Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Who developed the 7mm Remington Magnum?

Fred Huntington, who founded RCBS, necked Winchester's "new" short magnum case to .284 and I believe he called it the 280 RCBS Belted Magnum. He knew Bowman and loaned that rifle to Bowman. I believe Huntington and JOC had hunted elk with Bowman several seasons earilier.

The 7RM case was necked to .277. A gunsmith in Pocatello Idaho had the reamer made within 12 months of the introduction of the 7RM. Nothing new. He also had a 6mm-06 Improved in 1965.

The 275 H&H was introduced in late 1911 or early 1912. It did utilize .287" bullets though...

Identical according to my Hornady manual.

Who cares who developed the 7mm Rem mag; it was definately not rocket science. Someone was the first person to stick a 7mm bullet in the 264/338/458 Winchester mag case; that is all it is: nothing magic or genius.

Winchester probably is who developed it; they simply made a bad business decision going with the 264 over the 7mm.

Lee24 back in 1913

MasterBlaster developed the 7 Rem Mag....

That is the way I remember it. Winchester loaded the 275 H&H cartridge because I had a box which are considered collector items. I gave it to John Clark of Clark Brothers gun shop in Warrenton, Virginia, he had never seen or heard of the cartridge (275 H&H). As I recall Oconnor had a 275 H&H made up for him and in larer years a pre-64 70 made in 7mm Mag made for him as well. Les Bowmans clients would hunt "Elk Heaven" in Wyoming with him included Wayne Leek of Remington who was the design/marketing force behind the Remington 700 and Remington 1100 shotgun.

Les Boman and Wayne Leek on disagreed on the rate of twist of the new 7mm Mag. Les felt the 1/10 was fine but Remington settled on the 1/9.5

Doc

The real problem is that no-one can say "Hell, I was there" any more.

Rifle Magazine #103 January- Feb issue 1986 features an article by Bob Hagel on the 7mm Mashburn Super Magnum. In it on page 27 he discusses his conversations with Warren Page between Page and Remington's Mike Walker. about the Remington's adoption of it with modifications. He indicated that Mike Walker was a major player of it's final form.WP had had been pushing Rem in the direction of the 264 necked up as a couple of other wildcatters had allready done.These guys were all part of the movers who did the job. I don't think it was the effort of JUST 1 person. Magnum Man

Exactly! Not much different in Winchester's decision not to neck to the 30 caliber in the same case and letting the Norma Magnum beat them to it with the 308 Norma Mag, thus forcing them to develop the 300 Win Mag for a 30 caliber mag in their lineup. It's not much different than Remington taking over the 22-250 after it had been a wildcat for many years. There were 4 years between the introduction of the 338 cases and Remington adopting the 7mm as their own. I'll bet there were quite a few of the 7mm/338's in use prior to that. It wasn't rocket science.

But a good move on Remington's part nonetheless.

That is also the way I remember it

Yes, ended up being probably a top five most popular caliber.

Shooter's Bible 1940 ballistics:

275 H&H 160 gr at 2675 fps.



Bruce

Not much better than a 7x57 Mauser?

The 7mm Mauser was 140 gr at 2900 fps and 173 gr at 2300 fps, British loads.

Bruce

I was thinking modern loads, 2600-2700 with a 160 grain bullet is doable out of a modern rifle at 30/06 or 7mm 08 pressures?

I shoot 160 NPT out of my #1 7x57, but do not have a chrony to check velocities.

Ben

Al Gore developed the 7mm RM magnum. Glad we got that one resolved.

During college in the mid 1950's, I had the passion for a custom 7mmMag as soon as I graduated in 1957 and could get some money together, I then had one built. Warren Page was THE most influential guy in my love for the 7mmMag, and I had thought that his 7mm Mashburn would be THE rifle I wanted. I think I read every article Page wrote about his 7mm Mashburn.
However, I also did a lot of research on the 7x61 Sharpe and Hart (Richard Hart, no relation to the Hart bbl family.) and liked it too.
After leaving school, I really wanted PO Ackley to build the rifle, and in talking with him about it, he suggested that his 7mm Ackley Mag was very close to the 7mm S&H and load data dould be used interchangeably. So, since PO was to be the rifle maker, I went with his version of the belted case 7mm. I formed cases from 300 H&H brass as I recall.
The 7mm Rem Mag has a case capacity of 117 gns of water, and the 7mm S&H was 111 gns of water. Can't put my fingers on Ackley's case capacity, but since loads with the 7 S&H can be interchanged, It was probably about that of the 7 S&H, 111 gns of water.
The case capacity of the 7 mm Mashburn is 112 gns of water, less than the Rem versions, and close enough to the other two shorter case mags, that performance is about the same.
I shot 160 and 175 gn bullets in the Ackley mag using surplus 4831 powder I bought in paper bags as sold by my local gunsmith, who had a real keg of the stuff and only had paper bags to use to sell it in..

I invented the 7mm RM, but never cared for the limelight. Was hung over when I did it and to this day find it mildly embarrassing.