Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting .270 Win or 7mm RM

+1 I'm sure glad I started elk hunting before the internet was invented, so I just bought a .30-06 and started killing elk.

My goodness. Finding the better elk round is hard (that's what she said...again).

I U that worried about recoil.


Buy a Ravin crossbow,

Well I'm not and no.

Tzone: I have actually Hunted AND killed Bull Elk with both calibers you are interested in - I would prefer you choose the 7m/m Remington Magnum with 160 grain Nosler Partition bullets for Elk - if adding Deer that bullet would do also but probably more energy than need be!
Best of luck to you.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Why not get the best of both worlds like I did and get a 270 Weatherby!

Elk Country

I have hunted with two 7MM RM's. Took one elk with the M700 Remington tuned but basically stock rifle. Worked just fine but the 90 yard shot really didn't test the round much though the 175 gr. Hornady Innerlok did not exit. I like the round and if a slightly heavier rifle doesn't bother you I don't see any reason not to get one. That said I have used the 270 and 30-06 more and find they did very well also. I would go out and handle some rifles chambered in either of the cartridges and pick the one you like best.

The .270 with 150 grain Nosler Partitions and the 7mm RM with 160 grain Partitions are so close in performance that the difference is hardly worth a discussion. A bore diameter difference of .007”, ballistic coefficients of .465 vs. .475, velocity difference of less than 100 fps. I too have killed elk and deer with both and honestly can’t see a difference in effect. The only big difference is the weight of the rifle; that’s why I no longer own a 7mm RM and own three .270s. But that’s just preference. You can easily work a 7mm RM into an 8 to 8 1/4# rifle, and there are lots of happy campers who use them. Angels dancing on the head of a pin.

If I want a significant step up in power, I reach for one of the 300s (my particular pet is a custom pre-war Model 70 in 300 Win Mag), shooting a slippery 200 grain bullet at 2950 fps. Increasingly, I’m doubting the extra power is necessary, but I’m just fond of the rifle and take it along anyhow.

I started elk hunting as a kid with a .308 and it was enough gun to get it done in. Later in life, I used a .30-06 because I won it at a banquet and it was my favorite gun. Now that times have changed things a bit and I have plenty of guns to choose from I can tell you that I carried a Tikka T3 in 7mm Rem mag this last season. Mt back up rifle has been a custom savage that is chambered in 7.82 Lazzeroni Patriot, but this last year I took a Tikka T3 Ultralight in .270 as my back up gun. So I guess I took them both with me on the last outing.

How come you didn't pick up on the resulting error?

It would only take a reasonably competent ballistic tinkerer with rudimentary grasp of the science
to recognize or identify such a glaring error in results.



The glaring error in favor of .270cal you make and we're not able to identify, is more my point.
I made no blind dumb ass claims about 7mm ballistics like you did for .270win



If you used that wrong drop figure when taking a shot on elk 600 yds, compounded with some human error
movement from the operator behind the rifle butt,..how would you fair?

Why didn't I pick up on it? Probably because I had far more important things on my mind, like Daughter #1 giving me a new grandson and then being rushed back to the hospital with a life threatening condition - and nothing I could do but wait. A rather distressing and distracting couple of days, hope you never have to go through something like that.

I got the drop wrong. Big whoop.



We don't rely on drop calculations, we actually shoot at 600 to verify. And 500, and under.

My point about the .270 Win is that a 150g LRAB @ 2910fps will do everything Daughter #1 wants it to do, will do it well past 600 yards and her 400 yard comfort range (even though she shoots out to 600) and will do it with under 18 ft-lbs recoil, That's not a "blind dumb ass claim", it's a fact.

It is also a fact that a 7mm RM can't beat the.270/150g LRAB/2910fps load at 600 without significantly more recoil - at least not with any load I've found using bullets we would actually use.

Kind of funny that the difference in “power” between the .270 and 7RM isn’t worth discussing, but the .300 is a significant step up, despite that the same logic you just applied to the .270 vs 7RM also applies to the 7RM vs .300WM. The 7RM can launch a 195 EOL at 2875 fps; less than 100 fps difference between that and the .300/200gr, 5gr of bullet weight, and the BC favours the 195.

