Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 7MM Remington Magnum ???

The 7mm Remington Magnum is a fine cartridge--and is still considered one of the Big Four by the ammo/rifle companies, because along with the .270, .30-06 and .300 Winchester, it sells more ammo and rifles than any other big game rounds in North America.

But it seems to have suffered more from recent hype than any of the other traditional rounds. I base this on seeing more used 7mm Remington Magnum on the racks of local stores than rifles in any other caliber.

In some ways this is understandable. The 7mm Magnum itself was the recipient of one of the greatest sales promotions since WWII. When it appeared in 1962, supposedly it made all other cartridges under .375 obsolete, doing the same things as the belted .300 magnums with less recoil, flatter-shooting bullets. etc. etc. (Sound familiar? Of course the original factory ballistics of 3020 with a 175 got toned down quickly....)

A great many hunters who bought 7mm Remington Magnums also thought they had Big Rifles. I remember that it was considered a real macho move back in Montana in the 1960's to trade off the old '06 or .270 for a Big Seven. They'd roll their shoulders and act like African PH's because they could withstand all that recoil!

Of course, 40+ years later the hype has rubbed off and Big Sevens are getting traded off on all sorts of new wonder magnums.

I have owned several 7mm Remington Magnums and they did right well. Anything that can't be done with a 160-grainer at 3000 fps or a 175 at 2900 probably shouldn't be attempted with anything less than a .338/250. But the 7RM is no longer the hot topic, so gun writers have to make do with WSM's and RUM's and all the other alphabet-soup rounds.

Personally, if I were a 1-rifle sort of hunter and owned a 7mm Remington Magnum I knew and trusted, I'd keep it and ignore the newer stuff. The 7RM has proved itself all over the world, the reason it ranks alongside the .270, .30-06 and .300 Winchester Magnum in steady sales.

MD

To me it settles the old debate between the .270 and the 30-06 because it shoots as flat as the .270 and hits as hard as the 30-06. And I can shoot 40 rounds or more from the bench without having a sore shoulder.
Mine is reasonably accurate I can shoot a group of 160 accubonds into a 400 yard target with about a 5" group from a good rest.

LOL! And no, I've nothing really to add. Although the last critter I shot with my 7 mag, an AK black bear, didn't do anything but die. After backflipping onto his nose, that is.

Another blemish on the 7 Mag was it got a bad reputation for wounding elk and other gritters. This in every case I have been able to get the facts, was due to operator error and poor bullet choice. As Mule Deer pointed out, macho dudes were shooting a "magnun" and gritters would die of fright just having one pointed at them. A 150 Power Point is not an ideal choice for a shoulder shot or raking shot on a elk as a lot of western guides will tell you. Most guides I know hate the 7 Mag and share their opinion with clients.
I had a fellow offer me his 308 when I uncased the 7 Mag on a recent elk hunt. When they stopped elk ranching in Montana a few ago I helped remove a herd from a property and took 38 elk with 40 shots. The 175 Nosler should get the credit, however I will take credit for putting it in the vitals.
With a rifle that does not knock my glasses off every shot, it is not that difficult.
That is what Phil Sharp, Les Bowman and Warren Page had in mind in the first place.
I have to agree with Mule Deer about the hype. It was the wonder weapon of the 60's with magic bullets that never lost velocity and killed like a bolt of lightning.
Jack O'Connor was a friend and mentor and liked to bad mouth the 7 Mag because that is what "Ole Lefty"( Warren Page) the competition used.
I had lunch with Jack in LA at Pete Petersen's Scandia Restaurant in Hollywood. That is a very unlikely place to meet Jack O'Connor. Jack told me he had killed 30 or 40 big game animals with a 7 Mag and thought it was a helluva round. That was a surprise. Then he said ,"Ole Lefty was right that 175gr will penetrate forever but the 150gr kills quicker. He was stone sober I might add but not long for this world so perhaps he was confessing.
-Doc-

One of my dad's friends was a custom gunmaker on the
east coast for over 40 years and when the 7MM Remington
Magnum came out in the early 60s he had dozens of people
come to his shop with every type of Mauser 92,93, 95, 98
etc. and Remington Rolling Block 7MMs that they wanted
rechambered to the mighty 7 mag. He declined all except
the Mauser 98s and built most on FN Mausers and Winchester
Model 70s. He said the demand lasted about 4 or 5 years.

XX Bob:
This thread is better than any article on 7mm Magnums that I�ve ever read. Especially your last two posts.

