Short and sweet 7mm Mag recipies

[4ked Horn]

I have a friend who owns a mauser in 7mm Mag. We are going to start reloading for it to increase accuracy and reduce cost. It is primarilly his elk gun and follow up gun (if needed) for when his daughter shoots a deer. Ranges will initially be tight brush to 400+.

I am looking for reccomendations on a good general purpose bullet that is not too spendy. I was thinking an accubond (Is that too tough for close range deer?) or a selection from Wildcat.

Also I am hoping for an easy metering powder that dosen't cost an arm and a leg.

Lastly I know he has a mauser action but I don't know much about what can be done to tune them up. Once I have a chance to crack the gun open and look at it I will have a better idea what we are dealing with. If you have some experience with mauser actions please let me know so when we get to this point I have an idea who to ask for help.

Thanks guys.

 

[sewwhat89]

67 gr of RL 19 with 140 gr AB has proved to be very accurate for me.

May not be the way to go for LR, but works great thus far to 220 yards.

 

[4ked Horn]

That 140 do well on elk? I was looking hard at this bullet a few minutes ago. I'm doing a side by side with the ABs and the SGK right now.

 

[älg]

I think the 160 accubond is a good choice. I have more terminal ballistics experience with the scirocco 150, but they are more expensive and at least in my rifle they do not shoot as well as the accubonds.

Up to 400 yds you don´t need very hot loads and I would suggest something that makes the bullet leave the muzle at around 2950 ft/s.....this way yiu make sure it works also well at close range ( i think it would anyway even if it were driven faster). I don´t thionk the accubond is too hard, it should open up at close range too.

I´ve got good accuracy with the accuboind at 2940 ft/s out of a factory remington mountain ks.

If he is not going to shoot a lot, and wants to save money, I would not go to a metering system and just buy a hand - not digital- scale.

I posted some pics of recovered sciroccos some time ago; others I have not been able to recover and did well on red deer.

 

[4ked Horn]

Thanks alg. Is there a powder you like for the 7mm?

I have all the reloading gear except for the dies. He will have to buy the dies and components. My stuff includes a manual powder dumper. Normally I either dump loads directly in or I dump and trickle into the scale pan. (That is one reason I shoot almost exclusively spherical powders /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif)

As I was looking around I noticed Retumbo popping up over and over again. What do you think of this powder? How about the 4831sc?

 

[Kevin]

My dad shot a cow elk last week with 7mmRM.
His load was 72gr RL22 behind a 140 SGK. MV=3320fps
The shot was only 50 yards so the impact velocity was very high. The shot was quartering away and the bullet entered behind the shoulder mid way up the body and exited through the offside shoulder with approximatly a 1 inch exit hole.

So yes the 140 SGK works well on elk at close range. Best of all the SGK is cheep and The groups were better than scirocco or nosler partition and about the same as nosler ballistic tip.

A few years ago this load was used to take a cow elk at just over 300 yards. The result was almost the same.

 

[Mysticplayer]

My suggestion would be Hornady 162gr SST or Interbonds over Re25 or Retumbo lit by a Fed 215M primer. Ought to work just fine.

Jerry

 

[älg]

I can´t tell you because I only have access to one brand- vectan powders.

T7000 is similar to H4350 and I can´t go much over 2950 without pressure signs at least in my rifle with a 24 in barrel. 4831 is slower and if you use enough barrel it should also work well and should be able to get higher vel.; I don´t know the detailed performance diference between the 4841 and 4831 sc but this last one should be metering better and I think they are similar in burning rate.

Retumbo is slower than the t7000 and should work.

 

[MT4XFore]

4ked Horn, I've been lurking here for several weeks now and this is the first question I feel that I have any experience to answer. In my 7mm, RL19 works very well with a 140 AB. If you want to shoot a 160, I would probably suggest using RL22. Now, as for an easy metering powder, I haven't used anything that meters better than Ramshot powders. I think their Magnum powder would probably work well with the 160 AB. Their Hunter powder might work with the 140, it would be worth a try. Ramshot's loading data is kinda sparse at the moment, so a little careful experimentation would be necessary. Good luck, hope this was of some benefit.
Jim

 

[4ked Horn]

Thank you all for the help. It should get us well on our way to turning that rifle in to a good shooter.

MT4Xfore. Welcome to these fine forums and thank you especially for your input. I'm sure I speak for all the regulars here when I say that input is welcome from anyone as long as it is meant to help. Don't be bashful. Jump right in and let us know what you know. It's all good.

On a side note I was informed the other day that my brothers neighbor is a gun nut so this very evening I walked over to see what he is into. Turns out that he is an ameture (sp?) gun builder but a good one. He showed me a few of the guns he has put together and some of the stocks he has built from stock blanks. These well crafted guns included a heavy barrel 7mmRM with a customized Mauser action. He claims he shot an 8" group at a 1K match with it a few years ago. How fortunate could that be for me and my friend at this moment in time. It looks like this project 7 mil is destined to be a success. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif