SRM would be a blast but agree that its outside the realm of "most" hunters.
I know alot more guys that feel 300y is a longshot, than those that actually even think about shooting farther.
For longrange hunting or SRM, the 7RM would be great but am I reading it correctly that there are qty = 61 targets at SRM? Seems that many guys are going with a lighter rifle these days, not heavier. 61 rounds from field positions might wear on a fella shooting a light magnum.
If I copied the range card correctly, these are the distances below. RED values are those above 400y which is my arbitrary range for the average dude, you may think otherwise. GREEN are those 400y or less. Doesn't seem like this course would benefit many average-joes, unless they skipped some targets which could still be a hoot. And to shoot 400y the average dude, with the average rifle/scope/load, would need to zero high at 100y and hold high at 400y or use dotz, yeah?
So taking the SRM out of the equation, and setting a 300-400y limit on range... how bad is the 270 Win vs. the 7RM? I thought that was the intent of the article and OP's question.
Kicker is..... 90% of those under 400 are 6".... or shot off sticks. You have no margin for error on wind.... all day. So yeah, it's still enough better that it'd cost you. Extrapolate from that what you wish. Enough to miss a critter... maybe, depends on the critter.
I wish I had 7 Rem .625/3k performance. But, as you pointed out it is 60 rounds... and I wanted to shoot it with my main stick. The .260/123s was nice to shoot, but I was done after 60 rounds.... and my shooting on the back half reflected it. There's no way I could do it with a sub-9lb 7 Rem... 3 stages tops.
Also, there are an additional 16 from 400 to 500, which I feel is a reasonable BG cut-off for someone familiar with their rifle. I'd love to run it with a squad of guys shooting sub-9lb hunting sticks, off packs, no electronics.... just a range card and a drop chart. Under that format 45 would be impressive shooting
Dogshooter,
SRM would be a hoot for sure with light hunting rigs.
I'm planning a local shoot with buddies here in OR. Going to have closerange movers like what Goat mentioned. Thinking ziplines. Would like some pop-ups too, but we haven't figure those out yet.
I like the idea of identifying targets under stress of time constraints too. We'll probably limit range to 500-600y as this seems most practical to us. None of us carry 9lb rifles, or even 8lbs rifles.