I love 7mm, and most of my few rifles are that caliber. 7x57, 280 Rem, 7mm RM, and 7mm Webby. In my limited experience, the 7 Mags are conducive to one-shot kills.

I had the throat on my 7mm RM lengthened, but eventually may have it rechambered or rebarreled to 7mm Webby.

Thanks for the interesting commentary.
Smitty of the North

I have and use one because I bought into all the hype of the 60's and 70's. I was just ignorant, I didn't know the '06 or the .270 would do me just as well.

I still use it cause I'm not only ignorant but lazy too as it turns out. It's killed everything I've shot with it, is a dandy little sheep rifle for me and I just can't get motivated to get rid of it and get a suitable cartridge.

I guess my 7mm mag is ignorant too, it just goes on killing stuff no matter what is written about it or by whomever happens to be the hot writer of the day.

I also like the .338, guess it's a character flaw or sumpthin.

In the 1970's I worked in a gun shop here in Northern California. Lots of locals traded or put away their 270s, '06s, and 308s and bought 7mm Remington Mags. I noticed that there wasn't a lot of rational thought involved in these guys' decision to get a new gun. Some proudly took their new big guns to other western states to hunt elk and larger game. The 7 Mag seemed to work well for them, especially with 175 gr bullets (we sold more Remington factory corelokts than anything else)-- although nobody I talked to had ever complained about the performance of the 270s and 30-06s they had used for years. Most of them seemed satisfied with the flat trajectory and power of the 7 Mag and stuck with it, as far as I know.

However, most of the new 7 Mag shooters didn't leave home much, but hunted the local blacktails-- all of 100 lbs on the hoof. Several were shocked at how the fast 150s from their new 7mm RMs blew up deer flesh, especially at close range. Many of them went back to their old rifles. Some went all the way down to 243s and 6mm Remingtons.

Is the 7mm Remington Magnum any good? Sure it is, but everything has its place.

284, run a stw reamer in that 26" tube ifn' ya' wanna' stretch its legs <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

woofer

AW SHucks Smitty you made me blush.
-Doc-

GWN, I get 3015 with 160's in a 24 inch barrel without pushing the envelope using IMR 4831. Also, excellent accuracy, .25 to 1 inch depending on how steady I am.

Factory ammo for the 7mm mag bullets of the same weight as the .30-06 run neck and neck. A 165 grain factory .30-06 load will run about 2,840 fps. A 160 grain factory load in 7mm mag runs about 2,850 across the board. A 150 grain 7 mag load runs 2,900 as do 150 grain .30-06 loads. These figures don't change in premium ammo either, which is mostly what I have been chronographing. I have owned several rifles in both calibers and have built several others in both calibers with 24-27" barrels. The .30-06 fetches about 37 fps when the barrel moves from 24-26 inches. The 7mm mag fetches about 49 fps when the barrel is moved from 24-26 inches. It isn't a huge difference no matter how you slice it.

When an individual starts hand loading, the 7 mag picks up 150-200 fps with the same weight bullets that the .30-06 shoots. I have proved this many many times over by chronographing lots of different loads, factory barrels and custom barrels. With proper bullets, they both kill extremely well.

I know the 7mm mag has caught a lot of flack over the years from guides and outfitters that had clients use it with poor success. 90% of the problems were due to poor shot placement and bullets that weren't designed to hold up to 7mm magnum velocities. IN both cases, the round was the guilty party, not the bullet or the shooter.

The vast majority of 7mm magnum loads 30 years ago were 140 grain soft points made for the 7mm-08, 7x57 and .280 rounds. Ammo makers have now fixed the 7mm problems by offering it loaded with mostly premium bullets. They just need to juice it up a bit!!!

All the high energy and light magnum .30-06 loads easily trump factory 7mm magnum loads in equal bullet weights. One of these days the ammo makers will load the 7mm magnum up to snuff. Until then, it is better to hand load it and reach it's potential. I can't say I like the 7mm mag better than the .30-06. The recoil of both in equal rifles is very similar, contrary to the hype that the 7mm mag kicks a whole lot more. The 7 kicks "slightly" more, but not much. Flinch

I never said I didn't like it but I did say it would be wise to get the 26" barrel!
I don't like 22" 30-06 barrels either. I was just at the range yesterday sighting in my 30-06 with 22" barrel at 200 yards.
Then I sighted in the 7MM Magnum at 200 yards. After shooting them both from the bench with heavy loads I really felt like I had gotten my moneys worth. I was only getting 2600 fps with 180 grain bullets in the 30-06 with the short barrel and probably will use my 35 Whelen which shoots a 225 gr bullet at 2681 fps out of a 22" barrel. The 35 Whelen seems to recoil about the same as the 7mm Magnum but the muzzle blast is not nearly as bothersome. The 7MM Magnum does shoot a little flatter though! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Why is the hunting season so short?
GWN
GWN

1ak:
The closest I ever came to being a celebrity, was when I got that old 338, I'm fixing up.
Smitty of the North

Whatcha doing to it Smitty? For my money the .338 up here is kinda like the '06 to the lower 48. Long past being sexy, but does an adequate job on just about anything we have to hunt.

