Never said a 22" barrel wasn't lighter and handier.
My point is simply that most hunters who hunt a 7 Mag prefer a 24" bbl. To rebarrel would have required unscrewing the tube which proves it to be a Biesen. The lack of a 24" likely affected the selling price.
If that rifle had been an '06/270/280 with a 22" bbl it would have brought 4k easy.
I believe it was O'Connor himself who said a 7 Mag with a short barrel with little more than a 270 with more fuss.
Again, lovely rifle.
NY no one was challenging what you thought of the rifle, or a 24" barrel.
That was the "blueprint" of the day....just like 2 pound scopes on 6 pound rifles find favor today.
As to JOC and what he thought of the 7 mm magnums, I never believed everything he wrote and hardly took it as gospel...especially after I bought a chronograph and found out he was all wet when it came to the 300 H&H magnum.
He was all wet too about 7mm mags as there is nothing that you can feed a 270 that will churn up almost 3100 fps with a 175 gr bullet....from 22" or 24" barrel.
Sorta leaves the old 270 panting at the gate. I would say Warren Page left JOC behind in a lot of things..
