The .257 Roberts hasn’t completely disappeared, but it’s not thriving either. As of this writing, factory ammunition is available from a handful of manufacturers — Hornady, Nosler, Remington, and Winchester have produced runs in recent years, though it’s not always sitting on the shelf at your local sporting goods store. You may need to order online or, better yet, load your own. Brass is available from Nosler, Hornady, and occasionally from Remington and Winchester.
Rifle availability is more limited. Ruger has chambered the No. 1 and the M77 Hawkeye in .257 Roberts on occasion. The cartridge shows up in semi-custom offerings from companies like Cooper and Kimber from time to time. But you won’t find rows of .257 Roberts rifles at a big box store. Most shooters who fall in love with the Bob end up having a rifle built on a custom or semi-custom action, which honestly suits the cartridge’s personality just fine.
Image courtesy of Sturm, Ruger & Co., Inc.Image courtesy of Sturm, Ruger & Co., Inc.
Who Is the .257 Roberts For?
In my opinion, the .257 Roberts is ideal for a few specific types of shooters. First, anyone who is recoil-sensitive but wants genuine medium-game capability — the Roberts delivers deer-killing performance at recoil levels closer to a .243 than a .270. Second, handloaders who appreciate case efficiency and barrel life. Third, anyone who hunts in open country where 250-300 yard shots are common but 500-yard bombing runs are not the goal. And honestly? Anyone who just appreciates an elegant cartridge that does its job without fanfare. You may also be interested in our coverage of The .32 Rimfire Cartridge: History and Variations.
The .257 Roberts may never reclaim a top-ten spot on the best-seller charts. The market has moved on, and there’s no going back. But cartridges don’t become obsolete just because newer ones exist. The Bob still does exactly what Ned Roberts intended it to do — put .25-caliber bullets on target with precision, efficiency, and minimal fuss. If that sounds appealing, grab a reloading manual and start down the quarter-bore rabbit hole. You won’t regret it.
This is Congressman Andrew J. May. He was a card-carrying loser.
This is hands-down the most eventful election cycle of my lifetime. As I sit typing these words, one candidate was shot, and the other left the race because of senility … all in the course of eight days. I like to think of myself as a fairly creative guy, and even I could not make this stuff up.
One might be forgiven for believing the situation hopeless. Regardless of what side of the political fence upon which you might reside, everyone would likely acknowledge that our current crop of politicians comes with a spot of baggage. It’s enough to render a brother demoralized and wistful for the good old days.
Not so fast. While I do long for the purity and patriotism of wartime 1940s America, it seems that electing flaming idiots is a timeless problem. Back in 1943, one particularly ambitious moron killed a whole pile of U.S. submariners.
Everybody hates politicians. Andrew May was the reason.
The Guy
Andrew J. May was born in 1875 in Kentucky. A natural politician, May served as county attorney for Floyd County, Ky. from 1901 through 1909. Using that experience as a springboard, he landed a judgeship and, eventually, a seat in the U.S. Congress.
Congressman May hooked his wagon to Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was an ardent proponent of the New Deal. May was instrumental in passing the Social Security Act as well as the GI Bill of Rights. He was the primary author of the Peacetime Selective Service Act, which laid the foundation for the sweeping draft that was required to feed the massive American war machine during the early part of WWII. Up until this part in our tale, the Honorable Andrew J. May did indeed seem like an effective servant of the people.
I’ve known a handful of federal lawmakers, a couple of whom I saw in action up close. You cannot do that job for long and stay normal. They’re all disconnected from reality. Eventually, you start believing your own press releases. It is a hop, skip and jump from there over to pure, unfettered narcissism. Andrew May leapt in with both feet.
Never Trust a Politician with Anything Important
In 1943, Congressman May was head of the Military Affairs Committee. In this capacity, he toured American military installations across the Pacific Theater. Along the way, he was privy to a great deal of very sensitive information.
With the entire world at war, details regarding weapons’ capabilities were closely guarded secrets. Then, as now, public servants tended to flaunt both their positions and their access. In this case, the results were fairly catastrophic.
By 1943, the fortunes of American submarines in the Pacific were going swimmingly. Loss rates were low, and attacks on Japanese shipping were taking a vicious toll. One of the reasons for this success was that American subs could dive really, really deep. Back then, our boats could operate at least 400 feet below the surface, markedly deeper than their Japanese counterparts.
