Originally Posted by jryoung
You may have seen my previous posts about my load development for my 7RM. After significant testing of Barnes bullets (140 and 150 TTSX, and 145 LRX) and powders (RL19, RL22, IRM7828, H4831SC) I was able to settle on 66.5 grains of 22 pushing the new(er) 145LRX on my 7RM. It was running at 3,100 FPS out of my 700 with a 24" tube and consistently shooting under MOA.

I recently went on a 10 day hunt with Stone Mountain Safaris out of Toad River BC (Mile 422 on the ALCAN) and shot a nice 6x6 elk. I'll do a full trip report elsewhere, but I thought I'd do a tidbit on the bullets performance.

When we got to the lodge we checked our rifles and made sure we were still dialed in. After the 100 yard group test I launched one out to a small 1/2" steel plate at 285 yards. The Leupold BDC dial held true, and the bullet left a mark...a good mark.

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I hit the plate with my Dad's 300wby (shooting 180gr TSX at 3,200fps) as well (high left shot was his)

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Backside, that 300 WBY really hits
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Not sure if there was anything left of my bullet and it just fell out of the steel. If you look at the WBY shot, there is still a good deal of the base and boattail left, though it is a much longer bullet).

Long story short (I'll leave the suspense for the full trip report), we got on a bull that bugled mid-day when his lady friend got up for a snack. As we stalked in closer and he ran around a hillside after her we closed the distance to an even 300 yards.

The result....one dead elk.

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As I looked closer at his far side shoulder I noticed this
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I knew exactly what it was
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Two shots, both stopped by his skin on the far side, fantastic mushroom and even better performance.
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When I was working up my loads Dad said "Those 145s are pretty light", he commented 3 or 4 times between the kill and the trip home how impressed he was with their performance at 300 yards.

Anyway, I thought I'd share, I guess all that work this summer and contemplation really paid off.







Congrats on the bull...and suprised the bullets didn't exit!