# 7mm-08????



## itchytriggerfinger (Sep 12, 2007)

7mm-08
Is it enough for elk?

How accessable is the ammo at local shops and/or wallyworld/cabelas.....?

Looking to pick up another gun and I am entertaining the idea of this caliber for my wife(me too)


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## DallanC (Jan 13, 2009)

Yes, terrific caliber. It wont have the power of other bigger calibers for quartering shots and whatnot, but hit'em square in the boiler room and they wont go far.


-DallanC


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## plottrunner (Apr 3, 2008)

Sorry but i disagree..........3 years ago my wife had a cow tag and hit one at 60 yards right in the boiler room with her 7mm-08 (150gr sp). Ended up trailing that **** cow over a mile before it died...... When i gutted it the lung on the entry side was blown up pretty good but the other one looked like it was just scratched.... At first I thought she had made a bad shot but the lungs told me otherwise....... Unless you reload there is also not alot of options for that gun with bullet weights etc...........


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## xxxxxxBirdDogger (Mar 7, 2008)

It's about like the .243 in that it shoots flat and straight, but often zings right through the animal without leaving a big exit wound. I know guys who swear by both calibers for elk, but I think I'd stick to deer with them.


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## Bax* (Dec 14, 2008)

I think you should consider the 5mm Rem Mag :lol: J/K

The 7mm-08 is a respectable round, and I am sure it would do a fair job on elk. But I think it is risky using this one personally. I know it would get the job done, there is no question there. BUT I wonder how good of a job it would do...
If it were me.... I wouldnt use it on an Elk. But I'd buy the gun any ways, and then use it as an excuse to buy another rifle.


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## Loke (Sep 7, 2007)

Be a real he-man and get a 7MAG. Walk 50 yards further away from the animal you are shooting and it will be just like shooting it with a 7-08. The 7mm08 is a fine caliber for deer and elk. And caribou. And moose. And anything else this continent has to offer. Use a good bullet and hit it in the right spot and whatever you are shooting at will die.
By the way, a gentleman named Karamojo Bell used the 7mm08's ballistic twin to kill over 1000 elephants. I think it should have the power to penetrate the vitals of any ungulate.


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## Bax* (Dec 14, 2008)

Loke said:


> Use a good bullet and hit it in the right spot and whatever you are shooting at will die.


Well said Loke!


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## xxxxxxBirdDogger (Mar 7, 2008)

> Use a good bullet and hit it in the right spot and whatever you are shooting at will die.


That's a very true statement. A smaller caliber like the 7mm-08 sometimes doesn't leave a ton of room for error on a big animal like an elk, though. I guess I made a judgement I shouldn't have when itchy wrote that this would be for his wife. Maybe she's the best shooter in the family? I don't know. All I was trying to say was that a little bigger caliber would allow for more shooter error. I think the 7mm-08 is a fine caliber and a wonderful shooter. I would personally buy a larger caliber for my own wife to hunt elk with.


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

Plotty's experience is pretty disappointing. While I have no personal knowledge of the caliber; after looking at the ballistics it appears to be very comparable with all of the standard elk calibers to me. 150 gr @ 2,650 ft/s with 2,400 ft/lbs of energy is only about 5% off of the velocity of the 270 and about 12% off of the energy with the same 150 gr bullet.


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## xxxxxxBirdDogger (Mar 7, 2008)

7mm-08 exit wound photographed:








Here's a better exit wound with the same caliber:








I guess a smaller grain bullet was used on the first animal? The second photo would do the job for sure. My uncle shot an elk on a hunt I was on with the 7mm-08 one year. The bullet zipped right through the elk and left an exit hole about like the one pictured first. We had to track it an awfully long ways. The elk did come home with us, though. I'll admit I have no idea what grain or type of bullet he was using.


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## Frisco Pete (Sep 22, 2007)

Experienced hunter and noted gunwriter John Barsness did the finest article on the subject a few years ago and when questions like this come up it is easier for me to re-post part of the article that go into my own explanation because his experience is so much greater and he says it much better. 
As to 7mm-08 - No, he doesn't use it on big game - he uses it's ballistic twin, the 7x57mm Mauser and has had excellent success when the proper bullet is applied to the proper spot. In fact on a recent Canadian moose hunt he only told the guide he had a "7mm" so the guide wouldn't get nervous (the guide _assumed_ 7mm Rem Mag). After an excellent kill, he revealed that it was only the lowly 7x57mm Mauser! Of course he used a good bullet as well.

