Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles What does the 7-08 offer that the 308 cannot?

+1, what you said.

I agree with the poster who mentioned the 260. If you want something different than a 308 a 260 offers a reasonable difference for deer in particular - well it splits a little thicker hair anyway. If you want less recoil you will have a better chance of actually feeling less recoil than you might with a 7mm-08. that is of course using identical rifles - way too often we talk about recoil and never mention the gun being used. I think the 260 offers more honest versatility too. 90 grain to long arsed 160 grain cover a lot of critters. YMMV

I like my 7mm-08s, but found a like new Ruger 77 in .260 with Vari-X III for el cheapo, so I am sorely tempted to move down a notch. Trying to think of an excuse, but I hate to mess with a new cartridge, when I can shoot 120-gr Remmy and BTs from the 7mm-08. A .260 would be a nice deer for a boy or woman, especially if there was no 7mm-08 or .257 Rob in the house.

I believe that Barnes makes a bullet for that .260:

Diameter Weight Description S.D. B.C. CAT#
.264" 120 gr. TSX BT .246 .381 26441

I certainly wouldn't be afraid to use it on big game out to 400-500 yards. What has been your experience with this bullet in your .260?

Lee- so the 7mm-08 is for men but the 260 for women? That really gets my panties in a wad

Badboyz I went with 140 grain Sierra Gamekings. Figuring fast opening AND good pentration at speeds I would be delivering on target. That might be my favorite thing about the 260 - the velocity just allows so many bullets to work well. Have only one deer with them but I got a complete pass through and the deer died so freakishly fast that I was confused. A 120 Barnes would not suck but not being that familiar with them might wonder at them opening well that far down range. What do you say?

Does anyone have an estimate for the barrel life of a 7-08?

Well, it is not a speed demon, so you should expect real good life out of a 7mm-08 or a 260 Rem.

For me, the 7mm-08 has less recoil and is (IMHO) slightly more accurate than the .308. I like both calibers.

If I expect to make longer shots, I'll go with the 7mm-08. Close-up shots (100 yds or less) and I'll take the .308 along...

This made me laugh

It made me laugh, too. Especially the accuracy comparison. I have not heard of any gov-issued sniper rifles being chambered in the 7mm-08 as of yet. But, how about the 308 in that case?

I bought a Remington Mtn Rifle in 7mm-08 way back in the very early 1990's. I wanted a nice lightweight rifle for carrying all day. At the time, I compared and narrowed my caliber choices to 243, 7mm-08, 308, etc. That is because they made sense in that type of arrangement. I liked the 7mm-08 back then for several different reasons: 1) It was still fairly new, and rather "sexy". 2) I liked the proportional "image" of the round more so than the somewhat "disproportional" look of the 308. 3) Too many people had 308's, but nobody had a 7mm-08. 4) 308 sounded boring, whereas 7mm-08 sounded cool. I no longer have that particular firearm, either.

Guess what? Looking back on my reasoning for picking the 7mm-08 nearly 20 years ago, I now realize that my intuition was based on me more or less being young and dumb. Don't get me wrong; the 7mm-08 is a great cartridge. But, numbers and performance do not lie. And, I have recently done enough studying of each to realize that one is really not worth arguing about over the other (not in my case anyway). So what if the 7mm-08 shoots slightly flatter than the 308 at longer distances. How far are 99.99% of all hunters going to actually shoot at a deer anyway? Maybe 300 yards max? Probably not even that. Is a 7mm-08 going to kill a deer any better than a 308 under those conditions? I seriously doubt it. Is a 7mm-08 going to handle any better than a 308 under those same conditions? Not if you know what you are doing in the first place.

I am in the mood for a new rifle for this fall (see Browning versus Weatherby versus Sako post). My new purchase will either come in 7mm-08 or 308. At this point in time, I am 99.99% certain it will be 308. It just does not make good sense for me to choose 7mm-08 over 308 in my case and I realize that now, years later. I do not reload, and I never will given the fact that I am way too busy dealing with life's other complexities. Therefore, ammo availability certainly plays a huge role for someone in a similar situation. Even with reloading I still do not see how there could be a significant advantage of one over the other to a point to where it matters when speaking in terms of killing big game within reasonable distances.

It is really a moot point, and one cartridge clearly has obvious advantages over the other from a practicality standpoint (and with setting "novelty" aside). As I mentioned, I am pretty sure I know which one I am going to choose.

