Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles School me on the 7mm-08

I just got a 7mm-08 this week and want to know some of the finer points of this round. I want to know what grain bullets have worked well for those of you who have used it. As well as some of your handload recipes.

This is actually my "baby's" gun only thing is the baby isn't due till April.

120NBT's or 120 TSX's over 45.5 gr RL15....

My lil 788/7-08 is rocking big time with 139 Horns, 120 NBT's, 150 NBT's and 168 Burgers along with R17.

Accurate, inexpensive (cost me a whopping 250 bones) and shoots in the .3's consistently....grin

Dober

140s are about the magic weight, and lots of powders will work.

700 ti loves factory Federal Fusion, 140 gr.

geo

My wife has done in a few deer with the 139 gr Hornady with 49 gr R19 IIRC. This in a A Bolt Micro Hunter with 20" barrel. Sweet little rifle. Biggest she has shot, the bare carcass with no skin, forelegs or head a day after the deed still weighed just over 100 lbs. At 50 yds there was lung chunks sprayed 10ft behind impact. FWIW

My 7-08 likes 140 Sierra Game Kings with 42 Grains of Varget and it is my favorite rifle.

It's a 308 necked down to 7mm (grin)...

I always liked H4350 and 140's in mine.

A 139gr Hornady SP and max load IMR4895 sparked by a CCI LR primer. Good speed and very accurate in several 7mm08s.

RH

Darn. I thought it was the .260 necked up.

Couldn't be... 308 pre-dates the 7-08 and the 7-08 predates the 260.

Logic is grand, no?

308 is king (grin)...

Yeah 308 is king but it wasn't on sale for $180.

The best whitetail cartridge IMHO.

It's almost as good as the 270 WCF.

I load 140gr BT's and NP's for my friends daughter.
No complaints yet out of her Weatherby youth rifle.

120 BT's and H414 work very well in my son's Savage.

+1

RL15 and Varget are tops. H4350 is about 5th or 6th on the list IME.

MtnHtr

All I can tell you is I shot 160g Grand Slams at about 2850fps in my 7mm RM for a lot of years (thought they were faster until I got a chrono) and they tipped elk over just fine. At 2700fps with a 160g, give or take, a 7mm-08 isn't far behind.

Mule deer is the only type of deer I've hunted but I've always figured the 7mm-08 was one of the best cartridges for deer-sized game � it is easy on the shoulder and hard on the deer, and can reach out to 500 yards with manageable drop and plenty of energy.

I'd probably go with 140g AccuBond or 139g InterBond. You can launch the 120�s faster but the difference in trajectory isn�t very much. Assuming a 140g AB @ 2900fps vs a 120g Balllistic Tip @ 3200fps, both with MPBR zeros for a 6� diameter circle, the 120g BT is down 28� at 500 while the 140g AB is down 36�. Energy for both is about the same at 500 yards as well, 1243fpe for the 120g BT and 1267fpe for the 140g AB. At 300 yards the difference in trajectory is less than 2� and again the energy is about the same, with only a 12fpe separating them. The important difference for me is I wouldn�t be nearly as concerned about bullet blow up or excessive meat loss at close range with the AB.

I just finished stuffing 40 rounds with Varg and 120's for a friends son (11 now) who I'm mentoring into the hunt world this year. Lucky bugger drew a mtn goat tag on his first try.

We were at the range Tues night for a couple hours, he pounded heck out of steel and paper with my 223 Ack and my 7/08. That night he burned through about 40 139 Horns back with R17.

I'm having trouble sleepin at night cause I'm twitterpated over doing a 7/08AI. I told him about it and he said kool do it, then I'll have another 7 to shoot...grin

Dober

Yep, funny how some folks think its only good for woods hunting. I've owned both the std and AI versions, with my 7-08AI I smoked a muley buck clean out to a lasered 480 yrds with no problems (139gr Hornady at 2950fps)

And it indeed makes a great woods rifle as well.

MtnHtr