Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 7MM Remington Magnum ???

For years I relied on a .270 Win. for all my big game hunting. Then about 15 or 16 years ago I put four 150 gr. Partitions into the chest of a moose at 300 yards and he turned around and walked away! As we learned later he only went far enough to get out of sight before falling over.
At that point I decided to get something with a little more power. Since I am not very big I wanted something not having too much recoil. With this in mind I bought a Winchester M70 Custom Super Grade in 7mm Rem. Mag. This is the nicest (& most expensive) gun I have ever owned.
Then I tried to work up a suitable load. It seemed to be impossible. For 2 or 3 years I wouldn't take it hunting because it didn't come up to my standards for accuracy.
Then one day while at the shooting range I found a longitudinal crack running up the right side of the receiver rail. Neither the gun shop owner where I deal or the designated Winchester repair gunsmith in the area had ever seen anything like it. The repair shop decided the gun had to go back to the factory. To go along with it I sent a note commenting about the poor accuracy the rifle had been producing.
After about 8 or 9 months I received the rifle back completely rebuilt. Accuracy was now extremely good with many different loads. I finally took the rifle hunting and shot a moose with it. The strange thing is, I have never hunted with this gun since! I liked shooting it so much in its restored form that I bought another 7mm Mag. (Remington 700 Sendero) to shoot at the range so I wouldn't shoot the Winchester barrel out. In total I have probably shot at least 4000 rounds through these guns.
About the time I began to think about taking this gun hunting again I bought a 700 Rem. in .338 W.M. complete with muzzle brake from the factory. With this gun I found out that the .338 isn't a monster and have used it exclusively for the last 5 or 6 years. I now know why hunters have been saying for years that this caliber will lay the animals down right there!
One thing I did find with the 7mm Rem. Mag. is that you had to be prepared to use a chronograph & to use the velocities given in the reloading manuals as a guide, not the number of grains of a given powder. My preferred load in the 7 R.M. is a 175 gr. bullet driven at 2900 fps. I will not quote the load since it isn't close to anything in any of the books. Cases last for from 10 to 15 reloads and give no problems in extraction, etc. I note that recently J.B. has been extolling the benefits of using the chronograph and working up to the velocities given in the manuals as being preferable to using visual signs or trying to mike cases. Every time I used the maximum loads in the manual they came up well below the suggested velocities. I guess in my own simple way I am endorsing J.B's recommendations. I still think the 7 mag. is a good hunting caliber.

Cleaned it up, got a nother stock at a Gunshow, got the barrel recrowned, the trigger adjusted, and a Limbsaver recoil pad put on it. I replaced the extractor, the scope, and did minor repairs.

It's an early Win POST 64, with a 24" barrel, but it's lighter than both my 7 mags. It's easy to handload. I can get 1" groups. I'll be loading cast bullets for it pretty soon.

It's not real pretty, but I'm not apologizing for it. I've become attached to it.
Smitty of the North

IMO rifles are kinda like women it's fine if they start out pretty, but the only ones that really get a piece of your heart are the ones with some wear and tear on them. Preferably of your own wearing and tearing! (grin) I'm hard on my rifles and my wife, but I love them dearly, and they've never let me down.

1akhunter, there's a lot of truth in that for each of us.

I've never owned or loaded for a 7mm RM, but have shot several and will be loading for one soon. What can I say? Nice to shoot, good trajectory, accurate, lots of power for lots of things and I like it. I know of one fellow who believes it's way too light for moose, but I know of others who believe a .270 Win .150 or .160 Nosler PT is just the ticket.

It's in the "great big middle" of the best non-magnum cartridges and the better magnum cartridges at or under .30 caliber. Having a .300 Win Mag and a .270 Win, I wouldn't buy one for myself these days, but wouldn't criticize anyone who did.

This might infuriate some people, and I will apologize in advance for that.
I have had three 7 Magnums and have killed deer and elk with them. They do kill deer and elk handily, but so do many other calibers. I don't like the 7 Magnum because in the rifles I have owned, the recoil has been severe, even compared to 300 Magnums and a 375 H&H magnum I have owned.
In my field experience it has seemed that it takes a tremendous difference in rifles to produce a difference in rifles in terms of pwer to produce a noticeable difference in killing power on animals. This seems to be confirmed by the oft mentioned study from Europe regarding moose killed with various calibers. Penetration test of various calibers also seems to bear this out. A lowly 32 Special will not penetrate as much as a 200 grain Nosler from a 30-06, but the difference is much less than I would expect.
Given the above factors which have influenced my thinking, I would be curious as to a comparison between the 7-08 and the 7 Magnum, under field conditions, both loaded to the max loads in a loading manual, any manual, you pick. I think there would be very little difference, and I would guess that in average hands, the 7-08 would bring more game to the ground.
Please remember, before you send the professional assasins to my door, I am offering this as my guesses, opinions and am not holding it up as undisputed fact.
Good hunting, everyone, I have to go cut up the fat white tail doe I shot Monday with my 7 Magnum- one shot kill, 150 yards, good old Hornady 139 grain BT in front of 65 grains of H 4831 SC- Got about 17 inches of penetration.