Your last sentence makes complete sense. Nothing wrong with personal preference!

That is less a fact about the 7RM, and more a function of your preference in bullets.

Seems we’re not comparing apples to apples with bullet weights v. velocity. Of course the 7mm magnums have more recoil. If recoil is your objective, join the 264 short round crowd.

I totally agree with you Jordan.

So far it is true with ALL the bullets I've looked at, including Nosler, Hornady, Berger, Swift, Barnes, Speer and Federal.

In addition, the .270 chronos 2910fps from Daughter's 22" barreled M700, while all the 7mm RM load data I've looked at (Speer, Hornady, Barnes, Nosler, Accuate, Hodgdon, Lyman) uses 24" barrels. To be fair, we should adjust velocities for equal barrel lengths when comparing the two.

If you are aware of a specific 7mm RM load (or loads) that beats the .270/150g LRAB@ 2910fps without significant additional recoil, I would sincerely appreciate your providing it (or them). The .270/150g LRAB generates a calculated 17.7 ft-lbs recoil with Daughter's 8.3 pound rifle/scope/ammo combo. From what I've seen, you are in 280 Rem or AI territory by the time you approach that level of recoil with a 22" 7mm RM - and the 600-yard performance is below that of the .270 load.

I hope all is well with your family now. I have noticed a lot of jackassery lately here, wonder why?

My 6.5-06AI will do everything I need better than any short 6.5 or any 7mm RM load I've ever used. But the .270 load is for Daughter #1, not me, and it still beats any 7mm load I've used or even seen when comparing apples to apples - meaning 22" barrel and under 20 pounds recoil. Daughter #1's .308 load comes in at 15.9 ft-lbs, so 17.7 for the .270 load is quite reasonable to do what she wants done, She killed her deer last fall with a .300WSM (Winchester Black Shadow, 165g Barnes Vor-tx with claimed 3120fps MV), with recoil conservatively estimated over 26 ft-lbs. She didn't mind the recoil much but would at the range where she will do most of her shooting. Like a lot of 7mm RM loads, the .300WSM load doesn't provide her enough advantage over the .270/150LRAB to justify the additional recoil,

As a lefty she has limited options in factory rifles. I think the lefty Rem M700 will work well for her - the load is very accurate and delivers 2131fps and 1513fpe tp 700 yards at 7K altitude. At 400, which is her current comfort range, 13.5" drop, 2448fps, 1996fpe and 6.6" drift. Hope to get her comfort range to at least 500, where the .270/150LRAB delivers 2339fps and 1823fpe with less than 30" drop and 11" drift..

I've been shoting a 7mm RM since 1982 and simply don't see whre it would be a better fit for her.

If your daughter is recoil shy, put a 243 in her paws..... they work quite well...

Well, if we’re talking about comparing loads in two specific rifles, then we should clarify the barrel length and twist rate of those barrels. Not an idealized, normalized comparison, but an actual comparison of the ballistics provided by various loads on your rifles. The .270’s 22” barrelled velocity is real world. What twist rate does it have? That makes a difference. If a factory R700 and 10” twist, then Bryan Litz’ testing says the true G1 BC of the LRAB exiting your barrel is around 0.550.

He tested the 7mm 150 LRAB at 0.576 G1 BC using a common 9” twist. Assuming a 7RM of the same weight as your .270, a minimum charge of H4350 or H100v would generate about 18.3 ft-lbs of recoil and about 2830 fps. Likewise, the 162 ELD-X at 2755 fps using a min load of IMR 4451 generates 18.7 ft-lbs. The recoil would be less in a rifle heavier than your .270. Both of those loads drift less in the wind at 600 than the .270/150 LRAB, and the recoil is comparable.

As an aside, the 143 ELD-X from the 6.5 Creedmoor at 2750 fps also drifts less in the wind at 600 than the .270 load, and would recoil even less for her.