Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 7mm mag on elk vs. heavier calibers

Pete shot his bull twice because it let him but both Ray's and my bull put their nose in the dirt so fast all I saw was legs in the air after the shot.

Ray also killed a great old mulie at 750yds and it dropped to the shot. All in all a really good trip with good guys.

My Sendero II kicks harder than it seems like it should oughta.

Coyote hunter,

My point is simply that bad shots from big guns will require another shot. There really is no insurance factor from the larger calibers (above 7mm Mag) that will make any appreciable difference, in my opinion. You may or may not agree.

The bigger guns are more difficult to shoot and therefore a hunter is more likely to have a bad shot. You may or may not agree.

By reducing the recoil a hunter will be able to take and make shots not possible with the hard recoiling cartridges. Most of us can shoot the big guns well enough for most of the shots taken but my point is to use precision to make the tough shots not power to make up for a bad shot.

When choosing a cartridge/bullet combination I would recommend picking precision over power.

[quote=Jeff_O]My Sendero II kicks harder than it seems like it should oughta.

Any appreciable difference, near or far? Thanks!

I would say that my .300 Win mag using 180 grain bullets goes out the barrel end at 3130fps.

My 7mm mag shooting 175 grain bullets does 2950fps. Now both are model 70 Winchesters with pre-64 actions and 26 inch barrels. I would guess that there is about 4 to 5 pounds difference in "felt recoil" ok. Now that is enough for most hunters to realize after the trigger has been pulled. I just went to the recoil calculator and put in the numbers on the .300 Win mag 180 grn bullet verses the 7mm Rem. mag and it's 175 grn. bullet. Results are below: 300 Win mag = 36 pounds of felt recoil and the 7mm Rem. mag has 26 pounds of felt recoil to the shooter!!!
Evidently my guess was off by some 4-lbs, so there is a difference of 8 pounds of Felt Recoil between the too and that is very significant for most shooters, especially at longer ranges.

It could make a difference in downrange accuracy to some shooters and if the .300 Win mag is to much drop on down, no disgrace there and they both kill elk very well. I also want to say, that with that .338 Win mag and 250 grain bullet, any shot I wanted to take, I knew that .338 bullet would drive straight on into the vitals even if it was by way of a Texas Heart Shot.

Now what I myself have noticed over the years, is that when using the .338 Win mag with a 225 or 250 grain bullet, the elk that received that bullet seemed to show more body language and movement verses the other two calibers or calibers such as the 30-06 or the .270 Win.

I find it humorous that we are having an argument about cartridges when we should be having a discussion about bullets, and where the bullet impacts.

A good 90% of the animals that I've shot or seen shot with TSX bullets have gone into an immediate dirt nap. It doesn't matter if it came from a .25-06, a .280, 7RM, .338WM, .243, .308, etc. I usually shoot for the high shoulder, but I also use the "behind-the-shoulder, in the ribs" shot. A good majority of the animals that were killed with TSX bullets were hit in the high shoulder/lungs. Of the animals that were hit in the ribs, about 50% have gone straight down. I just shot a MD buck with a .25-06 and 100gr TTSX on Saturday through the ribs, and the buck did a bang-flop, then got to his feet, stumbled 10 yards, his legs buckled, and he hit the ground for good. The ENTRY hole in the ribcage was about 2", and the exit about 1/2". Lungs were ruined. I also saw a few animals meet their end with Fusions, Horn BTSP, CL's, etc this season, and about half of the animals shot in the ribs dropped at the shot, and the rest ran 100 yards or less. Those that were hit in the shoulder/shouler blade went straight down. I've also noticed that the more animal the bullet plows through, whether before or after hitting vitals, the quicker the animals does a nose dive. I shot another deer on Saturday that was on the run, quartering away hard, at 290 yards when a 100gr TSX from the .25-06 hit it in front of the rear leg. The bullet penetrated the paunch, the heart, and I have yet to find an exit wound. The deer left a 5ft smear in the snow when it slid to a stop on its nose.

I know that you're excited about building your new 7WSM, Jeff, and it will work GREAT, I just have a hard time believing that your .358 puts deer down any faster than the 100gr TSX/TTSX outta my .25-06, since they can't drop much faster than "bang-flop"

Just sayin' that the choice of bullet and where it hits are about 10x more important than cartridge choice.

We see more .308 diameter rifles in our camps then anything else. Maybe (probably) more then all diameters combined. It's not at all unusual for me to have 6 hunters in camp and every one of them is using a 300 mag. It would be a first to have every hunter in camp using 7mm mags. So The data collected and the combined experiences are heavily weighted towards the 308 diameter.

On the surface it would seem that with that many 308 diameter cartridges no wonder I feel this way. Yes but..... it is as likely to work against functionality as well. With that frequency we would likely see equal problems. But that is simply not the case. The 7mm mag compares in killing power nicely with the 30/06, however when it's a 300 mag in the mix there is simply nothing at all similar except recoil and muzzle blast. The 300 mag is a far more lethal cartridge then the 7mm mag. At this point in my career no matter who tries to convince me otherwise, I'm not buying!