7mm-08

[oldfordjr]

I have sold rifles in this caliber, and owned one chambered in a Winchester Model 70/compact, but never had the opportunity to use it. I understand from reading previous articles, it is an excellent cartridge for deer and game of similar size. I have never heard of it being used on elk, moose, or bear. Any comments or suggestions.

[hunterNick]

I own a remington model 7 youth 7mm-08 it is a very good caliber foor deer and sheep and antelope, and can be used with big bullets for Elk and Blask bear but I would not suggest hunting moose or Grizzleys withthat caliber. I harvested my first buck this year with my 7mm-08

[The Norseman]

Merry Christmas to all,

Say I have a Remington Model 7 SS/Blk Stock in .223. I have a Leopuld Scope on it. I like this
rifle very much because I don't have to be fussy with it, but I'm still careful with it.

It is easy to handle, because of it being short.

It is very, very accurate too. The reloads for it, group easily within a dime at 100 yds.

The caliber you have choosen is very good too.

Good luck in whatever you purchase.

[turner1978]

I recently took my fiance on a hunt for her 1st cow elk. She was shooting a RUGER mk 11 compact 7mm-08 with a 16 inch barell. Needless to say I never liked this rifle from the day she bought it. I don't like how short the bareel is and I feel that the 7-08 is a litle on the small side for elk (which by the way is the ONLY animal that she wants to hunt). I bought her a 308 win with a 22 inch barell, to use prior to hunting season but she maintained that she wanted to use her pretty gun.
She was using federal ammo with 140 gr partitions so I figured if we can get in close and place a good shot the rifle should work O.K.
Last monday found us sitting on a hill side using binoculars and scoping out the country side when we spotted a herd of elk about 2 miles away. We put together a plan to drive in closer on a side road and park the truck. We hiked in from there.
The hike was about 1.5 miles, through knee deep snow, to the top of the ridge that the elk had gone over. We got to the top and peaked over. There was a herd of 19 big bull elk. We couldn't believe it since the herd that we had seen was all cows so we decided to follow the ridge and peek over the hill tops to see if we could find those cows.
After a while we peeked over another ridge and there they were. 2 cow elk. They were bedded down in some light brush about 200 yards away from us. We ducked back down under the ridge and I told her that we were gonna have to get closer with the short barreled pea shooter. So we picked out another point on the ridge that would put us a litle bit closer and we crawled back over the top. This time we were exactly 122 yards away. The only problem was that the elk were bedded down in a position that didn't alow for a good shot so we waited about 20 minutes. After a while we decided to use my cow call to see if they would stand up. It worked and one of the cows stood up and walked over into a small clearing exactly 114 yards away this time . A perfect broad side shot. I gave my fiance the ok to shoot and she pulled the trigger. I saw the elk"s front shoulder jerk, and some steam pushed out with her breath, and I knew she was hit good. She ran down into the brush and disapeared and we were not able to get a 2nd shot. We gave her 45 minutes to bleed before we went down to check her tracks. There was alot of blood in the snow. Some of it was dark and some of it was light and frothy with bubles. She was hit in the lungs I was sure.
Some how in our haste we had forgotten to bring extra bullets for her rifle and we only had 3 remaining shells in her rifle. Not too big of a problem since she had shot the elk in the lungs right. We followed the tracks for about 3/4 of amile when we saw her jump up in front of us My fiance shot all three of the remaining bullets at her and we heard the bullets hit with loud smacks twice out of 3 shots. This elk had been shot 3 time already with at least one shot in the lungs. We followed her tracks for 2 more miles and never saw her again. The blood trail slowly trickled out untill there was no more blood at all. The sun was setting and we still had a 3.5 hour hike ahead of us so we finally gave up and turned around.
If you want to use a 7mm-08 on elk make sure you use one with at least a 22 inch barell or take only head shots.
After this experience she sold her old rifle and decided to take my advice and use the 308 with the longer barell.

Has anyone else had any similar experiences with a situation like this with short barreled(ie 16 inch) rifles?

[tykempster]

A 7mm-08 can take Elk easily out to 300 yards. I think she must've gotten a bad shot, hit a elk in the lungs with a .243 and it isn't going anywhere too far.

[turner1978]

My best guess is that the bullet penetrated the right side lung but not the left side. The blood was only on the right side of the tracks most of the time so I am pretty sure that the bullet did not exit. Sometimes things just don't go as planned. But the short barrell does put a damper on things. The 140 gr partitions were only going about 2,300 fps

[11-87rem]

Would not use the 7mm/08 on moose, elk or bear. One does not alwys get an ideal shot at the lungs. Sometimes the animal is moving. If you like the compact rifle, wait a while for a 338Federal which is the 338 on the 08 case. This would be a stopper even with a less than ideal shot.

[muz125]

THe 16" barrel really takes away for the performance of the 7MM-08 or any caliber. Remember that the published ballistics of any round is from a 24" barrel. You lose about 150 fps per inch.

[tykempster]

Actually you lose around 20 fps per inch, if it lost 150 feet per inch that would equate to losing arounnd 1200 fps of velocity, I don't think Ruger would market a gun that takes away almost half the velocity of a cartridge.

[turner1978]

I chronographed the 140 gr bullets from the 16 in barell and they were going on average 2,318 fps. My hornady reloading manual shows 140 gr bullets going 2,800-2,900 fps out of a 24 in barell you do the math. Thats about 500 fps slower with 8 innches less barell. Equates to 62.5 fps per inch of barell loss.

By the way we sold the short barelled rifle in favor of using the 308 with the 22in barell that I had previously bought for her.

