Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Who developed the 7mm Remington Magnum?

As I've been reading through one of my Christmas gifts, a Nosler No. 6 reloading manual, I read the intro to the 7mm RM that John Nosler wrote. He doesn't talk specifically about the 7mm RM, but he talks about taking a 300 H&H case, cutting it back to fit in a .30-06 length action, and necking it down to 7mm. Is he claiming the design and development of the 7mm RM in this intro or just talking about a wildcat 7mm he put together?

From what I remember reading Les Bowman and Oconner had a hand in testing it for Remington and I'm sure offering advice. kotzy

The 7 mm Rem Mag was not the first standard length 7 mm magnum on the H&H case. The Weatherby and Sharpe and Hart come to mind. JMO, Dutch.

Warren Page used a wildcat 7mm Mashburn Magnum, which got a lot of press from him. This could have had some influence on Remington; he seems to have claimed it in some of his writings.

Certainly Les Bowman claimed to have developed and tested it, and then personally pitched it to Remington. I have no basis to doubt him. Other people may have played around with it, or variation of it, for some time before that on a wildcat basis.

Or maybe Roy Weatherby had something to do with it.
Maybe he tried it out and saw no difference between what he already had and what he wanted and so he gave up the idea because there was already too many rounds to produce for his rifle that one more wasn't going to make a whole lot of difference in the grand scheme of things.

How to compare .277 and .284 would be like trying to compare red apples to yellow apples.

I'm sure that Remington had a whole team of experts that were working to design something new which would help out their new gun sales - which were almost flat around about 1959 when there was a big recession and new guns were not selling well.

Yep, the 7mm Remington Magnum was just a logical extension of a long line of 7mm magnums that could fit in a .30-06 length magazine.

The final Remington round was essentially developed by Remington. Les Bowman had one of the first prototype rifles (made on a Rem. 721 action, as I recall) and tested it in the field during his outfitted elk hunts in Wyoming, often having clients use the rifle. I also recall that Wayne Leek, of Remington, was involved in the project. He went hunting with Bowman several times.

Jack O'Connor probably reported on the new round and rifle, but he wasn't a big booster. Warren Page was probably the gunwriter who had more to do with getting one of the major companies to finally bring out a commercial belted 7mm Magnum, due his long use and boosting of the 7mm Mashburn wildcat.

One puzzler is that the 7mm Remington Magnum is the .264 Winchester necked up, or the .338 Winchester necked down, take your pick. Thus the 7mm RM became by far the most popular commercial round on the basic Winchester case.

Another mystery is why Winchester brought out the .264 instead of a 7mm, when there was already a lot of pent-up demand for a well-distrubuted 7mm magnum among American shooters. This was mostly due to Warren Page, but also due to the 7mm Wby. and S&H. There was zip interest in a 6.5 magnum at the time.

But Page was more closely associated with Remington, primarily because of nchrest shooting. No doubt his closeness to Remington had some influence on Winchester's decision, though they also introduced the .243, essentially due to Warren Page's popularizing of 6mm wildcats, and it was also very close to one of his designs.

Say what?

Lee24...

Duquensebeer, the Campfire master of the non sequitur, strikes again.

I think this is how it translates....

It has been a long time, and my memory, along with a lot of other things is failing (or failed).

Mule Deer asks why Win. came out with a 6.5 instead of a 7 MM, and why the 7MM Rem. became the most popular cartridge based on that case. I think the .308 and .358 Norma also used similiar cases.

IIRC, Win. tried to develop a cartridge that would be useful on both large game and varmits. The 100 grain bullet for varmits and the 140 grain for larger game.

Also, IIRC, the 100 grain, if that is what it was, had too much noise and recoil and probably didn't work as well as a .243 on varmits.

Then, the 140 grain wasn't all that good on larger game. I think I remember one writer describing it as Win. trying to develope a cartridge that was usefull for both fish and fowl, but ended up with a cartridge that wasn't very good for either.

One thing I have never quite understood is why someone didn't neck the 7mm case Rem. down to .270. Weatherby did, with his line of cartridges, and the .270 Wby. became very popular among people who like this caliber.

A .270 magnum might not have replaced the .270 Win., but I think shooters who want a little more velocity than they can get from a .270 would have liked it.

Sort of like the edge the 7mm Mag. gives over the .280 Rem.

If I were younger and able to hunt again, I think I could come to like a .270 caliber 140 grain Nosler with a muzzle velocity of about 3150 FPS. Antelope and deer on the plains would freeze in their tracks and shudder at the mere mention of it.

IIRC, Remington's Mike Walker had an important role in the 7mm's coming to market. Winchester certainly dropped the ball when they came with the 264 rather than a 7mm...a "small" detail that I'm betting haunts them to this day, given the 7mm's huge popularity since the day it hit the market.

That would be the 270WSM...

Or a Ruger No. 1B in .270 Winchester.

Though personally I doubt that a deer would ever notice the difference in a 130-grain bullet at 3150 (which can be done with a standard .270 from a 24" barrel) and a 140 at the same velocity. This is based on a few animals taken here and there with both the .270 Winchester and .270 WSM.

I remember Ken Waters in Pet Loads praising Winchester on their work but felt they erred going with .264 instead of .284. I think he said something along the lines of it was, after all a big game cartridge...

They took Winchester's case and made one of the most successful cartridges ever from it...ouch.

Maybe I'm confused, but the idea of a large-case 7mm round goes a lot farther back than the 1950-1969 period. Was thinking of the .275 H&H......it wasn't until more modern powders appeared that the 7mm Magnum idea reallt took off, but the idea was the same.

Jack OConner wrote of having a 275 H&H built and he ended up giving it to Les Bowman if I remember correctly. Also the Les Bowman rifles barrel I believe was marked 280 Remington Magnum.

Before that there were a slew of 7mm magnums, Dubiel, Ross, Mashburn, Apex, Halger, Newton, a french military prototype, OKH and many others.

Was the Sharpe and Hart 7mm fairly close to 7mm Rem Mag ballistics, by any chance?

Pretty close IIRC.