alaround 7mm

[saskshooter]

what would be the best grain bullet to load in a 7mm for dear and elk?

[thirty06]

Gidday Mate

What sort of 7mm are you shooting. Is it a 7x57, 7-08, 280 rem, or one of the magnums. If it is any of the standard calibres above my suggestion would be to go with either the 140gr coreloct or 130 gr speer hot cor. These have given excellent results in both the 7x57 and 7x64 for myself and one of my mates.

They show consistent expansion and great penetration at ranges from the muzzle out to about 300-350 metres and we have used them on everything from wallabys (small kangaroo) to red deer and thar (Himalayan mountain goat) which are about as tough as an elk. Others who have used them on wapiti report the same results.

Thirty years of consistent results does it for me. I have tried going top the nosler balistic tips but found that they were no better than the corelocts and hot cors just more expensive, though very accurate.

In the magnum calibres I have no experience but here that the premium bullets are the go here. Not a big magnum fan unless I get a 264 win mag one day.

Hope this helps

Hamish

[saskshooter]

sorry. it's a 7mm remington mag.it's a buddies gun.

[gd357]

I hunt with a few guys who hunt elk and deer. Most of them shoot 7mm Rem Mags, and all of those use the 160 grain partitions. That's a bit more bullet than I like on deer, but I imagine it would be just the ticket for elk. if you chose to use a 140 grain partition/failsafe/barnes x, it should work.


gd357

[Cossack]

I shoot fiive 7mm calibers not including the 7 Rem. My vote for best all-round bullet that covers the entire .284 spectrum is the 140 grain Barnes TSX. Good from deer on up through elk. Great accuracy (.450 BC), exceptional terminal performance ( shot one through a big buck - lengthways!) and made from solid copper - no lead at all! Retained weight is usually close to 100%.
You just can't push them fast enough to cause them to fail. I used the standard X bullet and put up with some fouling just to get the performance. The TSX takes care of the fouling problem and maintaines the exceptional terminal performance.

[L. Cooper]

I once sold an article to a magazine that "proved" the contention that until you shoot heavy for caliber bullets with any magnum, the advantage of the magnum over standard versions of the caliber are just not significant. The 7mm Rem is a good example.

If you study the charts you will find that until you get to about 160 grains in weight, the Rem. Mag is really just a loud mouthed .280. Start pushing heavy bullets and the Magnum becomes something the .280 only dreams about, especially at longer ranges.

For a combination deer/elk load, find some well constructed bullets (to hold together well at high velocity for close range) 160 grains or more in weight that shoot well in your gun, and use them for both purposes to get the most out of that magnum round.