As I've been reading through one of my Christmas gifts, a Nosler No. 6 reloading manual, I read the intro to the 7mm RM that John Nosler wrote. He doesn't talk specifically about the 7mm RM, but he talks about taking a 300 H&H case, cutting it back to fit in a .30-06 length action, and necking it down to 7mm. Is he claiming the design and development of the 7mm RM in this intro or just talking about a wildcat 7mm he put together?

From what I remember reading Les Bowman and Oconner had a hand in testing it for Remington and I'm sure offering advice. kotzy

The 7 mm Rem Mag was not the first standard length 7 mm magnum on the H&H case. The Weatherby and Sharpe and Hart come to mind. JMO, Dutch.

Warren Page used a wildcat 7mm Mashburn Magnum, which got a lot of press from him. This could have had some influence on Remington; he seems to have claimed it in some of his writings.

Certainly Les Bowman claimed to have developed and tested it, and then personally pitched it to Remington. I have no basis to doubt him. Other people may have played around with it, or variation of it, for some time before that on a wildcat basis.

Or maybe Roy Weatherby had something to do with it.
Maybe he tried it out and saw no difference between what he already had and what he wanted and so he gave up the idea because there was already too many rounds to produce for his rifle that one more wasn't going to make a whole lot of difference in the grand scheme of things.

How to compare .277 and .284 would be like trying to compare red apples to yellow apples.

I'm sure that Remington had a whole team of experts that were working to design something new which would help out their new gun sales - which were almost flat around about 1959 when there was a big recession and new guns were not selling well.

Yep, the 7mm Remington Magnum was just a logical extension of a long line of 7mm magnums that could fit in a .30-06 length magazine.

The final Remington round was essentially developed by Remington. Les Bowman had one of the first prototype rifles (made on a Rem. 721 action, as I recall) and tested it in the field during his outfitted elk hunts in Wyoming, often having clients use the rifle. I also recall that Wayne Leek, of Remington, was involved in the project. He went hunting with Bowman several times.

Jack O'Connor probably reported on the new round and rifle, but he wasn't a big booster. Warren Page was probably the gunwriter who had more to do with getting one of the major companies to finally bring out a commercial belted 7mm Magnum, due his long use and boosting of the 7mm Mashburn wildcat.

One puzzler is that the 7mm Remington Magnum is the .264 Winchester necked up, or the .338 Winchester necked down, take your pick. Thus the 7mm RM became by far the most popular commercial round on the basic Winchester case.

Another mystery is why Winchester brought out the .264 instead of a 7mm, when there was already a lot of pent-up demand for a well-distrubuted 7mm magnum among American shooters. This was mostly due to Warren Page, but also due to the 7mm Wby. and S&H. There was zip interest in a 6.5 magnum at the time.

But Page was more closely associated with Remington, primarily because of nchrest shooting. No doubt his closeness to Remington had some influence on Winchester's decision, though they also introduced the .243, essentially due to Warren Page's popularizing of 6mm wildcats, and it was also very close to one of his designs.

Say what?

Lee24...

Duquensebeer, the Campfire master of the non sequitur, strikes again.

I think this is how it translates....

It has been a long time, and my memory, along with a lot of other things is failing (or failed).

Mule Deer asks why Win. came out with a 6.5 instead of a 7 MM, and why the 7MM Rem. became the most popular cartridge based on that case. I think the .308 and .358 Norma also used similiar cases.

IIRC, Win. tried to develop a cartridge that would be useful on both large game and varmits. The 100 grain bullet for varmits and the 140 grain for larger game.

Also, IIRC, the 100 grain, if that is what it was, had too much noise and recoil and probably didn't work as well as a .243 on varmits.

Then, the 140 grain wasn't all that good on larger game. I think I remember one writer describing it as Win. trying to develope a cartridge that was usefull for both fish and fowl, but ended up with a cartridge that wasn't very good for either.

One thing I have never quite understood is why someone didn't neck the 7mm case Rem. down to .270. Weatherby did, with his line of cartridges, and the .270 Wby. became very popular among people who like this caliber.

A .270 magnum might not have replaced the .270 Win., but I think shooters who want a little more velocity than they can get from a .270 would have liked it.

Sort of like the edge the 7mm Mag. gives over the .280 Rem.

If I were younger and able to hunt again, I think I could come to like a .270 caliber 140 grain Nosler with a muzzle velocity of about 3150 FPS. Antelope and deer on the plains would freeze in their tracks and shudder at the mere mention of it.

