re. the recoil discussion, I got curious and plugged some #s into one of the online recoil calculators
assuming equal powder charges and weight guns, a 160gr out of a 7mm WSM recoils about 5% less than a 180gr 300 WSM, depending on which recoil parameter you look at
http://stevespages.com/brecoil.shtmlusing the Federal nosler partition loads, assuming same powder charges...
160 at 3160fps from 7.5 lb gun w/ 70gr charge gives
26.94 ft-lbs
14.96 f/s
3.6 lb/s
180 gr at 2975 fps from 7.5 lb gun, also 70 gr charge gives
29.03
15.53
3.74
not a big difference, but the recoil formula is incorporates bullet momentum rather than energy, explaining why even though muzzle energy is similar for the loads, recoil is lower for the 7 using the lighter bullet
anyway, the recoil issue is somewhat hair splitting but I like the idea of a 7 WSM because of the better vel. and energy retention downrange, as someone else noted earlier
also has the highest powder capacity of all the short mags by a smidge due to shoulder further forward