Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Lite 7mm-08 load

My daughter shoots a Browning X-Bolt Micro Midas, 20" barrel. She shoots the Hornady 120 SST "Lite" factory load. I would like to find a lite load to reload for her. looking at the Nosler 120 BT and a min charge of "some" powder.

anyone have a lite pet load?

Scour the manuals for light 4198 and 4895 loads. Personally I would bet the 4198 will be the most accurate....

thanks kraky

if I can hijack this thread, my daughter is shooting a 223 for deer this year, her first season. she is 11 and very small and petite 60-65 #. curious how your daughter handles the 708 and how big she is. Id love to get my daughter into a 708 down the road, but recoil is a large concern for me with her.

I think I saw a method to calculate lite loads for about any caliber on this forum a short time back. I cannot find it now (old age has set in) so someone that may have see the post also may be able to help you out.

That factory load is advertised at 2,675 from a 24" barrel. I get about 2,600 from a 20" barrel with 120's and 31gr of H4198, which is an old silhouette handgun load Hodgdon used to publish in their manuals (Mine is manual No. 25 and went up to 32gr). It's MOA out to 200yds, which is as far as I've shot it, and my daughter and I have both killed stuff with it. It's fun to dump stuff in it's tracks with such little recoil and blast. I recall Seafire mentioning that Remington uses 4198 in their youth loads, somewhere around that same charge.

My daughters shoot a Remington Model 7 Youth with an 18.5" barrel. I loaded a Hornady 139gr SP over 34.5gr of H4895 for about 2400fps. That combo worked well for a first deer a few days ago. Our shots are generally less than 100 yards.

During a very quick workup(one shot of each) I got these velocities:
32.0 = 2169fps
33.0 = 2305fps
34.0 = 2309fps
35.0 = 2421fps
36.0 = 2488fps
37.0 = 2634fps

For practice I have loaded a 100gr Sierra HP over 32.0 gr H4895 which shoots to the same POI as my chosen load and recoil is negligible.

This is a reference document for me when loading for my girls: http://www.wwpowder.com/PDF/Youth%20Loads.pdf

FallGuy, dropping to a 120g Sierra Pro Hunter will give less recoil, and 4198 will be your ticket.

We have Gentry "quiet" muzzle breaks put on all our children's rifles, they learn to wear electronic ear muffs early, and really experience a whole new world of what is going on in the woods as they can hear 3-5x better than the average human. Kids really love the electronic ear muffs, they just forget to turn them off. It is important to teach kids early in life they need to protect their hearing.

I suggest using a Sierra 120gr Prohunter bullet over 60% of a max load of either Hodgdon or IMR 4895.

40.5 gr of IMR 8208 XBR gives me good accuracy with the 120 BT and recoil feels about the same as the Hornady 120 Lite.

Thanks everyone

my daughter is 27 but is small, she loves her 7mm-08

Pro Hunter or Ballistic Tips for these loads?

25 to 30 grains of 4198, either one... or RL 7...

30 to 33 grains of 3031 is also a dandy load, and how accurate it was,
kinda blew me away... at least in the Howa I picked up

assuming 120 grain Bullets, but same charges work well for anything up thru 140 grains
as that is as far as I've tested lately...

I use 36gr h4895 with a 120 gr ballistic tip for a practice load in the wife's 7mm-08. Very low recoil in a 7lb gun. I chrono'ed them but don't have the data in front of me, but seem to remember they clocked right around 2600fps.