IIRC, Remington's Mike Walker had an important role in the 7mm's coming to market. Winchester certainly dropped the ball when they came with the 264 rather than a 7mm...a "small" detail that I'm betting haunts them to this day, given the 7mm's huge popularity since the day it hit the market.

That would be the 270WSM...

Or a Ruger No. 1B in .270 Winchester.

Though personally I doubt that a deer would ever notice the difference in a 130-grain bullet at 3150 (which can be done with a standard .270 from a 24" barrel) and a 140 at the same velocity. This is based on a few animals taken here and there with both the .270 Winchester and .270 WSM.

I remember Ken Waters in Pet Loads praising Winchester on their work but felt they erred going with .264 instead of .284. I think he said something along the lines of it was, after all a big game cartridge...

They took Winchester's case and made one of the most successful cartridges ever from it...ouch.

Maybe I'm confused, but the idea of a large-case 7mm round goes a lot farther back than the 1950-1969 period. Was thinking of the .275 H&H......it wasn't until more modern powders appeared that the 7mm Magnum idea reallt took off, but the idea was the same.

Jack OConner wrote of having a 275 H&H built and he ended up giving it to Les Bowman if I remember correctly. Also the Les Bowman rifles barrel I believe was marked 280 Remington Magnum.

Before that there were a slew of 7mm magnums, Dubiel, Ross, Mashburn, Apex, Halger, Newton, a french military prototype, OKH and many others.

Was the Sharpe and Hart 7mm fairly close to 7mm Rem Mag ballistics, by any chance?

Pretty close IIRC.

Fred Huntington, who founded RCBS, necked Winchester's "new" short magnum case to .284 and I believe he called it the 280 RCBS Belted Magnum. He knew Bowman and loaned that rifle to Bowman. I believe Huntington and JOC had hunted elk with Bowman several seasons earilier.

The 7RM case was necked to .277. A gunsmith in Pocatello Idaho had the reamer made within 12 months of the introduction of the 7RM. Nothing new. He also had a 6mm-06 Improved in 1965.

The 275 H&H was introduced in late 1911 or early 1912. It did utilize .287" bullets though...

Identical according to my Hornady manual.

Who cares who developed the 7mm Rem mag; it was definately not rocket science. Someone was the first person to stick a 7mm bullet in the 264/338/458 Winchester mag case; that is all it is: nothing magic or genius.

Winchester probably is who developed it; they simply made a bad business decision going with the 264 over the 7mm.

Lee24 back in 1913

MasterBlaster developed the 7 Rem Mag....

That is the way I remember it. Winchester loaded the 275 H&H cartridge because I had a box which are considered collector items. I gave it to John Clark of Clark Brothers gun shop in Warrenton, Virginia, he had never seen or heard of the cartridge (275 H&H). As I recall Oconnor had a 275 H&H made up for him and in larer years a pre-64 70 made in 7mm Mag made for him as well. Les Bowmans clients would hunt "Elk Heaven" in Wyoming with him included Wayne Leek of Remington who was the design/marketing force behind the Remington 700 and Remington 1100 shotgun.

Les Boman and Wayne Leek on disagreed on the rate of twist of the new 7mm Mag. Les felt the 1/10 was fine but Remington settled on the 1/9.5

Doc

The real problem is that no-one can say "Hell, I was there" any more.

Rifle Magazine #103 January- Feb issue 1986 features an article by Bob Hagel on the 7mm Mashburn Super Magnum. In it on page 27 he discusses his conversations with Warren Page between Page and Remington's Mike Walker. about the Remington's adoption of it with modifications. He indicated that Mike Walker was a major player of it's final form.WP had had been pushing Rem in the direction of the 264 necked up as a couple of other wildcatters had allready done.These guys were all part of the movers who did the job. I don't think it was the effort of JUST 1 person. Magnum Man

Exactly! Not much different in Winchester's decision not to neck to the 30 caliber in the same case and letting the Norma Magnum beat them to it with the 308 Norma Mag, thus forcing them to develop the 300 Win Mag for a 30 caliber mag in their lineup. It's not much different than Remington taking over the 22-250 after it had been a wildcat for many years. There were 4 years between the introduction of the 338 cases and Remington adopting the 7mm as their own. I'll bet there were quite a few of the 7mm/338's in use prior to that. It wasn't rocket science.

