Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles No Love for the 7mm rem mag anymore?

I just don’t care for the 7 mag and the recoil compared To my 270 with 140 grains.
At normal ranges, there is not much difference for me to shoot “magnum”

I have owned a few 7mm Rem Mags and I have never been disappointed. For an all-around deer/elk rifle, I would say you would be hard pressed to find anything better.

My stainless Ruger 77 MK/II with its 24” light taper barrel and laminated stock shoots great using Barnes 140 TSX or Nosler 140 Accubonds!

I have one that I shoot occasionally, very accurate and not a heavy rifle at all. Where it shines is the heavier bullets. But the stickler is if I want heavier bullets my 300 Win Mag gets the nod so it hasn't been used much in years. It killed elk well enough but so do my 270, 30-06 and 280AI. To me a 300 Win Mag is a better place to start if you are going to shoot elk at the longer than average ranges. Anymore I hunt with a 7-08 or a 257 Roberts, even my 270's don't get out much.

As I kill more stuff and gain more experience, I learn to “trust” cartridges that are more mild mannered. Honestly, I preferred flat shooting cartridges so I wouldn’t have as much to think about. But, I found drop to be the most predictable variable and misses were rarely because of it.

From what I’ve read, it was affordable chronographs that hurt the sales of 7mm REM mag.

Problem is, there's pretty much only two factory options in 7mm. 7-08 and 7 rem mag. 280 is a sweet round, but hard to find....so you either go with the slow poke or the magnum.

7mm Rem Mag - 3340
280 AI - 3265

280 AI no belts commercially available, winner, winner chicken dinner!

My son and my other two best hunting buddies have used a 7mm Remington Mag with great success for years on deer and elk. I acquired a .30-06 18 years ago and “on paper” the 7 RM wasn’t enough of a leap in performance for me to buy one. Then, I started looking at the 7mm STW and found a 7mm Weatherby Mark V cheap enough to rechamber. After shooting the 7mm Weatherby Magnum and this rifle’s great accuracy, I figured the STW didn’t get me much over the 7 Wby so that project was scratched. I have two of them and certainly don’t want or need Rem Mag. Happy Trails

I looked at this from a slightly different angle and ended up with a standard 280. Whatever the 280 will give for velocity when loaded to similar pressures, the 7 mag will do the same with 10 grains more bullet weight. Roughly. For normal hunting bullets, 10 grains means nothing. My 280 with a 150 grain bullet at 2950 ft./s leaves nothing on the table to a 7 mag as far as hunting goes. 3000 ft./s is doable but it’s a 74-year-old M70 action so I baby the old girl a bit.

With modern super pointy heavy VLD type bullets, this changes a bit. If a person doesn’t mind recoil and can follow through as well with a magnum, why not.

A few years back, there was a guy on accurate shooter site, or one of them, his signature line read, "You don't have to be an Azzhole to have 7Rem mag, but every Azzhole has one." Grin.

I keep thinking that an 84L Montana in 280 Rem might be the slick feeding answer without the blast and recoil that comes with the 280AI ;-)

Interestingly most guides say the same thing about customers showing up with a 300 Win Mag.

Other than an extra round in the mag, what advantage does the 280AI have over the 7 mag? Both are on long actions, and the 7 mag does offer more velocity.

The 7 mag is operating at reduced pressure due to anomalies related to the neck / shoulder geometry.
Better velocity numbers with 160s and 175s . Even better with the Mashburn or STW

The AI doesn’t have a belt and operates at higher pressure than the Rem mag.
A Longer neck and steeper shoulder angle.
So burning less powder, Gives presumably better throat erosion characteristics

The 7 SAUM has about the same capacity as the AI, but slightly constrained for OAL in a 2.8” mag SA

I’d like to see what the 7 LRM , or something similar does in a broader hunting sense.
Shortened 375 Ruger case with 30-35 degree shoulder, and enough neck length to protect the throat at pressure.
Longer than the 6.5 PRC, and shorter than the 300 PRC.

Not asking much am I ? 🤪

I never had it.

After 59 years almost everything gets boring - even if that thing is wonderful and has dutifully fulfilled every need asked if it. Ignore the silence and happily carry on with the phenomenal 7mm RemMag.

My Granddaughter is 11 and has killed three Rosevelt cows and a Blacktail buck with four shots 238 yds,368 yds,436 yds and 455 yds with a 7mm It’s not the cartridge.

Big fan of the 7mm rem. Probably going to see one get used on a good bull this fall shooting 180 scenars again.

I see a fair amount of used 7RMs for sale in my area, mostly 700s and Savage 110s. Growing up in PENN I remember all of my friends wanting a 7 MAG for deer hunting, only a couple of them still hunt them.

I've never owned a 7 mag. But it strikes me as one of those cartridges that, if I had one, I would defend. But since I don't, it's hard to imagine buying one to do something a 280 won't already do a few hundred FPS slower. Or put another way, it's hard to imagine something requiring the step up from 280 to 7 mag that wouldn't just be better served by a significantly larger round. In my case, if a .284 won't put it down, the projectile on deck would be a .366.