Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What's Petzals beef with the 7mm RM?

If you ain't shootin' LR, then a 308 is fine. If you are shootin' LR, then a fast 7, like Burns said, is the most bang for the buck. Go up to 30cal and get the same B.C.'s, and you have to step up to 190's or 210's. Recoil in a field rifle is starting to get pretty damned stiff.

ANY rifle, that you can't fire prone, sling supported and return to your natural point-of-aim, without rebuilding the position, is too damn much rifle to ever get really good, WITH THAT RIFLE.

You guys sure do crack me up, Thanks!

I always saw the 7mm Rem. Mag as a near perfect compromise round.

The .30-06 will do almost anything the 7mm Mag. can do at "normal" ranges and actually out-perform the big 7 when heavier bullets are needed (admittedly a rare situation), but the 7 hits just as hard in most cases.

The .270 can beat the .30-06 at long ranges (just barely beat it), but gives up quite a bit on the power side to accomplish this feat. The 7mm Mag. can shoot just as flat and give up almost nothing to the .30-06 in power.

Thus it is a perfect "compromise" with the power of the '06 and the trajectory of the .270.

Maybe it's the 7 Mag's "in between" personality that causes it to be so little used by myself. I either choose the .270 for range (or more likely the .25-06) or I go with the .30-06 if I feel the need for more power. If I "need" both, the .300 Magnum is most often chosen. The "compromise" 7 Mag. just gets left out a lot even though it is a great round.

I never understood the reputation of the 7 Mag. as a "kicker". Other than noise, I can tell little difference between the .270, .30-06 and 7 Mag. in recoil level.

Guess that's why the .22 caliber rifles are so popular for deer with the current generation.....they keep getting their Kotex knocked loose when they fire a real rifle.

A pair of guys were going to Africa,and had come to the range for a sight in session with a pair of 7 Rem Mags. I had my chronograph and a 270 built by Dale Goens for which I was doing some load work.They asked, could they chronograph their ammo?

Sure.

The Federal 160 NPT factory stuff gave about 2840 in one rifle,about 2880 in the other.This is as much as a "normal" 280 will give with top handloads.

Both were surprised when my handloads for the 270 gave over 2900 fps with 150 Nosler Partitions.What I didn't tell them was that at that time I had a 7 Rem Mag with a long throat,longer than standard bullet seating, and 24" Krieger barrel that comfortably gave 3125 with a 160 gr bullet and almost 3300 fps with a 140 and charges of 7828 and IMR4831 that got hunted all over the continent for about 12 years,without a hint of any problem,never a blown primer and good case life until the barrel finally burned out.

No 270 or 280 will come close to those numbers.And despite more 7 mags than I can recall, and even more 270's,(with half a dozen or so 280's tossed into the mix) I have never seen a 270 or 280 that would come close to any of them.

But see enough of the example cited above and it isn't hard to conclude that a 7 Rem Mag is not much more than a fire breathing 270 or 280.I have seen a couple of 7 mag user walk away from a chronograph session scratching their heads.

But there are no mysteries with cartridges;generally everything can be explained when we bump into what we think are these velocity anomalies...whether it's a question of pressures,barrel/throat dimensions, case capacity,thin brass,free bore, bullet bearing surface, barrel length, powders used( some having more energy like double based vs single based,or being better suited, etc etc.There are a million variables,and if you only work with one or two samples of anything it's easy to come to varying conclusions.

As a general rule, though,case capacity will win out in any velocity race, and many times it will not show to a great degree except with the heaviest bullets for caliber.So we end up with these discussions concluding that a 7 Rem Mag is not that much faster than a 270 or 280,until we try to load 160's in each and discover that a 7 Rem Mag will outdistance either by 150-200 fps if all things are equal...or try loading 175's in a 280 and breaking 2900 fps sometime....Good Luck.

You can do it with a 7 Rem Mag.

None of this matters much to game animals and if you shoot them at more or less "normal" distances, but I never met a 270, 280, or 30/06 (much as I have liked and used all three)that could hang with a 7 Rem Mag at distances past 300 yards.For velocity and trajectory it is necessary to go to a 300 magnum of some sort to stay with it,and then you are going to get kicked a lot harder in the process.

But the 7 Rem Mag does exactly what Les Bowman and Mike Walker intended it to do back in 1962(after several years of testing in the field before it was introduced)...give a 160 gr bullet 3050 fps (more than the 280 could muster),provide a flatter trajectory past 300 yards than you could get with a 270,280,or a 30/06,while kicking less than any 300 magnum available at the time.Not bad trade off's considering it also kills elk and most other BG animals without a sweat at long range.

The fact that a few zunzies have gotten their hands on one since then has not bothered me in the least. I've seen that happen with lots of popular cartridges, especially the 30/06.

Good post Bob, but what is a "zunzie"?

The 7mm mag that I owned and the ones I've fired have kicked harder than my .270's and been louder. If it only performs as well as a .270 it sure has a strange way of going about it.