But a good move on Remington's part nonetheless.

That is also the way I remember it

Yes, ended up being probably a top five most popular caliber.

Shooter's Bible 1940 ballistics:

275 H&H 160 gr at 2675 fps.



Bruce

Not much better than a 7x57 Mauser?

The 7mm Mauser was 140 gr at 2900 fps and 173 gr at 2300 fps, British loads.

Bruce

I was thinking modern loads, 2600-2700 with a 160 grain bullet is doable out of a modern rifle at 30/06 or 7mm 08 pressures?

I shoot 160 NPT out of my #1 7x57, but do not have a chrony to check velocities.

Ben

Al Gore developed the 7mm RM magnum. Glad we got that one resolved.

During college in the mid 1950's, I had the passion for a custom 7mmMag as soon as I graduated in 1957 and could get some money together, I then had one built. Warren Page was THE most influential guy in my love for the 7mmMag, and I had thought that his 7mm Mashburn would be THE rifle I wanted. I think I read every article Page wrote about his 7mm Mashburn.
However, I also did a lot of research on the 7x61 Sharpe and Hart (Richard Hart, no relation to the Hart bbl family.) and liked it too.
After leaving school, I really wanted PO Ackley to build the rifle, and in talking with him about it, he suggested that his 7mm Ackley Mag was very close to the 7mm S&H and load data dould be used interchangeably. So, since PO was to be the rifle maker, I went with his version of the belted case 7mm. I formed cases from 300 H&H brass as I recall.
The 7mm Rem Mag has a case capacity of 117 gns of water, and the 7mm S&H was 111 gns of water. Can't put my fingers on Ackley's case capacity, but since loads with the 7 S&H can be interchanged, It was probably about that of the 7 S&H, 111 gns of water.
The case capacity of the 7 mm Mashburn is 112 gns of water, less than the Rem versions, and close enough to the other two shorter case mags, that performance is about the same.
I shot 160 and 175 gn bullets in the Ackley mag using surplus 4831 powder I bought in paper bags as sold by my local gunsmith, who had a real keg of the stuff and only had paper bags to use to sell it in..

I invented the 7mm RM, but never cared for the limelight. Was hung over when I did it and to this day find it mildly embarrassing.

"Better than a 7x57 Mauser" I have never seen that in print. Need to Digest that one.

Where's Ingwe?

Jw

DMB,

I think your case capacity numbers are off-kilter. The 7mm Rem. Mag runs about 83-84g.

The Mashburn is 90 gr. +/- on my .300 Win. based cases. 7 mm Weatherby is about 86-87 gr.

Thank God, I thought I had done it.

Here's what John T. Amber wrote in Gun Digest 1963, covering the new 7mm Rem Magnum, and also the new Remington 700:

"The biggest event of 1962, certainly as far as big game interest is concerned, was the bringing forth of two complementary items by Remington. These were the Model 700 rifles and the 7mm Magnum cartridge, both of which, by all accounts, are living up to the advance billing.

.....

"Big capacity 7mm wildcats have been the choice of numerous big game hunters for many years, going back to the old 276 and 280 Dubiels, then on to the 7mm Ackley, the 7mm-06, the 285 Luft, the 7mm Mashburn Magnum and others. The 7mm Mashburn has long been a top favorite of Warren Page, for example, who has used it with every success in all parts of the world, and on just about everything shootable except the largest of big game....

.....

Page, I feel sure, may be considered responsible in good part for the emergence of Remington's belted case magnum, along with Remington's Mike Walker. Mike is also an enthusiast for the 7mm, be it the new one or not....

......

Les Bowman of Cody, Wyo. who is as much of a rifle crank as he is a big game outfitter, has been working with prototypes of the new Remington 700 since a year ago or so, and recently with a production rifle. He has, of course, amassed a lot of reloading dope,..."

Don't know if that is definitive, but at least, that was the contemporary view of credit at the time.

I've shot my 7x57 exclusively since 1983, so I agree!

DMB: To lend perpsective to your good post on those older 7's,with today's powders in 24" barrels, the Mashburn is pretty much 3250 or so with the 160 gr bullets with pressures that "appear" normal,or at least not excessive;and the 175 is easily doing 305-3075 without "leaning" on it..

So far, H1000 and Retumbo are providing the fuel for these velocities.

This from two rifles we have back here,and both with 24" Kriegers.