I have been shooting the same rifle since 2003. It is a Remington Model 700 Mountain Rifle DM chambered in 7mm-08. I have a Leupold VX-III 2.5-8x36 in Leupold Rings/Bases. It has been a great rifle. It has taken many of big WI whitetail bucks as well as black bears by both my son and I. Been shooting Hornady 139 gr IL bullets. Would like to start reloading to shoot a 120 grain bullet over 3100.
I really would like to make this rifle cooler, with an upgraded stock or a carbon barrel ... however, part of me loves it just the way it is!
Please tell me about your 7mm-08 and what you shoot for a bullet.
Have a great day all!
Steve
I have several 7/08s and one 7/08 AI all perform extremely well and after testing different bullets (I wanted to shoot bullets in the 140 grain class and found many good loads.
Performance on game was good but different with different brands. The 7/08 needs more velocity than it can produce using the 140 grain bullets to get consistent performance on game and In my short barreled rifles it hovered around 2800 ft/sec.
I switched to 120's and the velocity went above 3000 ft/sec and performance on game was phenomenal. I also found that the 120 ballistic tip out did all other bullets even though the BCs are not as good as some others. My best accuracy load is with H 414 @ 3010 ft/sec, but it can be sensitive to heat and cold changes so I use it when the weather is not to hot.
The fastest load uses Varget and pushes 3150 ft/sec It groups on average .073 for 5 shots, the 414 load does it in .054 (Not much difference but it is hard to get away from the best accuracy.
I still wanted to shoot heavier bullets at long range (I have taken 5 deer over 500 yards using 150 grain bullets in my 7/08 pistol) so I built a 7/08 AI and now I can shoot the 140 in the 7/08 AI as fast as the 120s in the 7/08 and again it appears that the ballistic tip expands better at distance than most other bullets.
I also found that for whatever reason the CCI BR2 primer gave best results in accuracy and standard deviation over other primers.
The 7/08 is one of my favorite cartridges for deer size game at reasonable distances.
Just my experiences with the 7/08
J E CUSTOM