The Background
Some cartridges live far beyond what people would expect. Sometimes this is because the cartridge is paired with a weapon on one of those ideal matchups, like the .30 WCF (.30-30) and the Model 1894 Winchester, which is so associated with that cartridge in that near-perfect pairing that “’94 Winchester” is almost synonymous with “.30-30.” The same could apply to the Colt Single Action Army and the .45 Colt, or the famous Colt-Browning 1911 pistol and the .45 ACP.
Some cartridges attain near-immortality because they do what they do so well. That may well be why the grand old .45-70 government is still in wide use today after having been adopted by the United States Army in 1873; if you need a short-range walloper for possibly dangerous game, something like my own Marlin 1895G in .45-70, which I call the Bullwhacker (yes, I name my favorite guns), will sure get the job done.
And some make the grade because of long, satisfactory history, an uncanny ability to punch far above its weight class, and because it will handle a wide range of game and is suitable for a wide range of rifles.
Which brings me to the 7x57mm rifle cartridge, generally known as the 7mm Mauser.
The Mauser Brothers
This story takes us back to a lovely little town on the Neckar River in Bavaria, called Oberndorf. I’ve visited the town myself and saw the original Mauser-Werke plant, which was sadly closed for the Christmas holiday, so I didn’t get a tour. But that was the original building, with the Mauser name still on it, back in 1996, when I was there; a lot of historical rifles, handguns, and cartridges came out of the building, originally out of the minds of two brothers, Paul and Wilhelm Mauser. Wilhelm, however, suffered from poor health, dying in 1882, leaving Paul Mauser with the family business.
Mauser’s inventions and innovations could fill a book, but we’re focused on just the one here. Mauser designed and introduced the 7x57mm as a first-generation smokeless powder round, to supplement the 7.92x57mm already in use. The new round hit the market in 1892, after which Paul Mauser personally took a new design, the Model 1892, to see the King of Spain, who ordered a bunch of the 1892 and the newer Model 1893 rifles. The Spanish Army liked the gun and cartridge, and awarded Paul Mauser the Grand Cross of the Spanish Military Order of Merit.
The round went on to see a variety of military and civilian applications. There was even a rimmed version, the 7x57R, for single-barreled rifles, double rifles, and drillings.
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Mauser’s Cartridges
The round itself, by today’s standards, isn’t anything spectacular. The original load launched a 173-grain 7mm bullet at 2,297 feet per second; a high-velocity round in the early days of smokeless powder, but something of a plodder today. Chamber pressures run around 51,000 psi. But, as said, with modern projectiles, this is a heck of a great mid-range cartridge that will handle anything from pronghorn antelope to elk, with the right bullet and the right load, not to mention the right shot placement. And it’s easy to shoot; a hit in the boiler room from a 7x57mm will kill a deer a lot more quickly than a hole in the air from a .400 Eargesplitten Loudenboomer. The 7x57mm is still chambered in a few new-manufacture rifles, two of them made in Europe, where the round remains popular: Those would be the Mauser M18 and the Zastava M70, which is essentially a large-ring 98 Mauser bolt gun.
Ruger also chambers the #1 drop-block single-shot in the 7x57mm, and it remains popular for custom rifle builds. In the past, it was chambered in American greats like the Ruger Model 77, the Winchester Model 70, and the Remington Model 700, but sadly, not anymore.The 7x57mm also gave rise to three other cartridges: The 6.5x57mm Mauser, developed by Paul Mauser, and the American .257 Roberts, as well as the 6mm Remington. As for wildcats, there are a number of those based on the 7x57mm.
The American Influence
The 7x57mm and the 1893 Spanish Mausers taught one nation one vital lesson. That nation was the United States, the event was the Spanish-American War, and the lesson lies in the demonstrated superiority of the high-velocity, flat-shooting Spanish Mausers over the then-standard M1898 Krag rifle and its.30 US Army (.30-40 Krag) cartridge. Worse, some of the American troops were still armed with 1873 Springfield “Trap Door” rifles chambered for the .45-70, and the puff of smoke the black-powder rounds made when fired made for great aiming points for the Spanish troops. Finally, the Spanish Mausers loaded with stripper clips, making for a faster reload than the Krag’s one-at-a-time method, making for a higher sustained rate of fire.
So, one could say that it was this conflict that led to the advent of the American 1903 Springfield rifle, and another near-immortal cartridge: The .30-06.
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What About Now?
I’ve only owned one 7x57mm rifle myself, but it was a great one. That story goes back to a huge Crossroads of the West gun show, back when Denver was still a friendly environment for gun shows. I happened to cast my optics on something unusual: a modified 1891 Argentine Mauser, with a Redfield peep sight mounted, and the usual protruding Mannlicher-style magazine of the early Mausers. I was about to pass it by, not wanting to get into the unusual 7.65x53mm round those guns were chambered for, but then, on a whim, I picked it up. That was when I noticed the stamp on the old, stepped military barrel: “7x57.”
I asked the seller what was up. He told me the barrel was off a 1893 Mauser, rethreaded for the ’91. It seems he hadn’t wanted to mess with the oddball Argentine round, either, and now he didn’t want the rifle anymore. But it was light, and felt handy, and it had already been modified, and my mind was already setting it into sporter trim. After some half-hearted haggling, and after I waved a $100 bill at the seller, he let me have the rifle.
The ’91 made the basis for a neat little European stalking rifle. I reblued it, replaced the bulky factory bolt handle with a butterknife handle, jeweled the bolt, and put it in a slim blonde walnut stock with a Schnabel. It ended up weighing a tad over seven pounds, with a leather sling. I loaded mild loads for it, and it would shoot into a 3-inch circle at 100 yards, with the Redfield aperture on the receiver and a new, slim, ramp front sight.
I killed a few deer and one javelina with it, then ended up trading it away in one of those Complicated Gun Deals™ that we all get drawn into at one time or another. And many days, I wish I hadn’t. It was a great pairing of rifle and cartridge – and that’s something that the grand old 7x57mm round still does well, to this day, 134 years after its design.
