected in the 1892 small arm trials. Since the cartridge it was replacing was the .45-70 Government, the new cartridge was considered small-bore at the time. The rifle ultimately selected for use by the Army was the Krag–Jørgensen, formally adopted as the M1892 Springfield. The cartridge was also used in the M1893, M1895, M1897, and M1900 Gatling guns.
Considered by many as the most balanced of the "quarter bores" for hunting medium-sized game, the .25-06 Remington remained in obscurity as a wildcat cartridge for nearly half a century before being standardized by Remington in 1969.
The 7mm-08 Remington is a rifle cartridge that is almost a direct copy of a wildcat cartridge developed around 1958 known as the 7mm/308. As these names would suggest, it is the .308 Winchester case necked down to accept 7 mm (.284) bullets with a small increase in case length. Of cartridges based upon the .308, it is the second most popular behind only the .243 Winchester. However, the .308 is more popular than both. In 1980, the Remington Arms company popularized the cartridge by applying its own name and offering it as a chambering for their Model 788 and Model 700 rifles, along with a limited-run series within their Model 7600 pump-action rifles during the early 2000s.
The .416 Rigby is a rifle cartridge designed in 1911 by London based gunmaker John Rigby & Company, for hunting dangerous game. It is the first cartridge to use a bullet of .416 inch diameter. The rifles, as built by John Rigby & Co., were initially made up on the Magnum Mauser 98 action, although in later years, some were made on standard length actions, a perfect example being the rifle used by legendary professional hunter Harry Selby. Other famous users of the cartridge were Commander David Enderby Blunt, John Taylor, and Jack O'Connor.
The .30-30 Winchester cartridge was first marketed for the Winchester Model 1894 lever-action rifle in 1895. The .30-30, as it is most commonly known, along with the .25-35 Winchester were offered that year as the United States' first small-bore sporting rifle cartridges designed for smokeless powder. Since its introduction, it has been surpassed by many cartridges in the long-range shooting attributes of speed, energy, and trajectory, yet remains in widespread use because of its practical effectiveness in forested hunting situations.
The .30-03 Springfield (7.62×65mm) was a short-lived cartridge developed by the United States in 1903, to replace the .30-40 Krag in the new Springfield 1903 rifle. The .30-03 was also called the .30-45, since it used a 45 grain powder charge; the name was changed to .30-03 to indicate the year of adoption. It used a 220 grain roundnose bullet. It was replaced after only three years of service by the .30-06, firing a spitzer bullet giving better ballistic performance.
The Springfield Model 1892–99 Krag–Jørgensen rifle is a Norwegian-designed bolt-action rifle that was adopted in 1892 as the standard United States Army military longarm, chambered for U.S. caliber .30-40 Krag cartridges. All versions and variants were manufactured under license by the Springfield Armory between 1892 and 1903 and famously served as the longarm during the Spanish–American War.
The 6mm Remington rifle cartridge, originally introduced in 1955 by Remington Arms Company as the .244 Remington, is based on a necked down .257 Roberts cartridge using a .24/6mm bullet. Known for a combination of high velocity, long range, flat trajectory, and accuracy, it is suitable as a dual use hunting cartridge for both medium-sized big game and varmints. When used in the less common earlier slow twist barrels, it offers exceptional range for varmint applications. While not as commercially popular today as the .243 Winchester, the 6mm Remington enjoys a slight ballistic advantage and continues to be popular with handloaders and custom rifle builders.
The .35 Whelen is a powerful medium-bore rifle cartridge that does not require a magnum action or a magnum bolt-face. The parent of this cartridge is the .30-06 Springfield, which is necked-up to accept a bullet diameter of .358 in (9.1 mm). This cartridge is more powerful than its parent, especially in killing power on large game. However, with much wider availability, and the higher BC .30 caliber bullets of today, the power gap between the two cartridges has been decreased.
The .257 Roberts, also known as .257 Bob, is a medium-powered .25 caliber rifle cartridge. It has been described as the best compromise between the low recoil and flat trajectory of smaller calibers such as the 5 mm and 6 mm, and has more energy, but is harder recoiling, similar to larger hunting calibers, such as the 7 mm and 7.62 mm.
The .416 Remington Magnum is a .416 caliber (10.57 mm) cartridge of belted bottlenecked design. The cartridge was intended as a dangerous game hunting cartridge and released to the public in 1989. The cartridge uses the case of the 8 mm Remington Magnum as a parent cartridge. When the cartridge was released in 1988, author Frank C. Barnes considered the .416 Remington Magnum to be the "most outstanding factory cartridge introduced in decades".
The .25 Remington is an American rifle cartridge. A rimless, smokeless powder design, this cartridge was considered to be very accurate by period firearm experts and suitable for game up to deer and black bear. It was based on the .30 Remington cartridge.
The .32 Remington is an American rifle cartridge. A rimless, smokeless powder design, this cartridge was once considered to be suitable for game larger than deer and black bear. Similar contemporary cartridges include the rimmed .32 Winchester Special, a cartridge introduced by Winchester and offered as a chambering in Winchester's lever-action rifles.
The Winchester Model 1885 is a single-shot rifle with a falling-block action. It was principally designed by John Browning. Two models were produced, the Low Wall and the High Wall.
.30-06 Springfield wildcat cartridges are cartridges developed from a 30-06 Springfield "parent cartridge" through narrowing or widening the cartridge neck to fit a smaller or larger bullet in an attempt to improve performance in specific areas. Such wildcat cartridges are not standardized with recognized small arms standardization bodies like the SAAMI and the CIP.
The 6.5mm Remington Magnum is a .264 caliber (6.7 mm) belted bottlenecked cartridge introduced in 1966. The cartridge is based on a necked down .350 Remington Magnum which on turn is based on a shortened, necked down, blown out .375 H&H Magnum case. The cartridge was one of the first short magnum cartridges.
The 8×58mmR Danish Krag also known as the 8×58mmRD is a late 19th-century rimmed centerfire military rifle cartridge similar to other early smokeless powder designs. It was briefly adopted by Norway and Sweden and remained the standard Danish service rifle cartridge from 1889 until 1945.
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