You will be able to see the application of the following article to the previous tales of woe without much problem I believe:

*ADEQUATE RIFLES - TOUGH GAME* by John Barsness

How much gun/caliber is enough? How much bigger caliber do you need for elk or moose than for northern whitetail? Must we always use heavy bullets and "magnum" cartridges on the tough stuff, while wimpier animals fall easily to wimpy loads?

No, not necessarily. If hit right, all big game animals succumb even to relatively light bullets pushed at moderate velocities. "Hit right" means through both lungs and the major blood vessels that carry blood between heart and lungs. The original size, weight and speed of the bullet doesn't really matter - as long as it gets inside the animals chest and makes a decent hole. A precisely placed bullet from the .30-06 will do the job on everything from reputedly tough 450-pound gemsbok and elk, and the less "tough" moose, and 1300-pound eland. Few would travel more than 50 yards before collapsing.

Where does the tough part come in? Mostly when game animals aren't hit precisely. Hit and of the "tough" animals around the fringes of the lungs, and they can go an awfully long way, and sometimes even recover. Elk and gemsbok sometimes live fruitful lives after bullet placement around the margins of the lungs.

Will bigger rifles kill "better" with imprecise bullet placement? Not as much as some hunters like to believe. Certainly a 250-grain bullet from a .340 Weatherby Magnum makes a bigger hole than a 150-grain bullet from a 7x57, and the bigger bullet will break larger bones and still penetrate deeply. But it won't make much difference if a .340 bullet fringes the rear of the lungs on an elk or gemsbok.. We end up chasing a long, thin blood trail regardless of how many foot-pounds or KO Factor or whatever the .340's bullet carries.

So "tough" means they'll go a ways if hit around the edges.

Here I would like to add pronghorn and whitetail to The List. Many hunters consider both easy to kill, but if you hunt either long enough, you'll learn differently. I've seen poorly hit whitetails and prairie goats, neither weighing more than 100 pounds, pack an incredible amount of lead for several hundred yards.

Why do most hunters think pronghorns and whitetails aren't tough? Deer hunters usually start out young. Relatives with decades of experience usually choose their first rifles. Consequently, 99 percent of pronghorn and deer hunters hunt with something milder than a .300 magnum. Since most pronghorn and deer hunters aren't afraid of their rifles, they put the bullet in the right place, and the chase ends.

Most of us, however, don't hunt larger game very often so tend to depend on "gun writers" for advice about what works. We read that anything smaller than a .338 Winchester Magnum is "inadequate" for elk, or that a .375 H&H is too small for Cape buffalo. This isn't what the majority of elk outfitters and African professional hunters say, but with rare exceptions, elk outfitters and African PHs aren't gun writers.

So a deer hunter who normally shoots a .30-06 (in my experience a totally adequate elk rifle) books his first elk hunt and buys a .338 Winchester Magnum. He can't shoot it very accurately, but "knows" anything less is inadequate. On the fifth day of the hunt, he shoots a middling 5-point bull in the rear of the rib cage, and the bull trots over the mountain before they track it down. Elk sure are tough! Shot right through the lungs with a big ol' .338 and kept on truckin'!

An actual example would be a 110-pound whitetail doe I recently witnessed shot at 250 yards with a 100-grain Barnes Triple-Shock through the ribs with a .257 Roberts. The deer (as they almost always do when lung-shot) ran about 35 yards before keeling over. The X-Bullet left an excellent blood trail. After butchering, the shoulder meat wasn't even bruised.

Similar shot placement, however, doesn't always work all that well once we get to animals over 500 pounds, for a couple of reasons. First, there's relatively less bullet hole. Probably, if we averaged all the deer rifles and all the deer in North America, we'd find the average deer bullet to be .27 inch in diameter and weigh 150 grains. We'd also find the average deer to weigh about 150 pounds: one grain for each pound of deer. Generally a bullet this size will almost totally collapse the lungs of the average deer.

To match that on elk we'd have to use 500 to 800 grains of bullet, and on Cape buffalo or bison we'd have to use 1,500 to 2,000-grain bullets. They'd also have to be a lot fatter, around .45 caliber on elk and .60 caliber on the big boys. Instead the bullets we use on elk probably average about .30 inch and 200 grains, and perhaps .40 and 400 grains on buffalo and bison. These do not collapse the lungs of elk and buffalo. Instead they punch holes.

