7mm-08

R

rudy16

Guest
I am looking at building a gun with my Remington 700 action. I was wondering what would be the barrel rifling for a 7mm-08. I would like one that can handle heavy grains for hunting and ligther grain bullets for targets. I do not know what would be best, the same as .308?
 
A faster twist...

for the heavier bullets and take your chances with the light. There's no all purpose rifle that is as good here as it is there.

Heavier bullets for hunting are way over rated.

I'm moving this to the factory hybrid forum in a bit.
 
What will you be hunting? How much paper will you be shooting? Have you considered a 6BR, 243 or 6MM Rem? 6mm bullets are more abundant and there are numerous match grade bullets to be tested.
 
Get two barrels - a 7-08 or another .308 boltface cartridge for hunting, and a 6BR for target shooting. An action wrench and a couple of pieces of wood in a bench vise, and you're set.
 
7-08

Hi, not too sure exactly what you intend to do with it i.e % hunting to paper but I use 120 grain NBT in my rifle. It shoots very accurately on paper 0.3s all day long ( well you know what I mean :) ) but have also shot foxes, several roe deer and 3 red deer with it. Never had issue to question the bullet, though have never taken it past 300 on paper for grouping. Have taken it to past 700 on rabbits!
 
Factory barrel twist rates are a compromise. If you know what bullet you will shooting, you can order a barrel from any of the barrel makers and they will recommend the optimum twist rate for that bullet. If you want to shoot the heavier bullet weights, get a twist rate fast enough to stabilize them. The barrel may not shoot light bullets as accurately as a slower twist would, but will probably be good enough for hunting. I have a 6.5x55 with a 1-8 twist that will stabilize 160 gr. bullets. It shoots decent but not great groups with 120 gr. bullets.
 
I would go with a 10 twist and not shoot anything over 150gr......which is really heavy for hunting with the 7mm08 anyway. If a 140gr. bullet won't kill them effectively, you need to be shooting something bigger than a 7mm08.

Take a look at this article by our head deer biologist. Granted, we are not talking about 300 pound class deer, but this is about as scientific as you can get with harvest data on wild deer. FWIW, I have taken 68 deer with Ballistic Tips and my observations pretty much mirror this report. Hard "premium" bullets (unless they are going real fast) just don't seem to do as well as soft conventional bullets on deer.

http://www.dnr.sc.gov/wildlife/deer/articlegad.html
 
A 7-08 with a good standard 140gr cup and core bullet is about as good as it gets as far as deer rifles go. I THINK mine has a 1 in 9ish twist and I have shot 140's and up with good accuracy. I've never shot any lighter bullets thru it so don't know about them. It's certainly superior to any of the 6mm deer rifles and I have used it to win factory matches using 140gr Sierra MKs.
 
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