"...conversations often consisted of guys bragging on their 'Big Seven', sometimes as obnoxiously as some 6.5 Creedmoor fans (and detractors) today."

I would offer that I believe that there is very little venom directed toward the round itself, but rather toward the fans. I liken it to heated rivalries in college football where worshipers of one team really don't hate the other team itself, but rather are sick of the damned fans of the other team.

Keep up the good work, John!

Thanks!

Nope, nothing against the 7mm Remington Magnum. Have owned several, including the Mauser M18 used for that article, and it's a fine round.

Have owned and loved many 7mags in my career. Peculiar thing is I’ve never seen a round take as many kicks to the groin as the 7mag when I’m out west elk hunting. Every place I’ve been they have had a 7mag story or three about what a worthless round it is for elk. About like the 270 folks on here at times.

Of course it’s a fine round for elk....put a good bullet to work, bust that oil pump and it’s all over.

Sorry I missed the article, but I believe wholeheartedly in your point about folks having bad feelings about a given cartridge, due to obnoxious fans. I believe in Americans. I love them, I am one, but humility is often a trait that we lack. Especially when we are pulling for our favorite team, cartridge, vehicle, etc.

Yeah, there's nothing wrong with a 7mag as a cartridge.

That said it has been my experience that those fans of the 7mm mags were talked into that magic round by their Uncle Charlie and they rely heavily on that magic attributed to it, rather than on real rifle practice and trigger time with the round.

I can honestly say in 45 years of hunting " out west" and living here, I hav NEVER, emphasize NEVER seen anyone who shot their 7mag well...

So again, its not the arrow, its the indian.

I have 5 seven mags, like them very much, but don’t try to cram them down anybody’s throat. I like 30-06’s just as much. Everyone has their favorite caliber and they shout out it’s virtues as loud as they can.

I hope when I grow up that a 7 mag will follow me home one day.

A cartridge is fantastic to someone when that person pulls off a great shot or 2, paper or animal.

A cartridge sucks when someone screws up a shot or 2, paper or animal.

It doesn't matter if luck or fault came into play. And that's the way it is with a lot of people.

Did I ever mention the guy who told me the .308 Winchester sucked for whitetail deer, because he once shot a buck right in the heart with a .308, and the deer ran off, never to be found?

Sounds like some bullet failure reports I've read.

Sounds like he may have shot a rare Odocoileus cordearmum, or "heart in the hind leg" deer as they're known colloquially. They have a reputation of being very hard to kill..

Had a fellow, a member of our gun club, tell me that the reason the 7mm RM was responsible for so many wounded deer was that it was going so fast the bullet passed through the body before it had time to open. He wasn't joking but totally believed that.

Did he consider it ideal for elephant?

Don't know, we never discussed that, seeing as how the elephant were all shot out around here by .30-30 hunters during the Depression.

Backing away from facetiousness, I did hear a guy tell me how an M1 Garand was so powerful it would "kill an elephant, easy". Strictly speaking, given a good bullet and good placement he had a point, but I think the reality was that the recoil of the only one he shot one time left a greater impression on him than whatever ballistic or anatomical references he may have (never) perused.

The 7mm Rem simply a glorified 30-06.
Which is no faint praise.

Was at the range Saturday and helped a proud millennial sight in his new Browning 7 Mag with a ported barrel. Damn that was nasty.

But Uncle Charlie told him it was a bonafide 700 yard gun. The real deal.

700 yards??? AMAZING!

My first rifle was a 7 Rem Mag, wanted a 270, but did not find one and the 7 did the job. Loud, kicked, etc. Since then, some folks might laugh, but I killed many deer using 7mm BR and 6mm BR rifles, 243s, and a good sprinkling of modest 6.5s and 7/08. Yes, hammered a few with a 338/06 and they died just as quick.

SO, when uneducated folks 'Think' a 6.5 Creedmoor is lacking...or their owners..........well step aside if I have a 6mm BR, and I will make some non-believers understand a few things about bullet choice and shot placement. JS.

