Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What's Petzals beef with the 7mm RM?

A pair of guys were going to Africa,and had come to the range for a sight in session with a pair of 7 Rem Mags. I had my chronograph and a 270 built by Dale Goens for which I was doing some load work.They asked, could they chronograph their ammo?

Sure.

The Federal 160 NPT factory stuff gave about 2840 in one rifle,about 2880 in the other.This is as much as a "normal" 280 will give with top handloads.

Both were surprised when my handloads for the 270 gave over 2900 fps with 150 Nosler Partitions.What I didn't tell them was that at that time I had a 7 Rem Mag with a long throat,longer than standard bullet seating, and 24" Krieger barrel that comfortably gave 3125 with a 160 gr bullet and almost 3300 fps with a 140 and charges of 7828 and IMR4831 that got hunted all over the continent for about 12 years,without a hint of any problem,never a blown primer and good case life until the barrel finally burned out.

No 270 or 280 will come close to those numbers.And despite more 7 mags than I can recall, and even more 270's,(with half a dozen or so 280's tossed into the mix) I have never seen a 270 or 280 that would come close to any of them.

But see enough of the example cited above and it isn't hard to conclude that a 7 Rem Mag is not much more than a fire breathing 270 or 280.I have seen a couple of 7 mag user walk away from a chronograph session scratching their heads.

But there are no mysteries with cartridges;generally everything can be explained when we bump into what we think are these velocity anomalies...whether it's a question of pressures,barrel/throat dimensions, case capacity,thin brass,free bore, bullet bearing surface, barrel length, powders used( some having more energy like double based vs single based,or being better suited, etc etc.There are a million variables,and if you only work with one or two samples of anything it's easy to come to varying conclusions.

As a general rule, though,case capacity will win out in any velocity race, and many times it will not show to a great degree except with the heaviest bullets for caliber.So we end up with these discussions concluding that a 7 Rem Mag is not that much faster than a 270 or 280,until we try to load 160's in each and discover that a 7 Rem Mag will outdistance either by 150-200 fps if all things are equal...or try loading 175's in a 280 and breaking 2900 fps sometime....Good Luck.

You can do it with a 7 Rem Mag.

None of this matters much to game animals and if you shoot them at more or less "normal" distances, but I never met a 270, 280, or 30/06 (much as I have liked and used all three)that could hang with a 7 Rem Mag at distances past 300 yards.For velocity and trajectory it is necessary to go to a 300 magnum of some sort to stay with it,and then you are going to get kicked a lot harder in the process.

But the 7 Rem Mag does exactly what Les Bowman and Mike Walker intended it to do back in 1962(after several years of testing in the field before it was introduced)...give a 160 gr bullet 3050 fps (more than the 280 could muster),provide a flatter trajectory past 300 yards than you could get with a 270,280,or a 30/06,while kicking less than any 300 magnum available at the time.Not bad trade off's considering it also kills elk and most other BG animals without a sweat at long range.

The fact that a few zunzies have gotten their hands on one since then has not bothered me in the least. I've seen that happen with lots of popular cartridges, especially the 30/06.

Actually if you have to hit em again with a 7, you should take shooting lessons before wasting time on the internet posting BS

A pair of guys were going to Africa,and had come to the range for a sight in session with a pair of 7 Rem Mags. I had my chronograph and a 270 built by Dale Goens for which I was doing some load work.They asked, could they chronograph their ammo?

Sure.

The Federal 160 NPT factory stuff gave about 2840 in one rifle,about 2880 in the other.This is as much as a "normal" 280 will give with top handloads.

Both were surprised when my handloads for the 270 gave over 2900 fps with 150 Nosler Partitions.What I didn't tell them was that at that time I had a 7 Rem Mag with a long throat,longer than standard bullet seating, and 24" Krieger barrel that comfortably gave 3125 with a 160 gr bullet and almost 3300 fps with a 140 and charges of 7828 and IMR4831 that got hunted all over the continent for about 12 years,without a hint of any problem,never a blown primer and good case life until the barrel finally burned out.

No 270 or 280 will come close to those numbers.And despite more 7 mags than I can recall, and even more 270's,(with half a dozen or so 280's tossed into the mix) I have never seen a 270 or 280 that would come close to any of them.

But see enough of the example cited above and it isn't hard to conclude that a 7 Rem Mag is not much more than a fire breathing 270 or 280.I have seen a couple of 7 mag user walk away from a chronograph session scratching their heads.

But there are no mysteries with cartridges;generally everything can be explained when we bump into what we think are these velocity anomalies...whether it's a question of pressures,barrel/throat dimensions, case capacity,thin brass,free bore, bullet bearing surface, barrel length, powders used( some having more energy like double based vs single based,or being better suited, etc etc.There are a million variables,and if you only work with one or two samples of anything it's easy to come to varying conclusions.

As a general rule, though,case capacity will win out in any velocity race, and many times it will not show to a great degree except with the heaviest bullets for caliber.So we end up with these discussions concluding that a 7 Rem Mag is not that much faster than a 270 or 280,until we try to load 160's in each and discover that a 7 Rem Mag will outdistance either by 150-200 fps if all things are equal...or try loading 175's in a 280 and breaking 2900 fps sometime....Good Luck.

You can do it with a 7 Rem Mag.

None of this matters much to game animals and if you shoot them at more or less "normal" distances, but I never met a 270, 280, or 30/06 (much as I have liked and used all three)that could hang with a 7 Rem Mag at distances past 300 yards.For velocity and trajectory it is necessary to go to a 300 magnum of some sort to stay with it,and then you are going to get kicked a lot harder in the process.

But the 7 Rem Mag does exactly what Les Bowman and Mike Walker intended it to do back in 1962(after several years of testing in the field before it was introduced)...give a 160 gr bullet 3050 fps (more than the 280 could muster),provide a flatter trajectory past 300 yards than you could get with a 270,280,or a 30/06,while kicking less than any 300 magnum available at the time.Not bad trade off's considering it also kills elk and most other BG animals without a sweat at long range.

The fact that a few zunzies have gotten their hands on one since then has not bothered me in the least. I've seen that happen with lots of popular cartridges, especially the 30/06.

Actually if you have to hit em again with a 7, you should take shooting lessons before wasting time on the internet posting BS

That was said in jest.... there was a thread a while back on the 7RM and a PH dubbed it the "hit 'em again 7"....guess he didn't like it either

quote:
A good man with a good hunting rifle can reliably hit big game at ranges that the .270 Win cannot be depended upon to deliver reliable bullet performance.quote.

John Burns, please correct me if I'm wrong but are you not the one who uses the .243 for long range shooting? If so, the above comment seems to suggest that the .243 outdoes the .270 in performance. Having shot both extensively I find that hard to believe.

Not trying to be argumentative but I wonder if you could clarify that point for me.

Jim