Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles The 7mm-08 took another hit this year.

I just got my new issue of Rifle Shooter magazine and they did a Big Game Rifle Roundup 2023 article. 38 different rifles in 25 cartridges from .243 to .45-70. Know how many of those rifles are chambered for the 7mm-08 this year? Two! 2 and the .308 gets 26. The 6.5 Creedmoor gets 23. Heck, even the 7mm PRC gets 9 and the old favorite .30-06 is down to only 6. I'm not liking where I see the industry heading. I've done most of my hunting with the 7mm and .30 caliber cartridges and prefer the performance on game with the 7's.

Yep. The 7mm-08 was never going to catch up to the .308 for logistics reasons but the (understandable) market acceptance of the 6.5CM as another do-it-all cartridge that is a rung below the .308 in recoil is going to continue to muscle into existing 7mm-08 territory. I have more 7mm-08 rifles than any other chambering, but I'm also a handloader. For the factory ammo guy, the 6.5CM is the better mousetrap. The number of folks that bought 7mm-08 rifles over the last 40 years will keep the ammo production alive, but it's nothing compared to .308, 6.5CM, .270, 30-06, and .243.

Try loving the .260.

I've repeatedly read that walmart is the number one ammo seller in the United States. Every time I visit a walmart I look at the ammo for sale. For at least the last 12 months they've had plenty of 6.5, 308win, 270win, and 30-06. I haven't seen 708 ammo in several years. While the 708 is a fine cartridge, we'll capable of killing anything most here hunt, it lacks general popularity. If you don't find it at walmart, you better start reloading. Excluding online ammo stores of course.

If you're seeing any difference in performance between 308 and 7-08 it is between your ears. You can make an argument that the 7-08 is better on paper. But talk about splitting hairs. With the best loads 7-08 drops 1" less at 500 yards and hits with about 35 ft lbs more energy. The 7-08 has about 1 ft lb less recoil.

I don't dislike 7-08. It certainly doesn't give up anything to 308 and is suitable for at least 95% of the hunting anywhere on the globe. I think of it as a modern 7X57.

You have to understand that hunters are no longer driving what sells. The vast majority of rifle buyers now are SHOOTERS who go through way more ammo in a year than typical hunters from the past. For those guys the reduced recoil, and costs of handloading 6.5 CM is far more important than the added power of classics like 30-06 or 270.

I'm a recent convert to the 7mm-08 (with an admitted extreme distaste for the 308). I was a bit surprised that it's nearly impossible to find decent brass for now; even Starline is only doing very limited yearly runs of 7mm-08. But, you have to figure that hunters who only hunt, and don't shoot either competitively or recreationally, may buy a box of 20 rounds every other year, if that, and drive very little of the market.

Popularity isn't a great bellwether for cartridge performance, though - 250-3000 and 257 Roberts, two of the best whitetail cartridges created, are realistically extinct in 2023.

.... or the 222, 7x57. 300H&H or 257 Roberts.

It's hard to beat the 6.5CM for a deer rifle based on all practical aspects including availability.

Agree.

But us Loony types will keep our old classics humming.

The crowd can go with the flow.

I like my Creed. Also like my Roberts and 7-08. WT’s can’t tell the difference, because there isn’t that much. As Stick loves to say, it’s more about the boolit than the head stamp.

To me, among those rounds and throw in a .308, the one I pick up is more about the specific rifle and how it’s set up. The one that calls loudest when I open the safe.

DF

I would say the extreme popularity of the 308 WCF is born out of the 30-06 and .30 caliber ingrained hunting mentality. This is well over 100 years of .30 caliber use. In a short action the 308 WCF is for the most part the equal to the 06 on game performance. That provides a platform that shoots 110 gr bullets at 3,400 fps and 210 gr bullets at 2,400 fps all with 1-10 twist barrel. That covers a whole lotta ground in one rifle and one chambering with ammo everywhere on every continent. Take into account every manufacturer that makes a turn bolt, magazine lever, pump rifle, semi auto and single shot rifle chambers the 308 WCF rifle.

The 7-08 Rem is a fine chamber and is possibly one of the very best to build an alpine/mountain rifle on. It certainly has the 6.5 Creedmoor beat on pure ballistics and taking heavier game, if pressed. You can’t fault the ammo makers for not providing 7-08 Rem. Like many great cartridges they are handloading propositions.

JMR40, I agree with you, in the last 10 years we have seen the 30-06 and 270 almost disappear, on our range and in our hunters hands, the 308 remains popular, and the 6.5 CM .243 are very common, and the 6CM is coming on, with modern factory ammo and bullets the smaller or lighter rifle rnds, are doing the job in the field and on the range, that the 30-06 and 270 used to do, in the last 10 years I have seen 1 7-08 and 1 25-06 on the range and in hunters hands, we take out about 150 hunters per season for Exotics, Pigs, Whitetail, some Exotics will go 600 to 800# times change and so does the hunting and shooting public.

Rio7

There's no rifle round I dislike if it goes BANG I like it.

For today's younger hunters, it seems like the .270 is almost "retro". Who'd have thought it......

Today I am heading out to shoot my recently acquired 6.5xx55, backwards I know.

April of '22 I got a BLR chambered in 7mm08 and thought I had the almost perfect combo of a 7x57 in a lever action rifle. I didn't try to buy ammo because I roll my own. I couldn't find a handload that was better than mediocre and downright sucked compared to my 7x57 so, I decided to go to town and buy some ready rolls to see if they would do better. None at Wally World, Academy, or Ammo shops, none, nodda, zip. I worked with it for a couple of more months and then sold it.

.308 brass is just 7mm-08 brass wearing camouflage.

I prefer 7mm-08 but the rifle I wanted wasn't available. .308 will get the job done. The difference isn't worth the cost of a rebarrel. (Difference, IMHO, is not down-range exactly, it is in bullet selection for my applications.)

I'm glad there are still a few budget ammo options for the 7mm-08 hunters out there. Looking at Midway, 7mm-08 American Whitetail or Norma cup/core loads are only about $5 more a box than their 6.5CM counterparts. Finding them in stock at your LGS may be another story though.

Almost certainly not the fault of the cartridge.

Like many of you here. I love the 7mm-08. That won't change in the near future.

That's true mathman Joe is just another example of the crowd who still thinks they should be able to buy whatever they want, whenever they want, for how much they want to pay. Retail marketing doesn't work that way anymore..mb

About 10 years ago I worked in a Walmart at the Sporting Goods counter. I never saw any 7-08 ammo for sale. One of the clerks who worked in the department for 15 years never even knew what a 7-08 was.

I have always lusted over a 7-08 but I could never justify owning one. There is nothing in Iowa we can kill with it legally except for coyotes. I do own a couple of .308's but one is a military rifle. The ammo is everywhere for it. Not so for 7-08.

kwg

If you want 7mm-08 ammo, go to Scheels, not Walmart. Wally world is good for people watching and federal automatch.