Most rounds today work, just depends how far you want to shoot, and recoil and blast you want to tolerate, but the 'lower rung' rounds often reach and kill far better than many give them credit. In Real Estate, they say location location location. Killing game is similar....location of your shot placement. Usually fault lies with the driver, not the vehicle.

Yes, JB is always spot on.

............. Me too; It's one of those "always wanted one, but never owned one" type things.

Musta been with one of them Nosler Partitions, and it penciled on through without opening up.


Happens all the time....

Was the suicide rate higher back then?

These are wise words, and mirror my experience.

When things go wrong, very,very rarely is it something wonky with a bullet or a with an "under-powered" cartridge. Marginal hits and lack-luster shooting seem to have been the culprits nearly every time. I saw this as a teen, and I have seen it many times in the intervening decades, even with all of the fancy bullets that have come on the market since.

Been toting a 7mm Mag since I was 13 which would be in 1976. Father bought one in 62 or 63 when it first came out. Grandfather got one in 65. Brother got one the same year I got mine. I don't know how many heads of western game my family has shot with them, but it is a bunch. Mine also made 5 trips to Africa where I used it on things like zebra/gemsbok/wildebeest etc... I've never seen it fail in the field and if it didn't bring the game home it was the shooter's fault and not the round's fault.

Can't really say if the 7mm Mag is any better or any worse than the 06/270/300 mags etc... but I have helped hang a lot of meat that fell to it over the last 45+ years. Just sayin....

If you shoot a Sako, you never miss!

If I recall correctly. Elmer Keith wrote about how the 25-06 once again failed miserably. He took out 2 inches of a buck's spine and he still ran a long ways.

.280 I have read most of Elmers stuff.. Never remember if him shooting any big game with one..

Yep, fine round, but there's no magic there, same for lots of other rounds................pick one, use good bullets, hit the right spot.

As for me, all but my larger bore magnums have long since gone down the road, standard rounds work just fine for non-dangerous game, given the above comment.

MM

I could have mistaken someone else's writing for his.

Another kick to my ego... I think the 7 Rem Mag is just about a perfect round. Great ballistics and really good speed. Of course, if I was so great at knowing which calibers were awesome, maybe I wouldnt have so many different stacks of ammo on the shelf.

To paraphrase ( I think Finn Aagaard)

If he shot it with a 308 and it ran off.... he didn’t shoot it in the heart!

I sure hope I got that reference right...I think he was referring to nosler partitions but....


Someone out there has to remember that one.

Ben

Comparing the 7 mag and the 6.5 cm following in the same sentence makes a lot of sense to me. If you were a 7 mag guy back in the 80's it was the best because of the high bc bullets and the long maximum point blank range.

Before ballistic reticles and dialing scopes we all focused on our maximum range where we could hold the duplex on the game animal without any holdover and still land our shot in the vitals. With the 7 mag you could have a 200 yard zero and stay fairly close out to 300+ - yards. That was the old way of doing things.

Now with electronic rangefinders and ballistic reticles and dialing scopes the higher velocity isn't as important as high ballistic coefficient bullets and accurate range estimation. The 6.5 cm strength is similar to what the 7 mag once had for having the advantage over longer distance but the application is different and now even further down range.

In 2008 I drew a public tag for one of Utah's premier elk ranches (the 200,000 acre+ Deseret Ranch), which also included 1x1 guiding. When I got there, my guide--who I already knew--was in a foul mood. It turns out his previous client had shot a nice bull, but the bull did not drop immediately. When told to shoot it again, he said something along the lines of "no, I don't need to because this is a 7 Mag." Needless to say, the bull was lost and guide took the client on a three day death march looking for the bull.

Although I was not packing a 7 mag on that hunt, I use it probably more than any other cartridge because it combines the best attributes of the .270 and the 30-06. But one thing about my elk hunt was for certain--if my bull was still on its feet after my first shot I was not waiting to be told to shoot again.