Since I got my McMillan Binster lefthanded Kevlar stock on mine, I've fallen in love all over again! Let my gunsmith talk me out of shortening the barrel to 22 inches, and he's probably right, but I may buy another some day and put a short tube on it just to see. But probably won't I just hunt with what I have and seem to be happy.

Considering I have a 270 and a 30-06, I am not sure where the 7mm rm fits in. Still, I have one and it is my most expensive rifle. It is a win 70 with a 24" douglas barrel in a brown precision stock. it fits me like a glove and shoots well. since I mainly hunt deer, I like 154 to 160 gr bullets. it shoots 150s like a 270 shoots 130s. I'll take it over any of the short mags with the exception of the 300 wsm (I have one anyway). I do not care for recoil at all but have always found the 7mm rm easy to shoot. can't say the same for the 300wm. there is nothing new about the 7mmrm but I like it and I will keep mine.

Flinch--

The reason the factories don't load the 7mm RM up any hotter (and downloaded the original ammo) is that it shows somewhat greater pressure spreads than most other rounds.

This DOES NOT mean it experiences pressure "spikes," as some who have read this information from me in the past have interpreted things. But high and low pressure in a straing of 10-12 rounds can often vary 12,000 psi, while highs and lows in the .30-06 rarely exceed 5000 psi.

The factories found this out after the use of piezo-electric pressure testing gear became universal. This is much more sensitive than the old copper-crusher equipment used to develop the original 7mm fractory loads.

The factories do not work up meximum loads just on average pressure, but also on maximum of individual loads. Since some 7mm RM rounds tend to exhibit a little higher pressures, they have to drop AVERAGE pressures to compensate. Thus, the facory ballistics of today.

Yeah, you can exceed those ballistics by handloading, but not usually by much more than 100 fps. Many manuals suggest safe loads in that range, made possible by using powder/bullet combinations that the factories don't use because the powder doesn't lend itself to mass production.

Push the 7mm RM harder than that and you're playing a slightly dangerous game. Luckily, such ballistics are still plenty for anything the 7mm is likely to be used for, especially with better bullets.

MD

I think one thing that has hurt the 7 Rem Mag is what actual pressure testing equipment is showing.

It is the larger than normal "range" of pressure. Because of that ammo manufactures are not loading it to it's full potential.

Also current reloading data shows a very large difference in powder charges for the equal bullet weights, and sometime for the same powder/bullet combo.

Speer has done this for years and gives this very explaination why their data has the 7 Rem Mag with such low velocities. They even make the comment "We have been critized for doing so." Hogdon does the same.

Alliant is the only current powder manufacture that publishes reloading data that gives the 7 Rem Mag it's due. IMR use to do the same, but if you look at their website (now that Hodgon has bought them) you will see that they are "redoing" their load data for IMR powders. I'll bet you will see lower powder/velocity for IMR powders when completed.

GB

It would hypothetically have been interesting if the 7 STW and 7 Rem mag had been introduced at the same time with uninflated ballistics. Because the hyped ballistics of the 7 Rem mag were closer to what the 7 STW actually is.
I will probably never be without a 7 Rem mag.

I have had both rounds, but I kept the 7 Rem mag because of the difference in recoil for only a slightly flatter trajectory didn't seem worth it. To me the STW kicks a lot more, as much as a 300 mag. and at that level of recoil I would rather have a 300 mag.

I think another round that does'nt get much coverage anymore is the 270 win. Last fall I was looking for a 7 mag. I handled a 700 bdl ss in 7 saum and bought it instead. Not because I thought it was better but because the rifle handled and felt better. I get 3015 f.p.s with a 160 accubond and 66 grs. of H-1000. The best shooting load so far is the 140 gr. accubond with 58 grs. of H-4350, have'nt chronographed it yet. I think the 7 mag is one of the all time greats.