Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Information Please - Art Mashburn custom 7mm Super Mag

Gentlemen i have been offered this gun in trade and i do not know enough about it. This site comes up under google search and i read a couple posts you had related and was hoping you could give me more insight into what i have here. Thank you for any help.

I have been told that this rifle is an original Art Mashburn custom rifle that was bought new and safe kept for at least the last 30 years by original owners. It is stamped 7mm super magnum and comes with 1 box of ammo as well as mounted scope. I have been told it is in pristine condition as well.

What i would like to know is 1. idea of value 2. type of rifle it is built off of 3. quality and collectivity 4. any worries or concerns about this rifle 5. just how much of a pita is the caliber going to be to get/reload since that appears the only option.

Thanks again if you can help out at all.

pictures were sent thru facebook and are not great quality. but these 3 are all i have to work with at the moment.

Cool as hell rifle!! I can't help on much but it appears to built on a commercial mauser action...note the flat face on the underside of the bolt knob as well as other tell-tale mauser features.

Hopefully BobinNH will see this as he is fond of the 7mm Mashburn and extremely knowledgeable; it might be worth PMing him.

Killa: How much you want for it?

32-20: Thanks for kudos but I am not sure about the "knowledgeable" part. But I do like the cartridge.


killa: I have never personally held an Art Mashburn custom but his shop had a good reputation back in the day, that being the 50's and 60's far as I know. I suspect the rifle is built on an FN commercial action.

The rifle appears from the pictures to be something of a duplicate of Warren Page's (gun writer for Field& Stream) Mashburn custom which was named "Old Betsy",was also chambered for the 7mm Mashburn Super, and which he used world wide on many hunts in Africa, North America,parts of Asia,and possibly other places I can't recall.

For its time, the cartridge was interesting.Art Mashburn actually made 3 wildcat 7mm magnums, far as I know;one about the same length as the 7mm Rem Mag, one on a full length H&H case, and one of intermediate length with a case about like the 300 Win Mag.

He found the intermediate length cartridge to be the most "efficient" of the three,his objective being a cartridge capable of starting a 175 gr bullet at over 3000 fps.Because it was the most efficient, he called it the "Super".

It should be pointed out that the cartridge design predates the 7mm Rem Mag,the 7mm STW, and the 300 Winchester mag.

The 7mm Mashburn Super was originally formed by shortening, necking down, and blowing out,300 H&H cases. This can still be done, of course, but today, we use 300 Win Mag cases run through Form/Trim dies.The case still needs to be blown out very slightly to reach full Mashburn Super dimensions.

Far as I know, Bob Hagel,the late gun writer, was among the first form the cases from 300 Win Mag brass. He also had a 7mm Mashburn Super and used it extensively in North America on everything from antelope to Yukon moose and grizzly.

Today the cartridge is duplicated or exceeded by more current designs, but practically speaking, not by much. Ballistically it is quite as "modern" as about anything out there in terms of bullet speed.

I have a rifle chambered for the cartridge,a custom on a M70 built by Gene Simillion of Gunnison, Colorado. You can expect velocities of over 3000 fps with 175 gr bullets, and 3150-3250 with a 160 gr . Some guys today have stuck 26-28" barrels on them and run 180 Bergers at 3100 fps....not bad for an antiquated design. Actually a lot of 7mm magnums just play catch up.

But it is a wildcat, unlikely to ever be factory adopted,and so carries the burden of case forming. This will bug some people but I'm not one of them.

If all this sounds like too much bother,feel free to contact me about it. Subject to reasonable terms, I may be interested in the rifle.

Wow-oh-Wow-oh-Wow!

Holy smokes. Or perhaps Holy Grail! A lovely little safe queen. She looks like she's ready to take a Royal trip into the field.

Great little write-up, Bob. Your knowledge of this caliber trumps everyone else on the Fire.

Son/ HuntN: She sorta drips old school nostalgia,doesn't she?

If I were the OP I would grab it and hold on.

But if he wants to discuss it, I'll be happy to help him out.

Good stuff Bob, thanks for posting!!

Nostalgia. Yep, Bob, that is the word. That's a connoisseur's rifle.