6.5 Creed is the best.

Roll Tide.

I don't understand why some people think the 7mm Mag can't be shot well by most shooters. For the people who can't, I tend to believe it wouldn't matter what rifle they were shooting, because the rifle isn't the problem. Les Bowman noted when he guided that his clients who were shooting 7mm Rem Mags shot noticeable better than those who shot 300 mags of some sort. Muledeer noted that one of his PHs once said only about one third of his clients could shoot a 300 well. Considering the recoil of a 7mm Rem Mag is very similar to a 30-06(within two or three foot pounds of recoil), which was part of the design requirements when Remington developed the 7 mag, I don't understand why the cartridge itself would be a factor to blame for poor shooting. I also think the 7mm Rem Mag is one of the greatest hunting rounds ever developed. It will do anything a 300 can do, except hit the shooter with 20% more recoil. It delivers higher sectional density bullets than an '06 with more velocity, and higher BC values that really shine at longer ranges over the '06, all at very close to the same level of recoil as a 30-06. Seems funny to me, nobody says they have never seen anybody shoot a 300 Win Mag well, but that happens quite often. That round kicks, pretty hard. If a shooter can't handle it, is the round to blame? Chuck Mawhinney is one such example who shoots a 7mag, and does so quite well. But the reverse of what I said above is also true, it doesn't matter what rifle you put in Mr. Mawhinney's hands, he's going to shoot it well. The Secret Service used the 7 mag for their sniper round for a while. Someobody should have told them it can't be shot well, apparently they were unaware lol.

gatekeeper,

You may or may not have seen the article I did for American Rifleman over a decade ago after interviewing Chuck Mawhinney (more than once), but yeah, he used it on a lot of elk, sometimes out to over 600 yards with factory ammo. He liked it a lot--and he said his preferred method of hunting involved sitting down and glassing an area where he knew elk would move.

I do suspect, however, that some (not all) 7mm Remington Magnum users believed in its magic killing power so much that they were less skilled shooters than Chuck. I know this partly from my own guiding days in the 1980s.

I have a nice Weatherby chambered for 7mm RM. Its a good shooter and a fine round but its not my thing. I prefer less boom and pound.

I haven't read that article, but it sounds very interesting. I see the point in thinking the round to be magical, and thus not requiring marksmanship, obviously being a problem if an uninformed hunter thought that way. I think marketing and current trends influence people negatively at times. Kinda how some people think you absolutely need a 300 magnum to kill an elk. I used to be one of those guys who thought that, and I thought I was well informed lol. I just think the 7mm mag is a very efficient round for the level of recoil, but magical it is not. As a Marine myself, I find Chuck Mawhinney's rifle choice very interesting. He is a true icon of the Corpse, as well as an obviously phenomenal shooter. I would be very interested in reading it if I can find a copy. I knew from speaking with you he has hunted with the 7mm Rem Mag quite a bit.

That is exactly what turned me off on the 7 mag. Met a guy out hunting circa 1986 and his 7 mag was WAY better than the 270's and 6.5-06 we were using.

All three of us filled our tags, while he missed and wounded deer. To this day, I have never owned a 7 mag, and never will.

Irrational I know, but life's experiences are what influences us.

That deer's name was Chuck Norris.

Heart so tough the bullet just bounced back out the hole it came in.

I will admit, the benefit a 7mag offers over a 270, or similar standard cartridge, is slight. I have probably killed more deer with a 270 than any other round, and it is superb. I would feel confident shooting any non dangerous game, short maybe of eland (although I imagine it would still work if used properly), as I would my 7mm-08 or 308 as well. I carry a 7 mag for the rare event I could use the extra penetration and added horsepower at longer range, but honestly haven't killed anything yet that couldn't have been neatly killed with the standard 270, 308, 7mm-08. I still like it though, and it has performed well for me. I think rifle rounds are like the old saying, 'there's more than one way to skin a cat'. My way doesn't have to be your way.