The bottom line: If you want a nice, run-of-the-mill, "hunting" rifle with accuracy decent enough to take medium-sized game out to two or three hundred yards (far in most cases), then considering the 7mm-08 over a much more popular cartridge like the 308 is really nothing more than a novelty issue. By the way, no offense to the die-hard 7mm-08 fans here because I certainly have not completely ruled it out myself. I just know, deep down inside, that it really is not the most practical choice for me (or for a boatload of other "hunters" out there). On opening day, any deer that falls in the cross hairs of any given hunter's scope ain't gonna give a damn whether it was killed by a 7mm-08 or a 308...

Around 3-5 thousand rounds before accuracy starts to drop off noticably? (I live in hope)

any one read the "go long" article in American Hunter shooting a 308 at 510 yard Caribiu? Went on to say most hunters could not hit anything past 100 yards.

Oops I am wrong about everything. The 7-08 must be better as Remington does not chamber their XCR or Alaskan Ti in .308 but does chamber it in 7-08! I am enlightened. But really what do the buttheads at Remington do, sit around and figure what form of idiocy to try next?

I noticed that, too. Dumb move on Remington's part if you ask me. You know exactly what they're doing, don't you? They have stopped offering the 308 in many of their rifles, but have kept offering 7mm-08 in many more of their rifles just to try to get more people to buy 7mm-08 instead of 308. It will be interesting to see how that pans out over time. I don't see it happening though. I would have considered Remington regarding my upcoming new rifle purchase. I have a 700 270 right now, and it is a nice rifle. But, Remington is not getting my business now if all they want to try to do is force-feed me a 7mm-08 rather than giving me the choice between it and 308. I'll gladly take my business elsewhere.

Have you guys considered the possibility that Remington may just be responding to the market? Maybe the 7-08 is over taking the 308 in new gun sales, not just at Remington, but everywhere.

+1

Get a .270 if you want to see a difference in flat and fast with the same recoil in like S.D. bullets, or a .260 if you want less recoil. I couldn't see a bit o' difference tween the 7 and the .30 to 500 yds, paper, game, and gongs. And that were in some stiff breezes too. Unless you're talking 1k, the drift ain't even that different.

Shaun

+1

Shaun

Maybe so... But, then again, why isn't everyone else doing the same? Look at Browning, Ruger, Weatherby, Sako, Tikka, etc. Do you see any of them offering models in 7mm-08 and not in 308? The answer is "no". Have a look through Browning's 2007 catalog and you will find that the A-Bolt Medallion isn't even chambered in 7mm-08, but it certainly is chambered for the 308. None of Browning's BAR rifles are chambered for the 7mm-08, either. And, you know that plenty of hunters out there definitely buy Browning products. In addition, I recall that way back when, it took forever for Ruger to finally jump on the band wagon and start offering 7mm-08 in anything it produces. Now, anything Ruger offers in 7mm-08 still comes in 308, too. Moreover, don't you find it a little bit coincidental that if what is mentioned above is taking place, that it happens to be taking place by the same company that developed the 7mm-08? Remington is clearly trying to force-feed the 7mm-08 to folks that purchase their higher end products with their recent move, in hope that more people will be won over on the 7mm-08.

One thing is more than likely for certain though; the 7mm-08 isn't going anywhere. It has definitely caught on well enough. Maybe Remington is somewhat afraid after the 260 flop. They are probably a tad bit jealous, too, given the fact that Winchester has developed many more very popular rounds over the years (e.g., 243, 308, 270, 300 mag, 338 mag). Look at what Remington has done (e.g., 6mm, 260, 7mm-08, 25-06, 280, 7mm mag). None of Remington's offerings have ever been as popular and well-established as the Winchester offerings, save the 7mm Remington Magnum. So, of course Remington wants the 7mm-08 to take over. Who knows, maybe it will someday. I doubt it though.

Do a search of available factory ammo for 308 versus 7mm-08 on the Midway USA site. The ratio of available rounds between the two is about 5:1. Easily interpreted as a "supply-equals-demand" type of thing. I'll agree that 7mm-08 has taken over the 308 the day that ratio becomes 1:1, or the table has flipped.

There is no doubt there are more 308's out there right now. Hence, the disparity in ammunition you noted above. There could be however, a shift away from the 308 to the 7-08 in sales of new guns - purely speculation on my part. Maybe the ammo offerings will follow. I own both, I like both a lot. If they had never created the 7-08, I would be perfectly happy with a 308. There is little difference, but there is one. A little less is sometimes more. In this case, I believe the 7mm is the perfect application of the '08 cartridge. I think a lot of other people are starting to realize the same thing here in the last couple of years. There is no question the 7-08 generates lots of "cartridge loyalty" here on the fire. There is probably a good reason for that. More and more, in talking to hunters there is more of at least a recognition that the 7-08 is out there and is a good cartridge. You could be right that Remington is trying to "push" their cartridge. I really think they are more interested in selling rifles.