Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting Your favorite 7mm 160gr loads speed for elk?

May be it's in The Shooter's Bible.....?

I am pretty much done hunting elk, but I have killed a bunch of them with Nosler 160 Partitions, over R25, at 3000 fps.

I used my 30-06 on my 2018 elk hunt, but had my 7MM Weatherby all ready to go loaded with 160 grain Barnes TSXs. Barnes 140s and 175s also shoot very well in that rifle.

On my first trip to South Africa ( 1996) my Afrikaans Hunter/Outfitter friend had a bad taste in his mouth for 7mm Rem Mags. it seems some squirrel came over and used the then touted 165 Extended Range ( memory fuzzy) which was a simple cup n core, very soft. the guy wounded a few head before my friend insisted he use his rifle ( 308 win and 180 Mag Tips) I explained to him that the caliber was a very good one...with the right bullets. I was using a 35 Whelen Improved with a 250X, so no problems! I didn't shoot anything, in four hunts, that I couldn't have killed with a good bullet in 7mm08-7mm mag and in between! It was just a good excuse to use a bigger caliber, cut bigger holes, ha. My Afrikaner buddy got a big "eye opener" on how cold temps affect South African Somchem powder/loads. He went to the Drakensburg mountains to cull some eland. His 308/180 Speer mag Tips barely broke the hide! He luckily had some 7.62 hardball military ammo ( he was a former soldier) and they worked swell on head shots..

This forum seems more reasonable on claims of MV than most other forums. On some forums I see all kinds of wild claims. I shoot several rifles in assorted chamberings. I've come to suspect this optimism of MV is caused by cheap chronographs. I have a Chrony and while it's consistent, I believe it reads about 100 FPS high on the top end. It reads my .270 Winchester with a 22" barrel shooting a 130 grain bullet with 57 grains of IMR 4831 at just a shade below 3200 FPS. This is about 100 fps faster than most books allow for the same load with a 24" barrel. It reads my 280 Remington with a 150 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip at just a shade under, 3,000 FPS. It has a 26" barrel but even at that it's about 50 FPS above what most books show. It also reads my .30-06 with a 150 grain SGK at 3100 FPS. It has a 24" barrel. But most books I've seen show a max of 3,000 FPS with the same load and same barrel length. So I really believe cheap chronographs are the main reason for overly optimistic velocities being reported on forums. Maybe I'm mistaken here but at least my Chrony is as such. But these velocities I see on various sights correspond suspiciously close to what I see on my Chrony.

I have a Beta Chrony, but my "check load" is one particular box of .22 magnum ammo from my old Marlin bolt rifle that has consistently given 1930fps for 2 other chronographs (one was a friends PACT) too. Its as close as I can get w/o springing for a high-dollar Dopplar Radar, or whatever, ha. The main thing is, even if it is 100fps slower, from the testimonies, seems a lot of loads (160/7mms) are in the high 2700-2800s range. that seems to be way plenty for the game they're used on. I figure if I have a case full ( or close :)) of a good, known powder and great accuracy, I can't do anymore on "my" end, except aim it right, ha. You do bring out a good point though that wild claims can usually be narrowed down to be "less than". Take my old 7mm Mag load that I "thought" was going 3100fps, but was 2950. It was so disappointing...to my "idea" of what it should be. It was nothing, as it killed a nice bull for my friend, with gusto, he said. Of course, all he owned at the time was a 243 and he had reservations of using it on elk. Well, if all I had was a 243, I would limit myself to head/neck shots, which mean I probably wouldn't get my elk that year! But I bet a lot of yesteryears gunwriter reports were "typrewriter" speeds. If I was a Long Range shooter/hunter, I'd be more vested in exact muzzle speeds, but for my style, it isn't that important to me, but accuracy/consistency/ and temp stability ( I like Late Season cow hunts...cold)

Filaman- my .243 friend lived/worked in Sabine Pass and I worked out of Liberty, tx at the time, mid 80s! Small world, ain't it?

Yeah Jim, I went to school in Beaumont at Lamar. I had gone to school in Victoria for a couple years and took a couple years off. Then I went to Beaumont to start school there because I had friends going there. I was going to sign up for academic courses and finish my degree and I got talked into checking out the Diesel School on the vocational campus. I never went back to the main campus and got my Associate of Applied Science degree in Diesel Engine Technology. I had worked in the Marine field in engine rooms going through college so I gave it a whirl. I graduated 2nd in the class. I worked at a truck shop for awhile thinking it was like the marine field where there were upward opportunities until I figured out that working in truck shops wasn't like marine work and I would be a blue collar hourly man making just above minimum wage for the rest of my life. So I went back to work in the marine field albeit making more money, until I got an opportunity to go to work around home at Union Carbide as an operator where I retired after 28 years. I did go back and get my academic degree later in life in Legal Studies. I feel I had a well rounded education. But I never moved back to the Golden Triangle area. I remember going through Dayton and Liberty on my way to see my first wife at Huntsville when she was going to Sam Houston. There was a speed
trap and they got me for a ticket one morning. There was a hill and right at the top of that hill just far enough down the road where you couldn't see it from the bottom was a drastically reduced speed sign with a cop about 100 feet down the road. I wanted to tell the cop what I thought but Tom T Hall's song about spending a week in a country jail was fresh on my mind so I shut my mouth. I never went through Dayton and Liberty again. I went 20 miles out of the way to avoid it.

I just ran some Hornady 162 gr SST and Retumbo out of my 7mm Rem Mag through a chrono. They were loaded to 10 thou off the lands at 3.365" OAL. I got good accuracy at 69 gr and 2925 fps, 70 gr went just under 3k about 2980 fps also with good accuracy. The next increment group of 71 gr went 3175 fps! and the accuracy went south. That jumped up fast and wasn't what I was expecting at all. I had rounds loaded to 75 grains... I will be pulling those rounds to salvage the components. While I may may work a bit more with the Retumbo about 69 gr I'm not sure I like how touchy this powder is at the top end.

I too have found some of the newer powders a bit wonky at the higher end. They are great stuff, you just have to slip up on the right combo, ha. I kind of agree with Jock O'Connor that wrote its "doubtful" any bullet going more than 3000fps adds anything...in the field, on game. It was something like that. LR, why sure, it has to help some, especially for a point and shoot guy like me. I know I certainly enjoyed using some rounds that gave me 3200-3500fps, from 6.5/284 and the 120NBT to the .240W(90x) 257W (115NP) to 338RUM (180NAB) but I never shot past 375 with any of them. I'm looking forward to trying out the 110TTSX in this .270, should be wicked on deer/antelope!

Filaman- the "best thing" I liked about Dayton and Liberty, back then, were the Rodeo Queen Barrel Racers! I do miss the BBQ crab that Sartins used to make at Sabine Pass. Hurricane Allen wiped them out there. I still have an uncle living in Victoria, Marshall Knight. Tell him I said "Hey" if you see him!

7mm STW ....160 Partition started at 3300.

Flattens elk

Tony