Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Why has the 7Rmag lost its popularity??

It's no secret I've been a 7mm RM shooter since I started big game hunting in '82. Still have that rifle and it still does the job. Last year I bought one of those $499 CDNN Ruger Hawkeye rifles with the idea my daughters might use it instead of my .257 Roberts for hunting mule deer and elk.

At the time CDNN had quite a variety of chamberings available. Rifle weight, recoil and capability were my key considerations. Recoil and the fact that I already had them eliminated the 7mm RM and .30-06 from consideration. A 7mm-08 didn’t offer much past what my .257 Roberts could do (110g AccuBond @ 3163fps and 120g A-Frame @ 2947fps) so it got dropped as well. That left only the .270 and .280.

My choice was an easy one - an All Weather (stainless/synthetic) .280 Rem. I don’t kid myself that the .280 Rem is vastly superior to the .270 or that it can perform on par - even in the AI form - with the 7mm RM. It isn’t and it can’t. Nor does it need to. The big advantage and the deciding factor was I already had a lot of .284" bullets on hand - including over 200 North Fork 140g SS hollow points and boxes of Barnes 140g TTSX, Nosler 140g AccuBond and North Fork 160g SS. Buying a stash of .277 bullets didn't seem to make any sense.

To do it over, I’d make the same decision. The .280 Rem has a relatively low SAAMI pressure standard and staying within those limits results in fairly gentle recoil and long case life with good velocity and trajectory. Works for me.

CH: I like the 280....always have.

Just don't have one right now as I am kind of up to my ears with rifles in that category.

What happened to that pump?

Oops.....I forgot about that! Yes i still have it.

See what I mean?

Hah! Put a belt on that thing and they might pee their pants!

I think that the bigger mags like the 7 STW and Utras did steal some thunder from the 7 RM. I am starting to see more "traditional" cartridges along the lines of .270/.30-06. Maybe people realized that they didn't need that much range. Maybe the realized that they shot better with something that kicked less. Maybe the cost of ammo played into it, I don't know that I have a answer for sure

The answer is to buy more rifles, more ammo and don't get hung up on one fn cartridge....

Has the 7RM lost popularity, or is it just not talked about as much because it's been doing its job so reliably for so long that's it's gotten boring? I.e., is it more fun to talk about your wife or Carrie Underwood? Judging from what I see in the basement here it's not the wives.

I think there is an element of that and websites like this can create a somewhat warped sense of reality as to what the "average" shooter is using. At public range days about 99% of the rifles are chambered in 270,30/06,308, 300WM or 7RM on the line. Maybe it's losing popularity amongst the loonies but joe six pack didn't seem to get the memo.

So according to Wikipedia it was Remington's competition with the 264 Winchester Magnum.

Could it really be that simple? Bean counter attempt at grabbing market share?

Maybe we really had it all in 1903 and didn't know it.

I don't think it was potential .264 WM buyers that were buying 7mm Rem Mags at a record pace in the 60's. Just because there weren't that many potential .264 buyers. I think it was all the guys trying to pick between the .270 and .30-06 who realized with the 7mm Mag they could have the best of both worlds.

10 years ago I found that my 7x57 carbine was not the best platform for the very long pastures of an old dairy farm that I started hunting.

I considered several magnum cartridges, the 7mm Rem mag being one of them.

I chose the 270 WSM instead. I figured that being it had 277 caliber bullet it just had that gay factor all over it. Being the 270 WSM was kinda gay, I thought maybe, just maybe I'd see a unicorn whilst hunting with it and let's face it guys, how cool would a unicorn mount look on the wall...right? So I bought a 270 WSM instead of a 7mm Rem mag.

Dan

I like a 7 rem mag in a Sako rifle. I like the 264 Win mag in a Sako also. You can't go wrong with either. It's all about what a person likes. I like Blondes also.

1962= 7mm Mag
2015 = 6.5 Creed?

I'm convinced we try to solve problems that don't exist with glorified marginal returns.

That's how I see it anyway. I'm more likely to buy the right rig in the "wrong" caliber solely because of a particular opportunity rather than creating what I might consider the utopian package from the ground up.


In other words, I'll scratch an itch I didn't know I had if a deal comes along.


EVERY rig has concessions in one way or another and it's a matter of picking a choosing which ones matter and which ones don't.

Cartridge to cartridge comparisons boil down to the numbers for me, and they never lie.

I had a 264 before I had 7mm RM's. The 264 was a fine cartridge. I shot a lot of crows with it. I also shot jack rabbits, raccoons, and badgers. I only shot one deer with it. I sold the 264 after that. Bullet selection was only one each for game, IMO. That was the 140 grain Nosler Partition made on screw machines.

The guy I sold it to used it on long range PD's. It was his first center fire.

I have a bunch of 7mm bullets on my shelves. I own or I've owned, 7 TCU, & 7 International, 7x57, 7mm-08, 280 and 7mm RM's. Plus I cast bullets for the 7mm.

Of all those cartridges I suppose I like the 280 best. But I have 3ea. 7mm RM's. The two 700 7mm RM's I have are less than 1 MOA with loads I've tried. The Ruger 77 is about twice that in MOA capability, still not bad.

The 7mm RM is a mild recoiling rifle that even my arthritic shoulder can handle easily.

I for one do not believe that it has lost it's popularity.
However, there seems to be more and more cartridges coming out and more loads for old cartridges (270) that are in the category of "I can almost get 7mm RM performance with this amazing cartridge." Which is as good of praise as it gets, I suppose.

I agree PLUS a NEW toy.


Jerry

And that's just it. Some guys constantly look for new beer to try, shaving cream, toothpaste, underwear, what the hell else.

But there's no toothpaste forum with a bunch of bored guys sitting around looking for a distraction on an otherwise boring day.

A couple years ago I bought a beautiful custom 7 Rem Mag. It was built on a Santa Barbara 98 action and shot as good as it looked. The fly in the ointment was that it weighed 10 pounds and I couldn't imagine ever hunting with it so I moved it along.

Part of the fun is debating cartridges. I have never owned a 7mm and don't see the NEED. But if we talk about WANTS, I know I want one.

But to be honest with you, I prefer debating cartridges around a real campfire with a near by wall tent and not the internet.

Sure why not, isn't that also why Rem introduced SAUMs to battle WSMs for market share..?

Ive wondered why big Co. like Rem & Win waited so long to plunge into the proprietary cartridge
magnum velocity market, considering Weatherby took the plunge decades before.

Les Bowman developed the cartridge with Mike Walker of Remington.They tested it on game at Bowman's ranch. Bowman had been using the cartridge for several years in wildcat form and in the hands of himself, his guides,and clients the cartridge and rifle accounted for a lot of game.

Bowman had been looking for a cartridge that had the ranging ability of a 300 Weatherby, but kicked less. He and Walker sold it to the Remington big wigs and they introduced it i the new Rem 700. It was a huge success.

You can goof around with trivial stuff like the 270 WSM and the 280AI but you won't beat the 7 Rem Mag in that category.....