Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 7x61 Sharpe & Hart

Oh yes.

was thinking deer...not those cats

This is a fun old post.

I have one but haven't shot it much. It is on an FN 98 action. It appears to be a commercially made military style [has a charging clip slot]action. It has the 2 position safety on the left side of the bolt. The trigger is a Timney according to the gunsmith I bought it from. He built it.

He passed last year. It was his elk hunting rifle. With the 26 in medium heavy barrel in a walnut stock it is far from light. I put a largish Redfield Accu-range on it and that did not help much.

He extended the throat so he could use resized 7mm Remington Magnum brass without trimming. Nice touch for us budget minded folk.

All his loads were for 140 grain bullets. When I get done shooting the ones up I got from him I will try 154's which I prefer.

I, too have a thing for the early short belted magnums. I prefer them on Mauser actions. I have a couple of .308 Norma's and a .35 Whelen. It occurs to me that if I had a .358 Norma I
would have the set. I could make one out of the Whelen but I like it too much. We'll see.

I think I would like it better if I had the barrel turned and shortened. I see it as similar to a 280AI and think a light one would be fun in the mountains.

Gary.

Every time I see print about the 7x61 I start thinking about why I need one...

I don't remember, for sure, but think that the original 7x61 S&H was akin to the case capacity of the 280AI, before they super-sized the case in way of the 7x61 S&H Super to compete with the 7RM.

That's about right. I'm using 61.0grs of H4350 and 139gr. GMX.

I was shooting mine earlier today. I had some moly'd 139 gr Hornady boattails kicking around, and tried them with 65 gr of H4831.

Powder comes half way up the neck before settling, in resized Winchester 7mm Rem Mag brass. Gave just a tad under 3000 fps out of the 26" barrel of my Model 65 Schultz and Larsen.

Ted

I backed down to 61.0grs after I chrono'd some 62.0 and 62.5gr loads. They were running 3200+ with a 23" barrel. Primer pockets still tight, etc. and no signs of any pressure. That made me a little nervous so settled on 61.0. I haven't checked those but suspect that >3000-<3100 is likely.

Crappy pic but you get the idea.

Looks very practical, and probably much lighter than mine. Here's the Schultz & Larsen at close to nine pounds with a Leupold aboard.



It now wears an old 3-9 Redfield with the tombstone rangefinder in it. Never needed it, as the trajectories are plenty flat enough with all bullet weights up to 175 gr to kill any big game animal at any range I am going to attempt, and now it weighs even more!



Have you tried any 175 gr Spitzer loads?
Ted

Brings back memories for me. In the early 70's my father and I opened a gunshop......mostly to justify buying more guns than to actually make money. Tried a lot of different stuff back.

My father, more so than me, like the really "weird" calibers, like the 1936 7.5mm MAS he turned into a sporter.....that was a real different rifle. One of his purchases was a European Model 98 (Husky I think) in 7x61 S&H. He used to for a few years and "claimed" (no chronograph at the time) it put the 7mm Rem. Mag. to shame. Probably not actually true but it did kill deer with authority.

They will come pretty close, the throat being so long. The freebore in the factory rifles will put Weatherby to shame, but they are still very accurate.

Ted

Here's some reformed W-W 7mm Rem Mag brass. Just full length size, trim to length, chamfer and load.



You can see where the original neck was in the reformed brass. The good thing is, no neck reaming necessary. Even though more than a third of the neck is formed from the shoulder of the 7 Mag case, the loaded rounds chamber without a whimper.

Presto! Near impossible to find 7X61 cases from an almost inexhaustible supply of common brass. These were formed from once-fired brass I picked up at the range, annealed, and then formed. Never lost a single case. They are on their third firing.

Ted

That is slick, Ted.

I glad Carlos bought that overpriced brass before you posted...:)

Is that a pre-super 7x61?

Here is mine, stock shaped and finished by Karnis!

You know, I cannot remember when Norma began production of the 7X61 Super ammo, but I do remember them making a big deal out of it. Apparently the original brass was quite overbuilt for the cartridge, and Norma was trying to step on the 7mm Rem Mag, so redesigned the case to get a few more grains of capacity. They did a pretty good job of it, too.

You do know the exterior dimensions are the same, right? They only changed the interior dimensions to increase the case capacity. Both types of ammo can be used in all 7X61 S&H rifles.

I suspect that cases reformed out of W-W brass are pretty close to the same capacity as the Super.

Ted

Supposedly Phil Sharpe got a look at some experimental French military cartridges immediately after the war when he was serving as an ordinance captain in the ETO. This cartridge was the result.

I have read a time or two that the 7x61 S&H turned out to be the perfect case capacity turned out to be the "most efficent" 7mm mag round. I don't think anyone in this country ever chambered it as a factory round. Winchester came out with their 338Mag - and we all know what happened from there. With that sharp shoulder is there much case stretching if your dies are set right? Always wondered.

I haven't. Have some 160 Deep Curls to try but it'll be awhile before I'll be able to shoot again.

Yeah, I did. Have Water's books and he gave the subject a pretty through treatment. That is probably where I made the AI capacity comparison from...or who knows.

Was pretty serious about building one but didn't...probably worried about the brass. Remember reading something like Swarf read about the most efficient 7mm, in terms of the ratio of velocity to powder. Interestingly Lyman #46 also said "compared to other magnums this cartridge produced very high velocity with minimum amounts of powder." Which really isn't all that much of a surprise due to the smaller case..:)

FWIW, Lyman #46 shows a max load of 67.5 H-4831 for the 139s...

There was an old boy from here in MI that wrote it up back then, too. I kinda wish I had--the 280AI feels kinda modern of of a sudden...