The Japanese could not imagine that Yankee submarines would be so much more capable than their own. As a result, when Japanese destroyers attacked U.S. submarines, they would set their depth charges to detonate fairly shallow. American skippers knew if they could just get deep enough, they would be relatively immune to Japanese attack. Then, Congressman May got home from his trip and scheduled a press conference.Congressman May undertook a fact-finding tour of military
installations in the Pacific during the height of WWII. He then
came home and blabbed all the classified details to the press
Stupidity Has a Face
During the course of his press event wherein he outlined all that he was doing to support the war effort, Congressman May casually mentioned that the reason American subs were doing so well was that they were running underneath Japanese depth charges. The meat of his conference made the wire services and spread across the country. Japanese spies took note and sent this information to their handlers back home. It was a simple thing to reset their depth charges to go off a little deeper. The Japanese began bagging U.S. submarines.
Vice Admiral Charles Lockwood, commander of the US submarine fleet in the Pacific, said, “I hear Congressman May said the Jap depth charges are not set deep enough. He would be pleased to know that the Japs set them deeper now.”
By war’s end, May’s idiocy had directly resulted in the sinking of 10 American submarines and the deaths of some 800 U.S. sailors.American submarines fared well in the Pacific during the early part of WWII. Then Congressman May explained to the Japanese what they needed to do to kill them.
It Gets Even Better
When he wasn’t busy drowning Americans, Congressman May was using his position to make money on the side. May used his influence to obtain war production contracts for his friends Murray and Henry Garsson.
Despite having no experience producing munitions, the Garsson brothers began churning out such stuff as 4.2-inch mortar shells, many of which were found to have had defective fuses. These fuses often resulted in premature detonations that ultimately claimed the lives of a further 38 U.S. soldiers. In exchange for these sweet military contracts, Congressman May accepted a bunch of good old-fashioned bribes.
Once word got out about May’s body count, his constituency threw him out. After losing reelection, May was tried in federal court on charges of bribery and convicted after less than two hours’ worth of deliberation. May served a nine-month prison sentence. The Garssons went to jail as well.
Despite his malfeasance, May remained well-connected. In 1952, President Harry Truman granted him a full pardon. However, voters were apparently smarter than is the case today. Andrew May failed to resurrect his political career and spent the rest of his days working in private practice as a lawyer. He died in 1959 at the age of 83 as the only man in human history personally responsible for the sinking of 10 submarines.
Manning 155mm howitzers, African American gunners sacrificed themselves to defend fleeing infantry. Eleven of them were murdered by the Waffen SS, and then forgotten by the US Army.
Top Image: African American crew of an M1 155mm howitzer in action courtesy of the US Army.
An act of heroic self-sacrifice highlighted the dedicated service of the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion, a segregated African American unit that bolstered American forces in Western Europe during World War II. That sacrifice unfortunately ended in tragedy for 11 American soldiers, murdered in one of the many atrocities committed by German Waffen-SS troops, in this case with particular savagery because the victims were black. Compounding the tragedy, this atrocity was not officially recognized in the United States until many decades after the war had ended.
The 333rd was originally organized as a regiment in 1942, and trained at Camp Gruber, Oklahoma. In 1943, however, it was reorganized as the 333rd Field Artillery Group, consisting of the 333rd and 969th Field Artillery Battalions, both African American units with mostly white officers. Subsequently, two other field artillery battalions would be added to this group. The 333rd and 969th battalions were equipped with the M1 155mm howitzer, a versatile and effective truck-drawn weapon used by the US Army until the Vietnam War, and still in use in some parts of the world today.
A shipment of 155mm howitzers on their way to Europe. Courtesy Library of Congress.
Arriving in England in February 1944, the 333rd and 969th battalions shipped over to Normandy in July and provided vital artillery support to American forces through months of hard fighting, including at the siege of Brest, France.
By the time the Allies liberated Paris in August, the two battalions were known as some of the most efficient and hard-hitting artillery units in the US Army. In October 1944, the units were assigned to what was assumed to be a quiet front, in support of VIII Corps and the untested 106th Infantry Division in the Ardennes region along the Belgian-German border.
A 155mm howitzer preparing for action. Courtesy Library of Congress.
The 333rd Battalion was deployed around the small town of Schönberg in an atmosphere “tranquil to a point almost approaching garrison conditions,” as a later report would admit. Tired from months of constant service, the men took the opportunity to relax, with a recreation center that included a beer hall, bowling alley, and even a badminton court.
