Ned H. Roberts

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, 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 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. 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 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.

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