Just received my new Mountain ss in 7mm-08, mounted a leupold vx-2 3x9x40 silver, in leupold silver mounts and set to the range. Shot 2 groups of 140 grain ppu box ammo, 4 shots a piece to get her sighted in and had 2 inch groups, not real happy. Then started working on a load, started with hornady 139 grain soft point interlocks, varget powder, and cci large rifle magnums with my once fired ppu brass.tried 4 different loads...39.0,40.0,41.0, and 42.0, with the best group being 1 7/8 with 4 shots, now I am really getting piss#d. I have always had good luck with Remington 700's, however have never owned a 700 in a 7mm-08 and have never had great luck with loading for a 7mm-08. At this point I decided to change powder and give her another try. Resorted to google and what others have had luck with in their 7mm-08's, and there was a lot of people who stated h4895, sooooo thats what I tried. Was running short on light so I only had an opportunity to shoot one group, h4895 37.1 grains with the same combo as above, and finally I see some light. 3 shots were a ragged hole, a .286 group with a small flier, making the total group size 1.089 for 4 shots at 100 yards. I am going to go up .5 grains and down .5 grains tomorrow or tuesday, the next time I get a chance to shoot, and see if I cant get them all to touch. Overall, with the exception of the wrist being a little chunky, the 700 mountain ss is one of the best balanced as well as best handling rifles I have owned. It feeds very well, has a real smooth bolt, looks very good, and now I am figuring out it will shoot as well. I will update and post some range pics once I do the remainder of my load development. Real world weight with the scope and mounts is approx 7 lbs empty, with a short action and a 22 inch barrel, to sum up my report, if any one has been contemplating getting a mountain ss, i would definitely give the go ahead, it is already becoming one of my favorite rifles.

Thanks for the great post - I'm a fan of Remington and a bigger 7MM-08 fan so nice to know how these perform!!
Any pics of your rig??

Glad to here you are getting somewhere with it look forward to pics. As I am also interested in this gun

You have a nice rifle there, I would jump all over one Myself but I can't get by that thick chunky pistol grip on the B&C stock................Hb

Try 41 grains of Reloader 15 with that 139 Hornady. Of course work up.

I have a 799 Mountain Rifle in 7mm-08 and its a pretty little rifle. Its a walnut/blue version. Who knows what will happen now that I have a 7x57.

Never fired factory ammo in mine. It does quite well with many different handload combinations though.

303--you are one lucky guy to have snagged that rifle!

Nice rifle you've got there 303. I have the twin to Klik's laminated 7-08 that is just sitting in the corner of the safe waiting on a new McM handle. So far its looking like R15 is the powder for mine. H414 was horrible accuracy wise. I'll also be trying some Varget, CFE223, and BL-C2 with 120gr. TTSX

My Kampfeld Custom 7-08 liked a max load of H414 and 120gr. TSXS.

My LSS Mountain likes this same charge with 140 SGKs. Shoots 3/4" at 100.

7 pounds seems like a pretty heavy rendition of a short-action mountain rifle.

That B&C stock must be a pig. Swapped for a Brown or an Edge, and it would be in business.

7 pounds dont sound very heavy with the scope and mounts.

One of, if not THE most universally successful 7-08 loads available is 45.0gr Varget and a 120 NBT. If a 7-08 won't shoot that load (or the same with RE15) just go ahead and trade it in.

PPU brass is not the foundation of an accurate and consistent load, btw. Before you get too frustrated buy a bag of Winchester for your work up.

Buy some LC Match 308 and make your own brass. It's quite easy. And vastly better than Win or Rem and such.

I had best luck with Varget in mine. I mostly used 154 Horneys.

Varget or Big Game...

If it won't shoot BT's of Hornadies, your rifle has issues...

That sounds like a nice rifle. I'm surprised they come in that light.... very cool.

I bought one last fall in 308 Win. carried it most season killed a nice doe with it

Neither if my 3 7-08s cared for varget. One loves re-15 and the other two like win 760 and big game,

I tried .5 up and .5 down with bad results, reshot 37.1 grains of h4895 (in 17 mph wind gusts), and had a 1.204 4 shot group, so I know I have a load that shoots moa in good conditions with me doing my part. I have a small amount of reloader 15, so I figure I will try 2 or 3 loads with that and then decide whether I am happy with 1 moa. Definitely deer ready, just a matter of how long I want to screw with it to try to shrink it .3 or .4 inches. A couple people stated that if your rifle doesn't shoot xyc powder than get rid of it......I appreciate everyones response but isn't that what load workup is for, if we knew what powder and load worked in every gun we would just load that powder and load and save a lot of time, money, and supplies. If I find that special load I'll report back. Lenny

In your first post you wrote you've never had good luck loading this cartridge. Have you always used the same set of dies and/or same lot of brass?

same set of dies, have used different lots of brass; Winchester, Remington, and now ppu. If there was a better shooter behind the rifle it may help

I wonder if there is a chronic runout issue?

You need to get a concentricity gage and check you ammo before you write it off as a 1 MOA rifle. It may well be though, my Mt. Rifle was a 1- 1.25 MOA rifle until I did a LOT of work to it. Now it really shoots well- closer to 1/2 MOA but it is on the 3rd barrel and all kinds of action work as well as pillar bedded. The stupid rubber donut thingy shaved a 1/4" from my groups!