I spent many years hunting with a Mark V in .300 Wby before switching to a Sendero in 7mm Rem. I still have--and love--both rifles, and they've piled up a ton of game.

What finally got me to gravitate toward standard cartridges (love the 280s) was fatigue from toting a 10 lb plus rifle--even just from the truck to the stand as we tend to do here in the south. I've really learned to appreciate the qualities of a good-handling rifle of modest weight. I've also learned to scale down the objectives and magnification of my scopes, which, like many, had begun to border on the absurd.

I will say this: I cannot understand how anyone finds the recoil of the 7mm RM objectionable, even in a standard weight rifle, and I've never found the 300 Wby to be a bad kicker. BAD is a 3.5" turkey load from the patterning bench.

Petzal doesn't like the "hit 'em again 7",maybe hes got a good reason!

I seem to recall reading that the 7mm RemMag is one of those cartridges that occasionally displays erratic pressures and that is the reason the ammo makers have backed off a bit.

I definitely recall that Petzal had a really gorgeous classic-stocked 7mm Wby from the custom shop at one time, so it's not like he doesn't like big 7s. Could be that like of lot of us on the wrong side of 60, he doesn't like getting slapped around as much as he used to, or carrying a 10lb rifle when a 7 pounder will do the job.

If he gets paid to stir the pot, I'd say he earned his money this time.

Ok TexasRick, that was funny!

Mike the 7 Rem Mag kicks a bit more than a 270 because it burns 6-10 gr more powder,and uses generally heavier bullets.But compared to the 300 magnums it recoils less because its bullets are slightly lighter.

Garden variety handloads in 7 Rem Mag get 3000-3050 with a 160;about what you get with those same handloads in a 300 Win Mag with 180's.With many powders,charges are a bit lighter to get those velocities with a 160 gr bullet. In the same weight rifle,you get a bit less recoil from the 7mm.

As John Burns points out, the 7mm Rem Mag(and others in the same class)balance a lot of different things nicely.

A "zunzie" is a knucklehead.

You made my day!! Thnx.

Texas Rick,


Spot on!

This discussion doesn't talk much of rifle weight nor recoil pads.

Geez, gunwriters stepping on someone's feelers--they should be regulated!

While I handload and prefer the 7mmWB case, for non-handloaders the 7RM is a good choice as a factory round and available everywhere. More of a +P 270/280 than a mag.

The factory ammo (run thru a chrono here) gave a good account of itself, outran 270/280 factory ammo by a good margin and doesn't kick you into next week--good choice for all things hooved in the hills.

I pLayed with a couple of 7 mags in my youth. The Rem. was heavy and not any more impressive when compared to the .270 or '06.

My Wby. version was an early Weatherby built Mauser, light, trim, and wore an extra 6/10" of free bore. It could digest huge amounts of powder with no ill effect. The gun was not super accurate, but plenty accurate for deer hunting to out way out there. With a 160, it truly was an impressive killer. Alas, this was in my gun of the month period, although I hunted it for one whole season, so after the season it was traded for something else.

Jack
I no longer own any belted cartridges.

there is a pressure thing, related at long range to some funny impacts on target range. That seems to be fairly common on anything 7mm above say the 284 win or the 7wsm actually had a good 1000 yard or more record, but above those you can get some weirdness at times.

Not enough that it would bother me on average distance and game size targets though.

Actually if you have to hit em again with a 7, you should take shooting lessons before wasting time on the internet posting BS

Rost, I agree and could say the same for 30-30 or 243

Yeah that was classic!

Who needs dick enhancement surgery or boner pills when you can just buy a 7 em em or 3 hunnert magnum rifle!

You can always tell "that guy" down here when you ask him what he shoots and he says "semmm milumeter maaaaag! He kinda draws out the maaaaaag part as if it is code to tell you he is "the man" who slays deer by day, ladies by night, and terrorists in his spare time!

Best one ever was I was at my gym and I struck up a conversation about hunting with a young man. He asked me what I shot. I said 30-06 and he said "that's a nice little gun"! So of course I asked him what he shot and his answer was 300 Ultra Mag. The word "idiot" flashed across my mind but I'm polite, especially in situations where roid rage might be a factor, so I said something nice like "wow, that's a lot of gun". He said yeah, I don't really need it but my buddy has a 7mm Ultra Mag and I got sick of hearing him brag about it!

A more honest youngster I never met!

Honorable mention magnum story....

I ran across another young fella who liked hunting. I asked him what he used. He said "most fellas like them thirty aught sisses and she oh eights but I shoot a three hunnert maaaaag cause I like to put em DOWN in their tracks....nuthin worse than havin to track one!

I decided not to tell him I was shooting a thirty aught sis and on days when I was feeling particularly girlie, liked to use a 30-30! I just gave the obligatory "I hear ya man" and let it lay

Now you have to understand I live in an area where a 180 lb buck is a "monster" and 200 yards is a long shot.....in other words 30-30 country. I am so glad that there are so many calibers and cartridges.....otherwise all this fun would be missed.