Royce

GWN, I did not mean to imply anything, just wanted to share data with ya. Tak

Royce I don't see where your statement would merit any flamage.

Always has been and always will be, it boils down to
"It ain't the arrow, it's the Indian"

Give a rilfeman and a guy with some woods savy and understanding of his quarry and he's almost always a better bet on bringing home the bacon on a regular basis.

It's been interesting to get to know some of Big Stick on this forum. For years I've always heard that the number one deer cartridge for the blacktail deer on Kodiak is the .375 cause of the bears and the dinner gong etc. etc. but it seems Stick goes armed with a 7 shamu, or 25-284 on Kodiak for most of deer season and he must feel reasonably armed.

I'd say you take the average hunter and he is better served by the 7 rather than the 7 mag for most applications. I'd never used anything bigger than a .30-30 (well okay a 12 gauge for quail hunting) till I bought my first big game rifle, yep you guessed it the 7 mag that's about 3 feet away from me right this minute. I knew I was coming to Alaska and I had read where the 7 mag was capable of taking any game in NA and I bought it hook, line and sinker. Recoil of it has never been a big issue for me with it, maybe all the 12 gauge shooting had better prepared me than the few shots I took per year with a .30-30, if so I was lucky.

BTW I see ft. lbs. of recoil for big game rifles often, does anyone have the info ready at hand how a 12 gauge shotgun with 2 3/4 or 3 inch loads compares to some of the big game calibers? I'd be curious to see how it measures up.

Anyway Royce I thought your post made sense.

An 8 lb shotgun shooting a 3" mag load of 1 7/8 oz shot is in the low to mid 40 ft/lb of recoil. This is according to SST's recoil calculator. http://sst.benchrest.com/recoil.html

FYI a 338 win mag weighing 8 lbs shooting a 250 gr bullet 2800 is about the same.

I have had my share of 7 mags and find them useful for longer shots on coues wt.

Two of my friends who don't shoot much have 7 mags. They are both afraid of it's recoil!

My family has had at least one 7mm Remington floating around for as long as I can remember. For the most part they have been the older FN Browning Safari or Medallion grades. My own personal 7mm is a Ruger #1. We do not handload and our preferred loading is Federal Premium with 160 Partitions.

I'll be honest, I find the recoil of those rifles to be less than that of say a standard 30-06 with 180 grain bullet. These rifles are however, significantly heavier than todays Ruger, Remington, and Winchester.

Thanks Azshooter! Didn't have the numbers, but it made sense to me, funny you never hear guys make that big a deal out of the recoil in shotguns, sure it's mentioned in passing in some articles, but not near the hoopla concerning recoil that the medium bore cartridges generate (.338, .375, etc.)

I think Cooper is largely correct concerning recoil, it is kinda mind over matter, if you don't mind it really doesn't matter. With that said I've only touched one round off outa my pards .458 Lott, I can honestly say you know some chemical reaction has occurred <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />, it's a good round though.

straydog, I had the fever for a 7mmstw for a time, good fotune my fever cooled. that round disappeared faster than my money at a football game concession stand ($3.50 for a coke at a FSU football game - take all three boys). I was never crazy about layne simpson anyway and his stw stuff, simply not my style.

Thought to look at the recoil comparison between the 30-06 and subject 7mm rm.

the '06 with a 165 gr bullet has a recoil factor of 24 ft lbs, it's 23 ft lbs with the 180 gr bullet (recoil is less with heavier bullet due to lower velocity)

the 7mm rm has 26 ft lbs with a 160 gr bullet

all comparisons are based on a 8 lb rifle

I like my 7mm rem mag and recoil is fine, I think this has more to do with the brown precision stock and fit. I have had three 7mm rem mags and they were all fine.

Still, if I had to choose, I would take the '06 all day long as I think it is a better fit when loading for 180 gr and up stuff.

