I always have the inferior cartridges! .308 win when I should have had a 7-08, now .257 Roberts when I should have had a .243, thankfully I sold my .270win a long time ago.
Easy choice: if you were born March 8, then the .308 is IT. If you were born July 8, then the 7-08 is IT. Born anywhere else flip a coin and be happy with the result.
I believe a sound argument can be made for the 7/08 if the rifle is for a small-statured man/youth/female, hunting whitetails. I say that because of the reputation of the Nosler 120gr BT. Of course, the 130gr Triple Shock is a great bullet as well in 30cal. A 308 is never a bad choice though. Neither is a 260, or a 243. The 7/08 is the smallest cartridge that should reasonably be considered for bears or plains game, IMO.
I know a guy who put together a 700 in 308, in a Lone Wolf stock with a Pacnor (IIRC) 16in braked barrel. It wore a 1-4X Leupold and was as handy as a pocket on a shirt. I watched her shoot a hundred rounds through it in a class and she was lightning fast and didn't miss much. She'd dumped a bevy of plains game in Africa the year prior with one round per critter and minimal tracking. Few of us need more.
4321 Tell it like it is man! And that is just if the whitetails are small, and shot at close range from a good rest! Even first year hunters are better off with at least an /06 for deer, and if they are really big deer, a 338 is not too big. People don't feel recoil when they shoot at animals anyway, and more power is always better to make up for a bad shot. For elk, the 338 is just the starting point, if used with premium bullets, especially if you are a non resident hunter who only has five or six days to hunt or if you haven't had time to practice a lot.
Practicing with a rifle is simply a waste of money and good ammunition. When you put the scope on the gun it is aligned with the bore in any quality firearm, once on the rifle its a simple point and click interface. Only a complete numb-nuts cannot pull a trigger when the 20 power scope is aligned to the animals midsection.
4321 Tell it like it is man! And that is just if the whitetails are small, and shot at close range from a good rest! Even first year hunters are better off with at least an /06 for deer, and if they are really big deer, a 338 is not too big. People don't feel recoil when they shoot at animals anyway, and more power is always better to make up for a bad shot. For elk, the 338 is just the starting point, if used with premium bullets, especially if you are a non resident hunter who only has five or six days to hunt or if you haven't had time to practice a lot.
Try to be a tad more flowery and verbose and you could be a gunwriter, at least you could've 20-30yrs ago. No-nothing gun salesman abetted by such gun-writers have sold countless uber-magnums to many such poor souls for decades.
Barsness started poking holes in the uber-magnum theory quite some time ago, to his credit.
I always liked Seyfried but he was always FOS about over-bore cannons, and even he's recanted in his later years. He used to love to poke fun at 308 lovers.
4321 Tell it like it is man! And that is just if the whitetails are small, and shot at close range from a good rest! Even first year hunters are better off with at least an /06 for deer, and if they are really big deer, a 338 is not too big. People don't feel recoil when they shoot at animals anyway, and more power is always better to make up for a bad shot. For elk, the 338 is just the starting point, if used with premium bullets, especially if you are a non resident hunter who only has five or six days to hunt or if you haven't had time to practice a lot.
Try to be a tad more flowery and verbose and you could be a gunwriter, at least you could've 20-30yrs ago. No-nothing gun salesman abetted by such gun-writers have sold countless uber-magnums to many such poor souls for decades.
Barsness started poking holes in the uber-magnum theory quite some time ago, to his credit.
I always liked Seyfried but he was always FOS about over-bore cannons, and even he's recanted in his later years. He used to love to poke fun at 308 lovers.
How cute. He's making fun of you and you don't get it.
P
Obey lawful commands. Video interactions. Hold bad cops accountable. Problem solved.
Maybe this belongs in another thread,but I have found that you have to read everything any gun writer wrote before you can try to pigeon-hole his preferences.
Guys like Seyfried,Barsness Shoemaker, etc may have preferences of their own, but are mindful of the virtues of a wide variety of cartridges.Seyfried, for example,used not only some very big bangers (various 300 and 338 magnums,the 416's,500 Nyati (sp?) etc.) but also wrote glowingly about the small 6.5's,the 270,7x57,280 etc. He actually used them all and was pretty realistic about their role in the scheme of things.
We tend to glean from these guys what we want to hear;so I don't so much see guys like Johnny B and Seyfried blowing holes in magnum performance (which in the right hands and circumstances can be fabulous and a big help),but helping those suffering caliber conundrums to understand the performance parameters of various cartridges.
If there were no virtue whatsoever to larger cartridges, we would safely take the 375 Winchester or 38-55 against Cape Buffalo and brown bear....I can think of better ways to spend my time.
My take on the role of gun writer, due to some years of doing what John Wootters called "real journalism" (he mostly excluded gun writing) is to try as much stuff as possible, and watch other people try stuff as well, so see what happens with them. And the best way to communicate both experiences is to explain the steps along the way.
One of my editors once observed that anybody who's only used the .30-06 can't write a useful article on the .30-06, no matter how long and wide their experience with the cartridge, because they have no perspective.
While some gun writers do only write about their personal tastes and prejudices, the only reason anybody would read their stuff is to confirm their similar tastes and prejudices. Quite a few writers (and not just gun writers) have made a good living doing exactly that. But if we really want to learn stuff, in any aspect of life, it's necessary to expand our education and experience.
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck
John, you're welcome. That's honestly the way I see things.
As an amateur hunter/shooter I (the rest of us)have the luxury of getting starry eyed and emotional over my (our) own choices of cartridges/bullets etc., but pro's like yourself don't have that luxury since you have to objectively analyze merits and drawbacks to lots of different cartridges.
I would expect that gun writers,being human, have their favorites,cartridges they prefer. But the readers expect objective analysis,which in turn requires wider experience....some of them any way.
I often thought, for example, that JOC got painted with the 270 by his readers as much as his own writings. Even though he used a bunch of different cartridges,he built a cult following around the cartridge,so his readers expected him to use it,even where he knew there was better stuff.
But if you read everything he wrote, you quickly realize where he felt it fit into the cartridge spectrum,and said so if you listened....but many readers didn't.
I cannot imagine the 7-08 would recoil much less than the 308 win, was wondering if there was enough difference in the two to justify a 7-08 over the 308 in a Kimber Montana. I reload so bullets of even 110 grains are available in 30 cal.
If you are going to hunt in non-dangerous game country, then the 7mm08 will do fine, but if you hunt in dangerous game country (e.g., grizzly or polar bear country), then I'd want the heaviest bullet in the 308 Winchester, or better yet, a 35 Whelen.
Nothing wrong with the 308. I just am a 7mm-08 slut from way back. 
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