7mm Remington Magnum, Anyone tell me about it?

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drjdog5150
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7mm Remington Magnum, Anyone tell me about it?

#1

Post by drjdog5150 »

Looking at getting a hunting rifle and stumbled upon a very nice older (1972) Ruger M77 in it. Prior hunting rifles where 270 and 30-06. But this looks interesting. If you have any opinions I would love to here them!

Thanks,
Jason


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Re: 7mm Remington Magnum, Anyone tell me about it?

#2

Post by Ballistic Therapy »

The 7 mag is a good round.
It is fast , it shoots flat and will reach out.
Personally I think the 270 and especially the 30.06 will do anything the 7 mag will do.
My personal opinion is that the 30.06 is the best of the three.
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Re: 7mm Remington Magnum, Anyone tell me about it?

#3

Post by QuangTri »

Ballistic Therapy wrote: October 18th, 2021, 5:23 pm The 7 mag is a good round.
It is fast , it shoots flat and will reach out.
Personally I think the 270 and especially the 30.06 will do anything the 7 mag will do.
My personal opinion is that the 30.06 is the best of the three.
Not buying one, but how does your observation change if restricted to commercial ammo?
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Re: 7mm Remington Magnum, Anyone tell me about it?

#4

Post by Ballistic Therapy »

It doesn't change at all.
I don't reload.
All I shoot is commercial ammo.
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Re: 7mm Remington Magnum, Anyone tell me about it?

#5

Post by drjdog5150 »

Much appreciated Ballistic Therapy!
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Re: 7mm Remington Magnum, Anyone tell me about it?

#6

Post by BigNate »

drjdog5150 wrote: October 18th, 2021, 3:17 pm Looking at getting a hunting rifle and stumbled upon a very nice older (1972) Ruger M77 in it. Prior hunting rifles where 270 and 30-06. But this looks interesting. If you have any opinions I would love to here them!

Thanks,
Jason
I look at these questions through a pragmatic lens. IMHO for big game in AZ MY choice of those three would be the 7mm Rem Mag. Why?

Ballistics - The other two are great cartridges - totally capable of taking most game in AZ (some might say that they are "suboptimal" for taking large bull elk at distance - but there are plenty would would argue the opposite). That said, the 7mm Rem Mag is faster, flatter, harder hitting that the other two and can be loaded down as necessary for "smaller" big game. You can load it down to energies that match the other cartridges, but you can't make the 30-06 shoot as flat as the 7mm if you get drawn for antelope in a place where you are likely to see the need for a long range shot and the .270 can't be loaded up to the same energies as the 7mm. If you were somewhere where your hunts were going to be happening in thick brush I guess you could make the case for the 30 caliber - but if you were there then there would be even better cartridges for that use case...

Availability - In my recent experience these are a wash - I don't know that either of the other two cartridges are more available today (years ago the 30-06 probably was - but when I look at store shelves today I don't seem to remember seeing a lot more of it than other "relatively common" hunting cartridges.

Recoil - There are lots of factors that impact how hard a rifle hits the shoulder - but in this case the others probably have the edge on the 7mm. That said - I'm not recoil shy - so for me - and for a big game rifle - if it's not something absurd (think 6 lb synthetic stocked rifle with a narrow brass butt plate in .338-378 Wby) I don't see this as a major factor. If I were buying a hunting rifle for my 12 year old's first hunt it would probably not be any of these... (it was a .243).

Barrel Life - The 30-06 probably wins here - but does it really matter? The 7mm's barrel won't last as long as the 30-06 - it might only be good for a couple thousand rounds. Well - at $1.60 each (cheapest on Ammoseek.com today) you'll have $3200 in ammo through it before you need to rebarrel. It's a hunting rifle - you aren't going to put 500 rounds a week through it for match prep and shoots. The odds of you burning the barrel out of it in your lifetime (when used as a hunting rifle) are really really small - and if you do - then buy another...

At the end of the day - it is a fantastic cartridge and if it is in a platform that you like, and the price is right - I'd get it...

Just my 2 cents.

Interesting read here...
https://thebiggamehuntingblog.com/7mm-r ... s%20recoil.
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Re: 7mm Remington Magnum, Anyone tell me about it?