TAKMAN, no problem. Does the 4831 have good loading density? ( Is the case full?)
I think the reason people mention recoil and 7Mag is that it is advertised as a long range round. In order to utilize it you first need to sight it in from the bench. With todays light rifles that isn't fun. If you handload and want to experiment with seating depth, primers, different powders, bullets, etc. in order to milk all the potential accuracy out of it, you are in for a lot more bench time than a quail hunter for instance. (They
hardly shoot from the bench at all) <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />
I have come back from the range after playing around and chronographing etc and can barely remember my address. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />
I enjoy the 270 a lot more but I'm not much of a big game hunter. (Just deer) If I was hunting bear or moose I would more than likely grab the 35 Whelen anyhow. If a guy shot factory loads he might be better off in this case I think.
If I go elk hunting again I would probably use the 160 Nosler Federal Premium and skip the whole load development scenario. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />
GWN

GWN, might make for a good station at the local trap club. You make a good point, recoil is most severe from the bench or prone, what you gain in steadiness of position you give up in being able to roll with the recoil. Oh well all of life is trade offs. Still it would crack me up to see a bench setup for trapshooters! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Hey that seems like a big jump from 7 mag at 26 ft. lbs. of recoil to .338 at around 40!! Azshooter and 257Bob you guys sure you're on the same page? Never seemed like that much difference to me in recoil between 7 mag and .338, although my 7 mag weighs about a pound less than my .338, maybe that's why, but still it seems like a big jump in ft. lbs. by my recollection.

Last year at a general auction I bought a nice older Rem. M700 in 7mm RM, gun is from 1963, has the original Weaver K4 and Williams Receiver sight as b/u, original strap and leather scabbard. Doesn't look like it got much use. This is one of the early 7mm's.

The barrel seems to be a touch less than a full 24".
I bought it on a whim, may never actually use it except at the range, but after reading this thread should I have the throat lengthened?


Thanks, Rob

1AK:
My 338 with a 250 grain bullet recoils a lot more than either of my 7 Mags, (160 grain bullets) but it�s a couple of pounds lighter too.

Still, I think the most important aspect of the effects of recoil is how you hold the rifle. When you are shooting from a bench and lean into the stock, your gonna feel it a lot more than if you sit lower, and more upright. Sometimes you hear stories about some kid, or small lady, who doesn�t mind shooting a heavy recoiling rifle. There-in lies a plausible explanation. Since they are shorter, they aren�t bending over, and leaning into the rifle stock.

That said, I�m not that interested in anything bigger than a 338. Well, maybe a 358 Norma.

Smitty of the North

Rob: I would say no, unless you have a reason.

I did it so I could seat 160 grain bullets so the base of the bullet would be near the base of the neck, which gives some greater case capacity. Others reject this as being of any real advantage. Also, some people want to seat their bullets closer to the lands because they think that will be more accurate. If you subscribe to that, lengthening the throat would be the last thing to do, unless you are having the throat set for a particular bullet.

Another thing, it would be pointless to lengthen the throat of your rifle, to have a longer OAL, if your magazine won't hold or feed the longer rounds. The Remington 700s are long, so you could do that, but it�s not something that everybody does, or that everybody thinks is the wise thing to do. In my case, (With my Early Remington 700) it hasn�t hurt a thing. I�ve shot factory loads that are really far from the lands, and accuracy hasn�t suffered.

Smitty of the North

It's been fun reading up on my favorite caliber. Been shooting one for over 20 years. Got my first one in a remy adl wood built in 1983. Wanted to be the one gun guy, living in Mn. I knew I'd head west and north at some point. Always enjoyed shooting, until I read more ,didn't know the recoil was suppose to be so bad. Yes it's a little louder, my neighbors can tell when I shoot a deer. I took my tikka ss/syn 7 mag to Ak. last year, had brown bears right outside the tent, was still confident in the 7 mag. Now I also have a sako 75 in .270 when I shoot that and my tikka 7 mag (which is 2 pounds lighte ) I still don't notice a recoil difference. Now the 300 ultra mag I had has recoil worth mentioning. All in all I love the 7 mag, with almost the same energy as a 300 mag it will kill anything I 'll ever hunt.

1akhunter, I think I notice recoil more in a rifle because I am peering thru the scope which is closer to the eye than an open sighted shotgun and also I am shooting at a piece of paper rather than a moving claybird. I never notice recoil in a rifle when shooting at a live target. Just an observation.