John,
I believe I found your article on Chuck Mawhinney, "A Marine's Rifle". Excellent article. Interesting how Mr. Mawhinney, along with 15 other snipers reported never having any problems with their 700s. Those M40 reproductions sure sound nice!

Amen.

Good comments by many in this thread, some funny. I will end with this, I killed a variety of critters with my old ADL 7 Mag, that came OEM with a Stainless Steel barrel, that was blacked by the factory, I believe using iron oxide? 145 Speer on my largest and first buck....that bullet blew up btw at 30 yds, it was the BTSP......deer did not go far, but it destroyed the front shoulders. 115's at 3375 mv, later throttled back to around 3-3,100 on coyotes, etc. My then father in law enjoyed it with either 162 Hornady SP or 160 Sierra SP, whichever loaded at the time, around 2860 mv.....

No doubt, the 7 RM is a fine round....but I guess 270s are more popular due to less recoil. An accurate 7 RM, using good loads, used by shooters who can shoot them well in the field, they do a great job like many rounds.

Since then, I killed critters, including deer and coyotes with various 6mm BR's....just as dead as the 7 mag, including my longest deer kill. 400 yds that was ranged at the far end of a field, with a 105 amax at 2850.

Whatever you use folks, just make sure you use a bullet that does 3 things.

1) HITS Vitals
2) Penetrates vitals
3) Expands so it destroys vitals

Most here know that.......but practice makes perfect. Tolerable blast, recoil and flinch-free shooting allows the best chance for proper placement. LESS Recoil allows more said practice in a session. I can shoot way more rounds of 6BRs, 243, 6.5 CM, Swede, 260, etc. in a day at the range than any 7 mag, and I am not a fan of muzzle brakes giving ear splitting blast with big rounds. Just me. YMMV.

Good hunting, be safe.

I find myself using my magnums less and less. But, they're in the safe, ready to go if needed.

If the 7RM hadn't scratched an itch, had something solid to offer at the time it was rolled out, it would have never caught on like it did, belted round notwithstanding.

The market chooses, the market culls. Sales and numbers don't lie.

The 7RM was a home run at the time, out of the park. Still a good round.

Rem had enough strike outs, was about time for a victory.

Even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then; broke clock is right twice a day, etc. etc.....

DF

I dunno MD. I've shot deer right through the heart, as later established by checking that organ, and as you'd know typically they do run off. Usually not very far, but they can take a bit of finding if they fetch up in the thick stuff. FWIW I once shot a fox fair through the heart with a .308" bullet, and he took some finding too - all under the eyes of so-called mates ragging me that I'd missed him. He probably made it the better part of 100 yards, and ended up in cover.

Of course it doesn't mean that the .308 is a bad round for deer (or foxes). There are better places to put the bullet though, IMHO.

Dan,

Yes, I have seen that as well.

But he was not an experienced hunter, and also not a great shot, as I noticed when witnessing him shoot. The only evidence that he shot the deer in the heart is his claim to have shot it in the heart. There was zero evidence that he'd even hit the deer.

Also, he'd only hunted deer in Pennsylvania, where the average success rate is 10%. Just from talking to him I could tell his success rate was no better than average--the reason he was so upset.

But my main point is that he firmly believed the fault lay in the .308 Winchester, which was ridiculous.

Well yeah, if you miss it doesn't really matter what you are using....

[/quote]

Well yeah, if you miss it doesn't really matter what you are using....
[/quote]



Now THAT is a great quote.

I have a totally irrational despise for the 30-06. My dad took me hunting well before I was able to carry a gun myself. Hunting "parties" were reasonably large (to me) in those days. Groups of 8-12. All of our hunting was "deer drives" flushing them from tree-rows, cattails, later on out of CRP.

