Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Warren Page—Hornady om·nis·cient

Hornady has been “channeling” Warren Page! He would be “all in” with the 6CM, 6.5PRC, 7PRC, and 375 Ruger.

Warren Page was shooting editor of Field & Stream in the 1960’s and 70’s. He was the most technically oriented of the shooting writers and was one of the first Weatherby Award winners.

His favorite cartridges were a 6mm using 100’s, a 6.5 using 140’s at around 3000 as the ultimate trophy mule deer/sheep outfit, a big 7 using 175’s at around 3000 for elk and pretty much everything else. Lastly a 375 Improved (aka Wby).

Lots of progress in the last 50 years…Right!

What's old is new again.

Compare the 7prc to the 280 OKH…

Lou

That's funny you noticed that Rick. I always see the resemblance of the PRC/Ruger rounds to the Newton rounds from a 100 years ago...

Sounds like a Page Pooper

I do admire the 243 though

I heard him speak at a University of Toronto pistol club dinner not too long before he died. Don't remember too much of the speech except that he hated the French. Strangely enough one of my companions at the dinner was of French background which is probably why I remember those remarks.

Jim

Don’t forget the “Super Pooper”!

If you take a close look at the .300 Savage you might get the idea that Page was channeling Charles Newton.

There is nothing new under the Sun.

Except clickers. Lol.

So, was Mr. Page's 7 the .280 OKH? I was thinking along similar lines comparing the 7mm PRC with the 7mm Sharpe & Hart. The prototypes didn't have a belt. What I like about those old guys is that they weren't slinging the super sleek bullets of today and they didn't have pocket range finders anyway. They just liked heavy-for-caliber bullets going reasonably fast. When it was all about the flat trajectory camp vs. the bigger hole camp these guys were going for a different thing. But, not for the reason it's happening today which is cool. These new rounds are not just for bucking the wind at a thousand yards. They should be awesome at traditional ranges for the reasons these guys who were very knowledgeable liked them. Nice insight, RinB. Thanks.

1eye….
The 280 OKH was a 30/06 neck to 7mm. It had a long overall length being intended for use with 175-180 grain bullets. Don Hopkins, who was the “H” in the name, intended it to be used in 27” barrels. Also it was designed to be used with duplex loading techniques. Hopkins was a serious sheep hunter. His rifles used 2.5x scopes. I am guessing that his loads were moving close to 2850.

Page used a 7 Mashburn which has been discussed extensively on 24CF. His rifle was set up for 175 Nosler Partition Semis. Page preferred a 22” barrel. He thought his rifle was reliable on elk to 500 yards even in those days that preceded electronic range finders. Incidentally he felt a 4x scope was plenty.

His 7Mashburn would move a 175 right around 3000fps.

How interesting, RinB. Now I guess I have to add Warren Page to my reading list.

I just googled "Warren Page's 7mm Mashburn" and got the listing from where his rifle was auctioned in 2012. Interesting comments by Dave Petzel about Page being essentially a one-gun man, "Old Betsy". This and your pointing out the magnification of the scopes these guys were using is food for thought. My 7PRC is a pound lighter and wears a 2-7 but I think, Warren would have liked it. 175gr 7mm at 3,000fps in a 7-8lb package is a hell of a recipe.

Thanks for the info.

1eye….
Page wrote an article in his column called Rifle on a Diet in which he described assembling an 8# 7RM built for him by Champlin (sp). It had a 22” bbl and a lengthened throat for those 175’s.

Incidentally Don Hopkins started using the 7RM shortly after its introduction.

One of the reasons Page (and others) liked the 7mm Mashburn was the selection of powders wasn't nearly as good or wide as we have today. Consequently it took more powder to get that 3000+ fps at the muzzle with a 175--which was also a good thing because (as RinB pointed out) his favorite bullet was the 175-grain Nosler Partition.

This was because it was the most reliable (if not the only) 7mm "premium" big game bullet. But as Rick also mentioned, for some reason it wasn't a spitzer, but a "semi-spitzer," or as Nosler sometimes also called it a "blunt-nose." (This was also true of of the original 200-grain .30 Nosler Partition--I have boxes of those showing either name--and also the 250-grain .338 Partition.)

Because of the mediocre ballistic coefficient it was necessary to push 'em as fast as possible to get a decent trajectory, and minimize wind-drift. Especially since laser range-finders didn't exist back then.

The 7mm PRC exceeds the practical field performance of the 7mm Mashburn due to better powders and bullets, with far less recoil. I am sure Page would have approved....

He had alot of confidence in his recipe. From that auction listing for "Old Betsy":

"The 7 mm magnum, I feel is close to perfect as the caliber for all the lesser African game, including, I might say, the leopard and possibly the lion, for all our North American species that live in mountains, and for all the Asiatic types of both high and low terrain that weigh under a ton or generally don't eat people. ..the sum total of experience is to lead me into the statement that for game from seventy-five to a thousand pounds, especially at ranges beyond rock-throwing yardage this category of cartridge is the most useful we have. It hurts you little, hurts the game a great deal."
From: One Man's Wilderness, by Warren Page

John, I can agree with most of your post except that last paragraph. How can the PRC exceed the Mashburn? They both can use the same bullets, have the same barrel twist, use the same powders and produce the same velocities. Checking load data on the Hodgdon site, the PRC is using about 3grs less powder than a Mashburn to achieve the 3000fps mark with a 175gr bullet. Maybe my shoulder is numb from all the years of shooting big rifles, but I just don't believe there is any significant difference in recoil between them. In fact, I doubt that I could tell any difference!

Interesting that he suggest it may be perfect for African leopard and lion but then in the same sentence says it may not be good Asiatic types that eat people. To my mind he is playing both sides of the fence unless he believed Asian critters to be tougher to kill. Or, was he a politician too?

I think you are looking at something that isn’t there. He uses the word “possibly” for lion and “generally” for what he is likely referring to as tiger or maybe even bear.

Agreed.

And, in my experience, the Mashburn works through magazines much better than the PRC.