Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Winchester Extreme Weather 7mm-08 Accuracy

Anybody have one of these that can give a report on some factory ammo accuracy with it?

I bought a brand new one a few months back and just got around to taking it to the range yesterday and was pretty disappointed with it's performance. I had 3 different types of factory ammo(Hornady superformance 139gr sst, Hornady American Whitetail 139gr, and Winchester Super-X 140gr powerpoints)and they all grouped 2-2.5". I also have a box of the 120gr Federal Fusions but I forgot to bring those with me.

Anyways, if you could share your experiences I would appreciate it.

Thanks.

My old M70 FWT wood stocked, I glassed the lug and floated bbl, shot sub MOA all day long......even w/factory 140 CL, and a 4x B&L Balfor.

I'd look at bedding, or send it back. I did have a 223 Coyote long ago, for a VERY brief time, bore had chatter marks on lands, 2-3" from muzzle. Win told me to send it back, but the time for service was not acceptable for me, and it got traded. it shot horrible. That was my only bad experience w/M70s.

Maybe others can chime in. Seems the middle screw needs light tension IIRC.

Not a 7-08 but my .270 EW has been very easy to find sub MOA three shot groups from either factory or hand loads.

Do a little trouble shooting. Read Short Action Smoker's thread on troubleshooting the Kimbers. Same principles apply to any bolt rifle. Make sure the mag box is not binding thus causing the action to flex, the recoil lug is not bottoming out, scope base screws are not pressing on the barrel shank and front action screw is not pressing on the bolt. Make sure action screws are sufficiently tight. Make sure scope mounts are sufficiently tight.

If all those things check out, then look at bedding and crown.

John

if they all grouping the same, just make sure it ain't the shooter. there's some amount of technique involved in getting a sporter to shoot those nice tiny groups off the bags.

also try a different boolet weight. it might not like 140's. never did think one of my .308's would shoot til i changed the projectile weight ...

I wouldn't normally rule out the possibility of the shooter being the problem but I shot 2 other rifles during the same outing and was able to produce much better results. Granted they were smaller calibers but I printed multiple .5" groups with a CZ 527 in 204.

As for different weights I plan on taking the federal fusion 120's with me next time to see how they perform. Also going to have friend come along to shoot the rifle as well, just in case it is something to do with me.

Also, just to be clear everything was torqued to spec using a Wheeler fat wrench.

My 308 shoots fine. This is the 2nd person I've read about having issues with an EW in 7-08. It seems that a much higher percentage of Kimber's in 7-08 were having accuracy issues based on posts I read hear and other places.

Not drawing any conclusions either way, just wondering if there may be some reason for accuracy issues with 7-08.

The Model 70's have a heavy trigger pull. This has been documented here several times. I found that when I backed off the trigger to a modest 3.5 lbs my groups started to shrink. I also had some issues with the rings not being tight enough.

Now it is better but not where I would like. I have been waiting to be able to buy powder and get into reloading. Alas there is no powder to be had - my kingdom for some Reloader 19

Re: ammo - try Federal and Win 140 Ballistic tips and Ballistic Silvertips. I would expect sub MOA in a rifle up to par.

I don't have a trigger pull gauge but I adjusted it as light as it will go. That being said it is still heavier than most of my other rifles. I have already placed an order for a lighter trigger spring to remedy that.

As for ballistic tip ammo the Hornady Superformance that I shot was ballistic tips. I expected them to far outperform the other types of ammo that I had with me because that has always been my previous experience with anything Hornady loads with ballistic tips, unfortunately I was mistaken.

Like I said, I was just hoping to hear some other people's experiences with the same rifle to see if that might point me in the right direction. I plan on handloading for this rifle eventually but until then I would like to find the best option in factory loads that I can.

This doesn't sound like an ammo problem. Tear it apart and look again for something binding. Also, is the scope a known good scope. If not, you may want to switch to a known entity to see if anything changes. My 7-08s were easy to get to shoot about 1 MOA. Getting under that took ammo tweaking. I had best results with 110 TnTs believe it or not. I also got great groups with 168 SMKs- that pretty much runs the whole spectrum of what you can shoot.

Your not drawing any conclusions but I can guarantee it isnt a problem with the 7-08 as a cartridge. Hell Remington can make one that shoots

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Have a buddy that bought a EW in 300wm and had accuracy issues and had to send the gun back, not sure what they did to fix it!

My EW 7mm-08 had accuracy issues, along with an heavy trigger. I sent it to Hill Country Rifles. They bedded it, tricked the trigger out, re-crowned the barrel. It ended up shooting pretty good but not great. I sold it, bought a Sako 85, 7mm-08 this cured it.

The scope is a Bushnell Elite 6500 2.5-16 and unfortunately I do not have another scope with a 30mm tube.

I have a new fw 7-08 and it shoots fine I did lighten the trigger. Also I own 4 new Winchester they all starting really tightening up after about 50 rounds. I had 2 EW Winchester and both shot well. My first 3 shots with my 7-08 after sighting in with Remington 140 grainers were close to an inch I couldn't find brass until I empty those but I was thinking dang maybe I should stay with those

To my knowledge Hornady does not load Ballistic Tips. They make their own tipped bullets called SST, Interbond and GMX. Oh, and in varmint bullets, the VMax.

If the groups are truely consistant, then might be the bullets. My 7/08 Finnlight gave me fits until I tried Sierra 140's. Made all the difference in the world and in fact Sierras are what I use to see what a rifle will do.

I've had three ew's (still have two), a ss fwt, a wsm fwt, and my buddy has a 7-08 fwt compact. All of my m70s are FN rifles and all shot reasonably well with at least some factory load or another from the get go. All of my ew's needed to be shot a bit before I got the best accuracy out of them, but none are 7-08. I can tell you that me, my father and our hunting buddy have a total of 6 rifles in 7-08 currently and all have shot reasonably consistent well with either federal fusion or federal blue box factory loads. A couple have been spectacular with them to the point that we were considering not handloading for them, but all were very consistent. My best advice is to go along with what others have already said. Take the rifle apart to check out the basics and make sure things check out (nothing binding, decent bedding, barrel not leaning on the stock, rings/bases tight, and proven scope). Torque everything back properly and reshoot it to see if anything changes. If it does, then you're good. If not it could be a lot of different things, but you should get decent looking groups with something, maybe not tiny groups, but nice triangular shaped groups. If that happens, you're good and just need to find a handload combo it likes or spend some cash trying different factory stuff. If it still doesn't shoot, you have to decide whether to send it back to fn, take it to a good gunsmith to really have a look at it, or send it for a ride. Good luck whatever you do and let us know how it turns out

Craig

I've got a stainless Featherweight Shot Show Special from a couple of years ago. The lightest I can get the trigger is about 4 lbs., but it's a true sub-inch rifle. FN can build them.