Killa: How much you want for it?
32-20: Thanks for kudos but I am not sure about the "knowledgeable" part. But I do like the cartridge.
killa: I have never personally held an Art Mashburn custom but his shop had a good reputation back in the day, that being the 50's and 60's far as I know. I suspect the rifle is built on an FN commercial action.
The rifle appears from the pictures to be something of a duplicate of Warren Page's (gun writer for Field& Stream) Mashburn custom which was named "Old Betsy",was also chambered for the 7mm Mashburn Super, and which he used world wide on many hunts in Africa, North America,parts of Asia,and possibly other places I can't recall.
For its time, the cartridge was interesting.Art Mashburn actually made 3 wildcat 7mm magnums, far as I know;one about the same length as the 7mm Rem Mag, one on a full length H&H case, and one of intermediate length with a case about like the 300 Win Mag.
He found the intermediate length cartridge to be the most "efficient" of the three,his objective being a cartridge capable of starting a 175 gr bullet at over 3000 fps.Because it was the most efficient, he called it the "Super".
It should be pointed out that the cartridge design predates the 7mm Rem Mag,the 7mm STW, and the 300 Winchester mag.
The 7mm Mashburn Super was originally formed by shortening, necking down, and blowing out,300 H&H cases. This can still be done, of course, but today, we use 300 Win Mag cases run through Form/Trim dies.The case still needs to be blown out very slightly to reach full Mashburn Super dimensions.
Far as I know, Bob Hagel,the late gun writer, was among the first form the cases from 300 Win Mag brass. He also had a 7mm Mashburn Super and used it extensively in North America on everything from antelope to Yukon moose and grizzly.
Today the cartridge is duplicated or exceeded by more current designs, but practically speaking, not by much. Ballistically it is quite as "modern" as about anything out there in terms of bullet speed.
I have a rifle chambered for the cartridge,a custom on a M70 built by Gene Simillion of Gunnison, Colorado. You can expect velocities of over 3000 fps with 175 gr bullets, and 3150-3250 with a 160 gr . Some guys today have stuck 26-28" barrels on them and run 180 Bergers at 3100 fps....not bad for an antiquated design.
Actually a lot of 7mm magnums just play catch up.
But it is a wildcat, unlikely to ever be factory adopted,and so carries the burden of case forming. This will bug some people but I'm not one of them.
If all this sounds like too much bother,feel free to contact me about it. Subject to reasonable terms, I may be interested in the rifle.