They were preparing a musical theater performance when the German offensive known as the Battle of the Bulge began on December 16.
The 106th Division was quickly thrown into disarray. At some outposts, black artillerymen took up rifles and fought alongside the infantry, in one case beating off a German attack and inflicting serious casualties. The German tide was overwhelming, however, driving through the defending infantry.
Recognizing the seriousness of the crisis, batteries of the 333rd and 969th battalions began pulling back under orders.
The 106th Division’s artillery commander desperately requested, however, that the battalions leave batteries behind to offer continuing support, assuring them that the main lines would be held and that they would be in no danger. He was wrong.
An M1 155mm artillery piece in action, 1945. Courtesy National Archives.
Master Sergeant Floyd Jones, an African American artilleryman serving with the 333rd Group, remembered: “We had just been sitting around awaiting orders when news came of the German breakthrough, so—get ready for action!”
Guns of the 333rd Battalion fired furiously in support of the American infantry, allowing some men to escape who might otherwise have been killed or captured. But the gunners’ heroism came at terrible cost as the Germans broke in among the howitzer positions.
The Germans captured Schönberg and, continuing to advance, shattered much of the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion, killing or capturing half of its men.
Eleven artillerymen escaped the German net and walked 10 miles away to the town of Wereth, where they were sheltered by a local civilian.
A neighbor who was sympathetic to the Germans betrayed them, however, and the Americans had the misfortune to fall into the hands of troops of the 1st SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler Panzer Division. Like the men of other Waffen SS divisions, these Germans were deeply indoctrinated in Nazi ideology and regarded their prisoners as racial inferiors.
American infantry near St. Vith, Belgium, 1945. Courtesy National Archives.
At 7:00 p.m. on the evening of December 17, the SS men drove their captors into the forest. There they savagely tortured their victims with rifle butts and bayonets before cutting off many of their fingers and running over them with vehicles—whether before or after the Americans were dead is impossible to say. Then they moved on, leaving the bodies behind.
The remnants of the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion fell back, joined with the still-intact 969th Field Artillery Battalion, and participated in the defense of Bastogne.
For its bravery during this action, the 969th received a Presidential Unit Citation—although the members of the 333rd who fought at Bastogne surely deserved to share in the honors.
The 11 men who died at Wereth, however, were ignored. The same US Army investigators who uncovered the atrocity at Malmedy also recovered the full details of what happened at Wereth, including the fact that—unlike the white victims at Malmedy—the black men who died there had been brutally tortured.
But the investigators made no effort to pursue the matter further, taking no testimonies even though many of the local civilians—including those who had sheltered the artillerymen—were still alive and could have provided evidence. In 1949 a subcommittee of the Senate’s Committee on Armed Services conducted a full review of Nazi atrocities during the Battle of the Bulge—and completely ignored the Wereth massacre.
Members of the family who had sheltered the “Wereth Eleven” marked the site of the massacre with a memorial in 1994, and it was expanded 10 years later.
Only in 2017, however, did Congress pass a resolution bestowing “official recognition” on the victims of the massacre: Curtis Adams of South Carolina, Mager Bradley of Mississippi, George Davis, Jr., of Alabama, Thomas Forte of Mississippi, Robert Green of Georgia, James Leatherwood of Mississippi, Nathaniel Moss of Texas, George Motten of Texas, William Pritchett of Alabama, James Stewart of West Virginia, and Due Turner of Arkansas.
There’s a very old anecdote that goes as follows: During a field exercise pre-WWI, a major in the German army is ordered to approach a hill held by an enemy unit, circle around behind it with his battalion, and then launch an attack to take the hill. The exercise commences.
As the major approaches the hill he’s notified that the enemy unit is preparing to evacuate the hill. He continues moving around the hill and proceeds with the original plan to attack and takes the now empty position on the hilltop.
After the exercise is over, he is chastised by the then leader of the army, von Moltke for not abandoning the encirclement maneuver and immediately attacking the enemy unit to prevent it from escaping.
The major responded that he was only following the orders given him. Von Moltke’s response? “Seine Majestät (the Kaiser) didn’t make you a major to follow orders. He made you a major so that you would know when to not follow orders.”
This is Congressman Andrew J. May. He was a card-carrying loser.
Everybody hates politicians. Andrew May was the reason.
Congressman May undertook a fact-finding tour of military