Most of the male adults shot 270's or 30-06, kids and wives shot 243's, 22-250's, or the odd 223. None of the people who owned 30-06's were proficient with them. Misses, gut-shots, shooting off legs, etc. I know in my head it's got nothing to do with the 30-06. Given that I hand-load the 30-06 is like the "Leatherman" of rifle chamberings in that it'll do almost anything. That said, I hate it, I still hate it, I just can't get past the past I guess.

I have an immense fondness for the 270Win which IMO only adds to the lunacy of my disdain for the 30-06 given how close they truly are.

I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other regarding the 7Rem. I have 2 myself, one is a push-feed Winlight that I bought to rob the McMillan stock off of and the other is a SS Classic M70 that I bought as a "builder" as someone cut it off to 23" and it looks like they used an angle-grinder to crown the bbl. The 2 guys I can think of that use the 7Rem Mag as their primary big game rifle are both proficient with them. One has been shooting blue-box Federal 150's since the 1970's, the other shoots Federal premium 160 Partitions. Lots of clean kills on deer, a few elk, a couple of moose, and the guy who shoots partitions is also quite deadly on coyotes, even on the run.

The 6.5 Creedmoor is perhaps the best executed product launch in the history of the shooting sports. They saw where projectile R&D was headed so they twisted it and throated it properly out of the gate. Then they developed excellent factory ammo in both hunting and target applications. The intangible IMO was/is the reasonable recoil that makes a person want to shoot up every round they bring to the range, every day they go to the range.

Here's a funny thought:

The 7 RM can do everything the 6.5 CM can do with more recoil and less accuracy.

But in it's day, it was the long range solution.

In the real world time of flight matters. In other words this notion that a rangefinder and turrets has negated the need for velocity is a bit misguided. Flattened trajectory to 400 yards is many times a nice to have.

I own a couple of 7mm RM’s. I hadn’t paid them much attention lately until MD’s thread and later article on the round. So I’ve been wringing them out at the range the last few weeks. I’ve been playing mostly with “obsolete” rounds before this.
There’s not much to dislike about the cartridge. On my first elk hunt, near the Selway River. I was given quite a bit of grieve because three of the partners were carrying 7mm RM’s the fourth was carrying a 300 Win Mag. I was carrying the lowly 308 Winchester 600 Remington.
I was thinking “hiking up and down mountains“, they were thinking “across the canyon shooting“.
Those 7mm’s I own shoot 140 and 150 grain Partitions at 3,000 FPS. I read where people can almost get the same velocity with smaller cases as those 7mm’s do. Some how that makes them superior.
I have not taken either hunting for quite a while, too busy with classic cartridges. Maybe I’ll see if a 150 grain Partition will kill a white tail doe this year. Or maybe I’ll try a 30 Remington 141 pump.
Having said that, I’m more than a little tired of hearing about a comparatively new cartridge that mimics a cartridge that the Swedes chambered In their 1896 Mauser.

When thousandths of a second matter, your game animal is hundreds of yards away?

I don't think the difference in TOF out to 400 yds matters if the difference in velocity at muzzle is a few hundred feet per second. If that was the case, then people would be arguing for the highest BC bullet possible for bullet weight, as they lose velocity slower over all distances. But that isn't the case. Most people imagine vast MV matters more than high BC. That is true out to a few hundred yards. Bullets that lose velocity slower rapidly catch up to ping pong balls started at mach 3. Think "Tortoise and the Hare".

Huntnshoot. I think pathfinder was talking about bullet placement rather than the time the bullet is in flight and such things as how far the game traveled.
I don’t twist knobs on my scopes. I try to learn what the bucket drop might be. Higher velocity means more forgiveness in judging distance.
People don’t all hunt in the same manner. As far as that goes, game don’t always appear in the same manner. Sometimes a game animal will be present for minutes or more. Sometimes it’s seconds - little time to get the range finder out and adjust the elevation knob.
So while I like to take out a cast bullet shooter sometimes, other times I’ll get as flat a shooting rifle I own - pronghorn hunting fits in this last category for me.