Consequently, *the bigger the game, the closer we have to aim for the top of the heart - and a bullet placed there also punches through the biggest part of both lungs. Essentially this means putting a bullet in the shoulder, either the bone itself or the shoulder meat. The average deer hunter isn't conditioned to shoot for the shoulder, but somewhere behind it, one reason so many deer hunters find larger game tough to kill*.

Over the years I've made it a point to hunt with as many different cartridges as possible, and to accompany other hunters, either as a guide or simple observer. Over the decades I've made careful shooting notes on several hundred big game animals of all sizes. When hit through the top of the heart, or within a few inches of that ideal spot, there doesn't seem to be much difference in how quickly most big game calibers kill game. Yet many American hunters (perhaps over-fed on shooting propaganda) believe that 10 or 15 grains of bullet weight, a few thousandths of an inch in bullet diameter or a 5 percent increase in muzzle velocity can make one cartridge "inadequate" and another as devastating as a medium-sized volcano.

This doesn't mean there isn't an increase in "killing power" from, say, the .243 Winchester to the .460 Weatherby Magnum. Obviously there is. But probably 95 percent of the "big game" taken in the world weighs less than 700 pounds (including most elk), and 95 percent of the cartridges use bullets weighing between 150 and 200 grains at velocities between 2,700 and 3,100 fps, generating 2,500 to 3,500 foot-pounds (ft-lbs) of muzzle energy. Compared to the gulf between the .243 and .460, that's pretty narrow. Claiming one cartridge in this bunch is magic and another anemic simply isn't rational.


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## xxxxxxBirdDogger (Mar 7, 2008)

Great article, FP, that really shows the importance of shot placement. I would like to backtrack on what I wrote about my uncle's elk earlier. He was shooting a *6mm-08* , almost identical to the .243  . My bad!


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## GaryFish (Sep 7, 2007)

So, after reading all this, it brings me back to a question I've had ever since I've been involved in the shooting sports. Just in my time, there have been many caliber de' jeur come along. The newest, sexiest, gotta have cartridge. And to be honest, I've not seen anything come along that adds any grand advantage over similar, standard counterparts like the 243, 270, 7mm mag, 308, 30-06, and 300 win mag. These standards have factory loads readily available in a variety of bullet weights and configurations, and handloading supplies are typically available most of the time. So aside from the desire to just own something different for the sake of owning something different - something I think we all get - what other reason is there to go away from the standards?


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## itchytriggerfinger (Sep 12, 2007)

Due to ammo availability I ended up getting the standard 7mm instead. I think that i'll be happy with it. I just now have to convince my wife that i get the new 7mm and she can have the 30-06. She hates it when i get the new stuff and she gets my older guns. She'll be alright though. :mrgreen:


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## Bax* (Dec 14, 2008)

GaryFish said:


> So aside from the desire to just own something different for the sake of owning something different - something I think we all get - what other reason is there to go away from the standards?


I am personally always looking at new and strange calibers purely as an educational opportunity. I like to read my reloading manuals and learn about the reasoning behind the development of a wildcat cartridge. I personally do not own a strangely calibered gun because I dont have the know how on how to create a custom rifle, but I do consider buying strangely calibered firearms if it has an added benefit over a standard caliber (IE distance / accuracy)
I think that most people use these odd calibers purely because they see an opportunity for improvement upon the original caliber (this is why Ackley Improved calibers are so prevelent).
Some "imporovements" are not always worth the added time and expense of creating a new caliber. Sometimes this improvement provides minimal improvement in performance and a normal shooter wouldnt need this added edge over a standardized caliber. 
BUT some minimal improvements are beneficial. The 22-K Hornet is a great example of minimal performance benefit. By fire forming the brass to form a shoulder on the brass, the bullet velocity doesnt change much but case life is greatly improved. A normal 22 Hornet brass stretches rather quickly and needs to be resized and trimmed after only a few firings, but by 'wildcatting' the caliber to a K-Hornet, the brass lasts much longer.
I hope my babbles made some sense...


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## Frisco Pete (Sep 22, 2007)

> what other reason is there to go away from the standards?