[hunterNick]

I own a youth model 7mm-08 with a 24 inch barrel I know for a fact that this gun with a 140 grain bullet could easly down a cow elk and a bull elk. If you were to keep that gun I would suggest using a 150 grain bullet with a 2800 feet per second volocitie.

Did you ever fin the elk:?

[turner1978]

No we didn't find the elk. We couldn't find the tracks in the snow the next day since we had about 9-10 inches down when we woke up.

I like the 7-08 caliber and I would use it in a heart beat for elk IF it had a 24 inch barell on it. But I do think that it makes a better deer gun than an elk/moose gun.

The longer barell allows for much faster velocities than the short 16 inch barell that was on my fiance's rifle. I killed my elk this year using a 277. 140 gr barnes TSX that I loaded to about 3,175 fps out of my 270wsm. I have no doubt that a 140 gr bullet can bring an elk down but I believe that the bullet should be traveling out of the barell at least about 2,600 fps. This might start a big debate but I don't like to take any chances with slow/light weight bullets on animals that big. But thats just my opinion and people have used even smaller, slower, and lighter bullets to take elk and moose in the past. Another problem that I see is people buying a new 338 ULTRA FANTASTIC KILLER MAG and expecting to just put the cross hairs on the elk and watch it fall over imediately as if hit by a ton of bricks. They assume that just touching the elk with this huge 250 gr bullet is gonna blow it to smithereins and then the elk runs for 5 miles before it finally dies. I believe that there is a such thing as too litle of a gun and too big of a gun for some people. If you can handle the recoil then use a big gun but you still have to put the bullet in the right spot. I hunted with a guy this year who shot a bull elk with his 25-06. The elk ran about 25 yards and dropped. So it proves that you don't need a cannon to kill an elk but it is advisable to use something that fits the bill.

[Todd G.]

I find this thread kind of interesting. I own a Remington Model 700 in 7mm-08. It has a 20" barrel and will attain velocities right at 2700 fps with a 140 grain Nosler Ballistic Tip Bullet. So, out of curiosity, I tried the same load out of my Nephew's 7mm-o8 that has the 16 1/2" barrel. It is also a Ruger Compact rifle. Chronograph showed the same load at a hair over 2600 fps.

I then took my .308, which also has a 20 inch barrel and fired some 150 grain Hornady Light Mags. The velocity came it at about 2600 fps. Given the .308 and 7mm-08 are built on the same case, I guess I didn't expect much difference. They are basically ballistic equivalents when shot at equal pressures.

Interestingly enough, the 7x57 is often used in Europe to take Stag (European elk) and moose. If you think about it, its not that surprising. After all, the 7x57 Mauser is the European military round just like the .30-06 is the USA's most popular cartridge based on its military history.

Now, if the 7x57 can kill stag and moose in Europe, I find it very hard to believe the 7mm-08 can't kill the equivalent in the USA. After all, the 7mm-08 can attain higher pressures and greater velocity.

So, I would suggest the shot you placed on the elk had more to do with shot placement than cartridge performance. Without hesitation, the 7mm-08, even in a 16 1/2" barrel, will kill elk if the shot is on target and within the yardage limitations of the cartridge.

[turner1978]

Like I said before. Some times things just don't go as planned and bullets can fragment or change direction inside the animal. Even quality bullets like partitions can and do fail. I believe that by using a marginal weapon as a 16in /7-08 on elk it only contributed to making the shot a litle less dependable. I know that the elk was hit in at least one lung because as we watched her run off we could see steam push out of the bullet hole on her right side with every breath. The blood was light colored and had a lot of frothy bubbles in it. The blood was almost always on the right side of the tracks some times three or four feet away from the trail so I think the blood was sputtering out with her breaths as she ran. I have seen elk drop like they were hit with a ton of bricks with 140 gr bullets and I have also seen them run for miles shot with larger calibers. Elk are a very tough animal and it is not all that uncommon for things to go wrong. I honestly believe that my fiance aimed at the right spot and the 140 partition was border line adequate for the job. I think that the bullet must have deflected off of some bone or something and only peirced one lung.

By the way I love the 7-08 cartridge. I have one on layaway right now. It's a winchester m70 featherweight. I plan on trying the 139 gr interbonds for mule deer here in Idaho with it. Light weight and litle recoil, what more can you ask for in a deer rifle. I will probably bump up to either my 270wsm or 300rum for elk though. Why use a marginal weapon on elk when I already owne a much more eficient elk rifle and can handle the recoil with good accuracy.

It breaks my heart to think about how sad my fiance was when we had to turn around and go back to the truck empty handed with a suffering elk somewhere out there with nothing we could do about it. She says she wont stop hunting because of this set back but she wants to put more effort into target practice this next year and practice quicker follow up and longer range follow up shots. She has gone hunting with me for the last 3 years and every time she has seen me shoot an elk it has always dropped in it's tracks, so I think that she just expected the same thing to happen with her elk. When she shot the hole mtn came alive with deer. When she tried to get the elk back in her scope she said all she could see was deer and by the time our elk seperated from the heard it was so far away that she couldn't have hit it even if she tried. Well if you read my previous posts you probably know the rest of the story.

I hope noone things that I am cutting the 7-08 down by the things that I have said but I just don't like thwe shorter barells. If my fiance likes my new 7-08 better than the 308 that I already owne I wouldn't hesitate to let her use it but this time I will load some barnes MRX or TSX bullets in it. I think they are a better elk bullet.

[hunterNick]

out of my remington 24 inch barell a 140 grain bullet will traven at 2900 feet per second wich is plenty for elk, and if your looking for more you can get 150 160 and 170 grain bullets for 7mm-08. Sierra makes a 164 grain bulett that travels at 2850 fps.