7mm load for out to 700 yards

[lamiglas]

a friend brought over a winchester model 70 7mm rem mag. He ordered a leupold scope with m1 turrets for it and asked me to find him a good load. I have never shot this rifle yet, but he said it was under 1 moa at 100 yds with a 160 speer grandslam.

he gave me some money for powder/bullets etc, so my question is, where do i start.

accubond? gameking? matchking? others? his main objective is to be able to shoot out to 700 yards.

havent loaded for the 7mm a whole lot, so not sure which bullets have the best bc, expansion etc. i was thinking of starting with the 160 accubond, or the 175 gamking? both seem to have good bc's.

thanks alot.

 

[BH Hunter]

Hey Bill: I shoot the 168 VLD in my 7 Short. I had a definite advantage to the other 7's that were shooting the 162 AMAX that were basically the identical rifle. My load is right at 3074 fps. I would think you could duplicate that w/ a 7mm w/ H1000. If I were you out there I would consider the 180 VLD or JLK in the 7mag. I was shooting almost the same drops as the EDGE's (slightly less) all the way to 1700. Take care,
Brad

 

[Buffalobob]

What kind of animals does he wish to shoot would be the first question in bullet selection.

In a 7mm Wby I had good results with the 160 AB and Reloader 22.

 

[J E Custom]

For that range almost any good bonded core bullet from 140grs to 170grs will work.

The heaver bullets have better BCs but have a lot of trajectory and more recoil and are
not nessary to 6 or 700 yards.

I have done well at these distances with the 140s and H4831 sc in the 7 Rem Mag.

Velocity is just over 3200 ft/sec so it is very flat.

J E CUSTOM

 

[roninflag]

i use 69.5 h-4831 or a little less. and a 140 berger, 140 accubond, 139 horn. remington 700 ADL.

 

[rscott5028]

I load 180g Bergers for my son's Sendero 7mm Rem Mag.

Norma is the best brass I've come up with. I use Fed GM215M primers.

We've had good results with both h4831sc and RL22 for velocity and accuracy.

We have been hunting with a light load of RL22 averaging 2606fps and killing deer and wild hogs to 550yds with small entry and huge exit wounds.

We've loaded it to over 2900fps with little sign of pressure. But, we hunted with the light load because that's the one we had the most dope on when hunting season started. (sub-MOA to 942yds)

168g Bergers work fine also if your rifle prefers them.

We also worked up a load for Barnes' 150gr TTSX if you prefer their terminal ballistics theories. We just didn't get a chance to hunt with it this year. Perhaps we'll go shoot another doe before youth season ends.

Like Buffalobob pointed out, it may depend on your intended prey.

Good luck!!

 

[lamiglas]

thank you for the responses gentlemen. Going to do a little shopping today, and i will see what i can find. the scope will not be here for some time, so i wont be shooting it for a awhile but i will keep you all posted.

as far as game goes, mostly coyotes to deer sized game.

BH hunter- get your edge yet?

 

[lamiglas]

Just thougt i would post some results.

first of all, We ended up going with the 162 grain amax. this was mostly because they fit his budget, and i could get them. also, he had on hand some reloader 22.

i loaded up 3 at each 1/2 grain increment from 62 to 66 grains. I shot them all at 100 yds in the dirt, harris bipod and rear bag.

i have used this method several times with great success. i am not worried about throwing a shot, because if two dont shoot good, 3 wont for sure. if two are touching and one is out i may revisit that load.

to the nearest .25 they shot

62 -1.75
62.5 -1.5
63 -.75
63.5 -1.25
64 -1.5
64.5 -1.75
65 -1.5
65.5 -1.25
66 -.75

even though the 66 shot well, we decided to go with the 63 grain load for other reasons.


I then loaded up 6 more at 63 grains and shot two 3 shot groups

.75 and .5.

estimated velocity, fired up exbal, and shot at 525. was about 4 inches low, validated velocity, and then fired a 3 shot group at 525.

shot approx .75 moa at 525.

The wind came up, ran out of powder, and my atv broke down, so we called it a day (broke a gear!)

will go out next time and see what we can do at some further distances.

thanks for all the information.

Bill