All this 7 mag talk I'm going to have to get serious and mount a scope on the one I just bought and see how it shoots. Probably keep it simple I have a bunch of 162gr hornady btsp and use H4831 and go from their.
That is the bullet and cartridge I used to kill my first elk in the early 1980's and the reason I quit using cup-and-core bullets in my bolt guns after that. The 162g BTSP hit a young bull broadside, centering a rib, missing or lightly nicking the far-side ribs and coming to a stop under the hide. Retained weight was under 48%. Range was about 110 yards.
Since then I have used Speer Grand Slam (for 20+ years), North Fork SS (my favorite), Nosler AccuBond and Partition, Swift A-Frame and Scirocco, and Barnes MRX and TTSX. (Barnes X (XLC) bullets were a big disappointment the one time I used them on big game and inconsistent even on coyotes.)
While cup and core bullets are admittedly less expensive, the incremental cost of using one of the afore mentioned premium bullets for a hunt is negligible compared to the cost of a typical elk hunt. In a typical year I'll spend about $500 in fuel, never mind other costs (food, equipment repairs, processing fees, camp site costs, etc.) which can easily add another $500 or more. Contrast that to an incremental cost of about $0.20 to $0.30 for using AccuBond or Partitions, respectively, or about $0.40 to use Barnes TTSX or North Fork SS.
Will cup and core bullets work? Sure - most of the time. At best the premiums provide a little bit of insurance as they hold together better when things go wrong. The same is true for having chains for all 4 wheels instead of just two, having a chain repair kit, or any number of other things I make sure I take along. But I've needed chains on all four, the chain repair kit and many of those other things. More than once I've driven TTSX lengthwise through mule deer, front to back, and one North Fork ham to sternum through a mule deer buck. This performance was not at all surprising but I wouldn't trust a Hornady 162g BTSP to do the same. Cheap insurance is not a bad thing IMHO.