K G -

First of all, WELCOME to the 'fire', what an entrance! <G>
That's the first pic I've seen of an original Mashburn.

BobNH -

Thanks for the backdrop on the 'Super'.

Hagel huh? Imagine that. friendly sarcasm.

jwall: Yeah Hagel! Imagine that! LOL! he knew a thing or two about the cartridge.

I know zero about the cartridge, but that's some nice looking wood!

The stock looks disgusting. Reminds me of one of those old Model 700 BDL stocks with those white spacers.

Yes it does look like an older 700.

When was this rifle made?
Norm for the time.

1950's-1960's?

Man.... I'd give up a whole bunch of my crap for that rifle.

That's the rifle and cartridge which assisted to set me on this pat of looneyism I suffer from today....

Love the 7mm Mashburn Super. What Bob says is easy stuff too. Nothing hard about making it work and really easily as well.

Thank you for the information. I don't have a lot of history on older builders and oddball cartridges.

The rifle was offered as trade towards an AR i have, the guy with the 7mm Mashburn wants 1500 in trade value and i just couldn't begin to know if that was reasonable or not.

I have not made a deal so it is not currently mine. And if i do get it most likely would just be a safe queen so not really sure it is for me.

Is 1500 a fair number, would it be a great deal, or simply too much to risk on this rifle ?

killa: I would say that's a fair deal....at least to me it would be.

As I stated previously if you would like to sell it after you do your deal, I would be interested; that is if you decide you don't want to keep it yourself.

You can contact me via personal message on here if you like.

That rifle needs to kill something. Art & Warren would agree.

Put me in line behind Bob.

Son: Sitting there....all these years. Wow!

Bob, starting in the early '70s, I would go to the old Mashburn Arms, sad to say, I was too young, uninformed & enamored with handguns to know what a shrine of loonyism it was. I'm sure Art was gone by then and I don't recall any talk about custom rifles, but they had lots of neat stuff for a broke college student to dream about.

I had a similar experience when Hallowell & Co. were still located in Greenwich, CT. Also in college lusting after a full custom Ottmar in .30-06. Price was $3500...may as well have been 10k.

That first trip was the catalyst for my love of custom walnut rifles.

Son/Gael: I had similar experiences. Lots of the great old shops are gone.I visited Griffin&Howe in NY several times on trips down there,back when they were located with Abercrombie& Fitch. I could not afford their stuff either, myself.

We used to make an annual run to Hallowell's in Greenwich to kill a winters day each year.Hallowells was filled with rifles by top end makers,and of course G&H made their own. When I think of the prices compared to today,it makes me cringe....but it's all relative I suppose.

Man, that is true stuff right there!

Bob, I still have a little of kids college fund left, maybe we can share it every other Fall..

Those old rifles were made to hunt. The Mashburn was made to be in the mountains chasing after elk and muleys. Heck, we thought today was filled with niche cartridges...

Scotty I don't think Killa wants to sell it. Think he was just looking for info. No response to PM's.

You'd think he would just come back and say "Hi".

Either way, I hope whatever happens with it, he takes it hunting.

Heck, I'd love to send him some of the 160 AB loads I have for mine, I bet they'd be close enough for him to torch 3 off and see what the old rifle does..

It would be a shame not to hunt that rifle.

After much haggle and hassle with the previous owner i did finally acquire the Mashburn 7mm super mag a couple weeks ago. I just got back in town and got a chance to take some decent pictures. With exception to a few indents in the stock (which is otherwise very gorgeous) the rifle does seem to be in excellent shape and the blue is very nice. I also got 1 complete box of vintage ammo with load data on it and it came with original vintage weaver scope.

Also i will note the trigger on this thing is insanely light.
I would venture to say under 1 lb. it is certainly light.

Lots of pictures and you can blow them up as well.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/59pe24agj4a168s/AACNlpqaukJjj0oVa99zm0V1a?dl=0

BTW guys i wasnt ignoring any posts or messages but i have been in and out of town lately with little time to chat. Sorry for not responding.

K G -

Gorgeous rifle !!!!!!

Original Mashburn at that.

Congrats!!

What a great find! I hope it shoots the same way it looks!

for anyone interested i did post this rifle as for sale on the classifieds section