Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 7mm Remington Magnum?

I am 70. My first center fire rifle was a .270. Later, I bought a 7mm Rem in Rem 700 ADL, tried it and found it did nothing my .270 did not do for me except use more powder and make more noise, so I sold it to a good friend who was going elk hunting. Have other .284 diameter rifles but no other 7mm Rem Mag.

My biggest take away so far is we're mostly a bunch of old farts. A 45 year-old here is pretty much a punk!

LOL...
Rex

Lighten up, Francis...

Mule Deer: I have owned and used two Remington 700's in 7m/m Remington Magnum over the years and one of them is still my main "go-to" Elk Rifle.
First Rifle in 7m/m Remington Magnum I bought in 1967 (Remington 700 BDL) and then in 1980 I found a beautifully stocked Remington 700 Classic in 7m/m Remington Magnum and I traded the first 700 off.
So I guess I have been a fan/user for 53 years now. And I am 72 years of age.
Good luck with your survey.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

trexf16: Are YOU one of the "foolish" young farts on this site who thinks they will never grow old?
He-he.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

This^^^^^^^^

ummmm......ummmm, Where does your post fit ?

Jerry
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Lighten up, Francis...
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Shirley... you can't call me Francis !


Jerry

Welcome to the Campfire.

Odd how, when were younger, we would sell or trade a rifle off it did anything at all we did not approve of. Buy another, etc.

Now we are less quick to do so & will determine the issue & fix it.

Ha! I can, and don't call me Shirley.

68 and never owned a 7mm Remington Mag. Seems like every used gun rack in the sporting goods stores that I've looked at over the last 5 or 6 years has had a used 7mm Remington Mag though. I'm just not interested in one.

Not surprised as the 7RM is usually in the top ten most popular rifle cartridges and it usually ranked first, second or third on the RMEF annual rile polls.

I have had at least two 7mm rem mags, both were model 70 classic stainless sporters. Hunted with one for a few years, shot a few big mule deer with it without much drama and shot it quite a bit. Sold that last one to a nephew, trying to help him get started. Should have hung onto the rifle instead! For me, they are easy to shoot in an 8lb rifle, not sure I would want one at 7lbs. Keeping an eye out for another one so I guess you could call me a fan, at 65! (where did the time go)
My brother used one for a couple decades, on moose/black bear/deer with reliable results. Both of us typically used 154-160 grain bullets, fwiw.
If/when I get another one, I will probably try some 140 grain bullets for the deer I typically shoot, keep the trajectory nice and flat and a bit less kick than the heavier bullets.

I see a fair amount of used ones for sale in my area, mostly Remington 700s and Savage 110s. Growing up in PENN a lot of my friends used them for white tail deer, but most of them slowly went back to lighter calibers as most of our deer hunting was short range wooded areas.

John, I've posted variations of the following more than once:

[snip]I graduated college in 1982, and being an anal engineering type spent the entire span of my senior year communicating with the top riflesmiths, gunwriters, ballisticians, bullet makers, powder suppliers of the time. The question was: What chambering should I adopt to hunt the world, based on effectiveness, accuracy, availability, etc...

Funny thing...the 7mm Rem Mag came out on top by a landslide...including recommendations by some gunwriters that would totally surprise a bunch of readers here.

The main recommendation was based on the claim that MANY loads/bullet weights, handloads and factory, shot to the same POI in close,, and I have found that to be true.

The second was that it was an extremely popular round, and ammo could be found pretty much anywhere worldwide. Also true.

I bought a pair of Sako Lightweight A5's and over the next 30 years proceeded to take 47 species with the round in my work travels.

Upon selling my company and retiring I also used a Jarrett .280AI, a John Lewis .280, several 7mm-08's, and was successful with all simply by asking myself "how would this shot compare if I was using my 7 Mag?"

Made it easy.

They all work to the limits of their ability to expand a good bullet.

BUT...if you are traveling, the 7 Rem Mag is available in a wider range of good bullets over the counter, that DO tend to shoot to a common point of impact, and is the logical choice.[snip]

Great topic and enjoying it all. BobinNH was a huge Rem Mag fan as well. I’d bet he’d get a kick out of this thread.

Journeyman,

Excellent post. What's your age? Can approximately guess from when you graduated from college, but since I was also a science major would like to know!

So far the average age of 7mm RM fans is around 57 years, which is interesting since that means they were born in 1963--a year after the round was introduced....

Probably because so many articles in every hunting magazine raved about the 7 mag. back in the '70's. I read a lot of those articles and wanted one for a time myself. One that I read by JOC where he said "try as I might, I never could detect any difference in the field between the .270 and the 7mm mag " {or something close} stuck in my head and I never did get one.

My first BG rifle was a M77 in 7mm RM purchased new in 1985. I bought it because my uncles used 7mms.
Kept it a few years and enjoyed good success with it using 175g Hornadys elk hunting. I soon realized that a 30-06 would do everything I needed. I sold the 7mm and bought a then new M70 Classic Sporter with the control round feed in 30-06 and haven't missed the 7mm since. I currently don't own a 7mm anything but I would buy another M77 7mm RM in a heartbeat for nostalgia and the right price. FWIW, im 54.