I think one reason that may appeal to the inner gun nut is that some of the new rounds can be chambered in a stiffer, shorter action and generally make a lighter mountain gun.

Another reason is that some of us don't like belts on cases. Belts have been a fad without valid reasons since Roy Weatherby necked down the H&H Magnum case. When factories like Winchester and Remington introduced new magnums in the '50s and '60s, they felt the public wanted or expected a belt (like Roy's kids) - not for any valid reason.

The new .300 WSM, for example, would be a case in point that has some benefits over the existing .300 Win Mag. The even newer Remington and Ruger short mags are certainly questionable as to why they should exist considering the niche has been already filled.

BTW - why did we need the .243 Win when the excellent .257 Roberts already existed?


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## Loke (Sep 7, 2007)

And did we really need the Roberts when the 250-3000 had been around for 20 years?


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## Al Hansen (Sep 7, 2007)

I always thought the niche that the .243 filled was already handled by the 6mm. I think the real answer is once you have one of everything you think you need the gun manufacturers come up with something new to sell ya. With that said I have been very happy with that new (4-5 years old) .204 Ruger. What a sweet new caliber.


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## sawsman (Sep 13, 2007)

I agree Al, something else to sell ya. I fall for it all the time.

Here is a picture of my 7mm-08. Dont know how it will take an elk down (yet). I got it mainly for deer.

All I know is she sure is pretty to look at and she shoots like a dream.... 8)

[attachment=0:1b2xzf2m]rsz_m22_cooper.jpg[/attachment:1b2xzf2m]

Good luck with that 7mm.


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## Bax* (Dec 14, 2008)

sawsman said:


> I agree Al, something else to sell ya. I fall for it all the time.
> 
> Here is a picture of my 7mm-08. Dont know how it will take an elk down (yet). I got it mainly for deer.
> 
> ...


Nice lookin' rifle there sawsman. Cooper Western Classic?


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## sawsman (Sep 13, 2007)

Cooper Custom Classic, single shot with exhibition feather crotch claro walnut.

Gotta keep wiping the drool off it..........


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## Bax* (Dec 14, 2008)

What a beauty Sawsman!
Optics?
You gotta stop doing this to me man, you make me want a Cooper. But I keep getting hung up on Kimbers


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## sawsman (Sep 13, 2007)

Kimbers are nice rifles to get hung up on. 

I topped the Cooper with a Swarovski Z6 1,7-10X42mm. Ouch on the pocket book!!

[attachment=0:s4fphrj5]rsz_3feather_crotch_claro.jpg[/attachment:s4fphrj5]


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## Bax* (Dec 14, 2008)

So this is your second Cooper?
Thats like a $3k rifle my boy!


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## sawsman (Sep 13, 2007)

The 7mm-08 was my first Cooper, but you cant just get one ya know. So I bought a second, a Model 52 Repeater in 30-06. AA+ French Walnut. I'm a sucker for pretty wood.....

[attachment=0:2g69y0je]rsz_m52.jpg[/attachment:2g69y0je]


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## Bax* (Dec 14, 2008)

sawsman said:


> but you cant just get one ya know. So I bought a second, a Model 52 Repeater in 30-06.


I dont blame you! I did the exact same thing. I bought a Kimber 84M Varmint in .204, and loved the way it looked and shot, so I bought another 84M (Longmaster Classic) in .308. Still havent decided on optics for my .308 yet though, right now I just have a Nikon Buckmasters 3X9 on it. Leaning toward a Zeiss but havent made up my mind.

I think your 30-06 is a beauty! I pull it up every once in a while on your first thread to look at it. Great choice!


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## Huge29 (Sep 17, 2007)

Frisco Pete said:


> So a deer hunter who normally shoots a .30-06 (in my experience a totally adequate elk rifle) books his first elk hunt and buys a .338 Winchester Magnum. He can't shoot it very accurately, but "knows" anything less is inadequate. On the fifth day of the hunt, he shoots a middling 5-point bull in the rear of the rib cage, and the bull trots over the mountain before they track it down. Elk sure are tough! Shot right through the lungs with a big ol' .338 and kept on truckin'!


Great article! I have run that one through my mind many times now and it sure makes a lot of sense to me. 
Nice furniture BTW there guys! I don't know if I could ever hunt with one of those; my only priority would be to make sure there are no scratches on it.


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