#7

Post by Suck My Glock »

All 3 cartridges (.270 .30-06 and 7mmMag) will take any big game on the continent. But of the 3, 7mmMag has the flattest trajectory arc, and therefor just plain easier to hit what you're looking at because there's less math and estimation involved. If you are going after Pronghorn Antelope, 7mmMag definitely has the edge.

As for reloading ammo vs. factory;...while people do reload for 7mmMag, since it is a belted case, the case tends to only be reloadable for a smaller number of uses before being discarded than the straight wall cases like .270 and .30-06. The reason is a long conversation reloading geeks can explain to you if you have the time to hear about all the unique problems belted cases present in resizing. But suffice to say no new belted magnums have been developed in a couple decades, while all the new hot rod cartridges released in recent times are traditional non-belted cases. And that is no accident. So relying on factory ammo is pretty common even for fans of the 7mmMag.

During the Obama ammo shortage, 2 of the calibers I routinely saw still on the shelf at Walmart when everything else was scarce was .270 and 7mmMag, with .270 being easily the most common.
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Re: 7mm Remington Magnum, Anyone tell me about it?

#8

Post by h8pvmnt »

I have taken most of the game i have ever shot in AZ with a Ruger M77 7MM mag and a Custom Browning A-Bolt 7MM Mag. Multiple Deer, Pronghorn, Elk, a Turkey (yes rifles used to be legal in the fall turkey season). If i could only have one bolt rifle the 7MM Mag would be high on the list for many of the reasons listed. Finding ammo in any caliber has been tough over the last couple years but when i was prepping for a pronghorn hunt last year 7mm Mag was the most available of the calibers i shoot. I ended up using a custom Owens Armory 6.5 CM on that pronghorn hunt because i could but 6.5CM is not adequate for anything bigger than deer in my opinion. Where 7MM Mag will take any AZ game, it may not be the best choice for Moose or Alaskan Brown Bear but that's not really an issue here LOL. I sold my Ruger M77 because the stock cracked back by the safety channel, i had it fixed by David Van Horn but when the custom browning came along it went in favor of the fancy browning..... 7mm Mag will serve you well.
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Re: 7mm Remington Magnum, Anyone tell me about it?

#9

Post by Mini14 »

Big fan of the 7mm I’ve watched my dad flip over a lot of deer with with and dropped my bull in his tracks. I use Factory ammo but plan to load. I also own both of the other but if I had to pick one it would be the 7 mag.
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Re: 7mm Remington Magnum, Anyone tell me about it?

#10

Post by That Guy »

Guys I’ve known who purchased 7MM mags did so because they sucked at distance estimation and wanted a bullet that had the trajectory of a laser. When I was working at Mandall’s back in the day I sold a 7MM mag to this goof (he initially wanted a .300 Weatherby Mag but I talked him outa that) who had this obsession about hitting a deer with a bullet that had so much KE and hydrostatic shock the animal would literally die in its tracks no matter where he hit it. And no, he was not interested in obscure irrelevant minutia like shot placement and bullet design.
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Re: 7mm Remington Magnum, Anyone tell me about it?

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Post by drjdog5150 »

BigNate
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Thanks guys for all the information, that post was from last year and I ended up passing on the M77, but for Christmas my wife got me an extremely beautiful 30-06 Browning Safari from 1967. It appears to be unfired and not carried...well until I got it at least!

I have been looking for the right scope for it, but life got in the way and have been so busy that I haven't even gotten to try her out yet.
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Re: 7mm Remington Magnum, Anyone tell me about it?

#12

Post by Ballistic Therapy »

drjdog5150 wrote: October 16th, 2022, 10:52 am

I ended up passing on the M77, but for Christmas my wife got me an extremely beautiful 30-06 Browning Safari from 1967. It appears to be unfired and not carried...well until I got it at least!

I have been looking for the right scope for it, but life got in the way and have been so busy that I haven't even gotten to try her out yet.
While I prefer a bolt action , that is an excellent choice.

I sold a friend of mine one of those about 40 years ago and he still hunts with it.
Get a good Leupold and it will last you the rest of your life and then some.
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