Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Kimber Montana 7mm-08

Have you noticed a big difference in POI when shooting these summer loads in cold weather?

4th point....you mean me?

No; not a lot. But i shoot mostly no further than 400 yards during winter. Most winters, I cannot get to 500-600 yds. Range is snowed in, so most practice is from 400 yds and in.

I know many powders lose velocity in cold weather; I was recording this sort of thing back in the 1980's with powders like IMR4350 and some others.


But I was working a lot with cartridges that generated 3000-3250 fps MV. If I lost 100 fps, it really did not show much from 300 to 400 yds.

If you were asking me, actually, very little. I will qualify that with the fact that I load 'maximum' loads only when they are the most accurate in a given rifle. I will sacrifice a couple hundred feet a second for accuracy.

Occasionally I will see a load print slightly higher and possibly a little one side or the other, but rarely have I noted any wholesale change in impact .

That's the thing...it won't show much until you get out there a bit. At normal hunting ranges, it really isn't a big deal.

Bob, 1Nut, SAS,

Thanks for the replies.

Earlier I mentioned my bud's 7RM load that lost 60+ fps and shot high at 100y with H4831SC. But there was very little change observed in POI at 490 yards with the higher zero. I know JB has mentioned that velocity is only one part of the test... we need to check POI too.

When I tested RL15, I only checked POI at 490. It seemed pretty good, but I never recorded velocities.

Jason

How far was the shot?




P

Same here, which is why my favorite 140g partition load in my McWhorter is 41g of RL15 @ 2760fps.

40 yards.

Re: Hotcore - seems they would perform like an AB - yes?
And to your point - JB says the AB often acts like a PT

On speeds vs temps. FYI the Speeds I've clocked for 708 loads like many
Were during summers here in the south and that often means 94-97F...

Anyone that questions working up and shooting loads in the summer, well, they just haven't lived in Montana!

We have a short season where range-time is actually fun. Temps can hit 100*F+... Coldest I've elk hunted was a few clicks south of -30*F.

Here, at least to me, it makes sense to use powders that exhibit the least variation in velocity summer to fall. Why not? May not be necessary inside 500 yards, but it can't hurt either.

If I lived and hunted in a less severe climate I wouldn't bother to think about it. And as I've said before, it's not all that critical here for 99.762% of the time.

I haven't owned that exact combination, but I've had 2 84Ms, a .257 Roberts and a .308, and if there's a nicer rifle to pack around, I haven't met it yet. I've had several 7mm-08s and if there's a better deer cartridge, I haven't met it.

7mm-08 loads ... my last rifle liked RL19 under 140 grain partitions and W760 under 120 grain ballistic tips. That's pretty much all I shot in it. I would prefer a faster powder for both uses since I wound up with heavily compressed loads and some trouble with bullets backing out of the cases, however, that's where the accuracy was so I lived with it. Most of my deer hunting is in brush and timber.

That 140 grain load just knocked the stuffing out of everything I shot with it.

Tom

I've been thinking about a Montana in 7mm-08 but I wish it had a floor plate as I'm not a fan of unloading the rifle by working the bolt, an ex-friend put a bullet in the dirt between my legs while doing this. Is it possible to retro fit a floor plate?

Brad, isn't that 99.708% of the time?

CEJ - put a bullet or fired a bullet, big diff, that was operator error, either way, but I can get your drift...

Choose your friends wisely....

That's why he's an ex friend!

No need to close the bolt to get the shells to kick out. I can safely empty my Montana 7-08 in a few seconds.

If you're chambering a round to unload it, then you're doing it wrong. And your ex-friend doesn't know how to unload a rifle with a blind mag.

Never said I did that, Never had a rifle without a floor plate. You're right tho he didn't know or wasn't paying attention - either way I never hunted with him again.

He pulled the trigger too....

Guess I'll have to look into one more closely - thanks!