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Old 01-25-2008, 08:58 AM
nekred nekred is offline
 
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 3,772
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Has anyone thought of over kill?

I have seen a moose shot with a 300 win mag at 60 yards in the boiler room and both font shoulders were displaced from the inflation of the body cavity due to pressure created from hydrostatic shock (300 bullet did not exit)

In many ways I see we are comparing a Mckintosh apple to a Granny Smith Apple.... They are still apples and both will do the job. If Muzzle energy is similar, recoil will be similar due to Newton's law "for every force applied there will be an equal and opposite force" When it comes to recoil we are very poor judges. When bench shooting on a target with a rifle that someone says kicks like a horse... It kicks like a bee-stung mule.... Yet we can take the same Thundersticken Loudenboomer and not feel a thing when aiming at a trophy buck. 300 has a bit more muzzle energy so will kick a little more but if you increase weight of rifle perceived recoile goes down along with a properly designed stock. the more in line with barrel shoulder is the less recoil will be felt and noticed due to less muzzle jump which breaks shoulder weld and puts recoil force on a narrower space... thereby increasing perceived recoil. So you can make perceived recoil on both rifles very similar if you add weight to 300 or a muzzle brake!....

In the end you have to compare the pill. A 300 is designed to place a 180-200 grain pill downrange and a 7mm about a 165 grain pill downrang In my experience 7mm is touchy to bullet weight for accuracy. There is some good info here but in the end this is the difference and it comes down to personal preference. Both bullets perform very similarly. Penetration is combination of weight and frontal area if you use same bullet material and design. 7mm is lighter but smaller diameter than 300 so it balances out.

Now back to the overkill. the 300 is a good long range rifle that will kill any North American game over 300 yards. but at distances under 100 yards I have seen it is overkill. 7mm has less overkill but will still drop an elk at 300 yards (assuming proper bullet placement in all cases)

In my opinion 300 is a bit too big for deer, 7mm is the Max i would use for deer.

Are you buying a long range elk rifle that will be used occasionally on deer or a deer rifle occasionally used on elk. (Moose are big babies) Decide what your effective range is with any rifle and what will be the most likely distance you will be shooting game at to aid in your decision.

In the end it will come down to you. Try them both out and see what you can be most accurate with.

Here is a 7mm story. 40 or so years ago before i was a twinkle in my daddy's eye he went to go buy a brand new 30-06 to replace the old faithful 303. The guy behind the counter brought out a Remington 700 in 7mm in a Monte Carlo stock and showed it to my dad and told him all about it. dad looked at it and said it was very nice and he would buy it if the shop had it in Left Hand. (trying to exit gracefully) The guy pulled out an identical twin in Left Hand. Dad bought it. I have seen that rifle only ever miss once in my whole life. It was magic. When the trigger was pulled something died. My Dad has the nickname "One Shot" The only time he missed was on a 120 yard coyote... I got in so much trouble for not backing him up... i did not bother as it was a chip shot... I learned a lesson that everyine can miss. That rifle has countless moose to its credit... one in particular I remember was a 450 yard shot on a cow moose. elk, bears, deer coyotes wolves etc. have all fallen with one shot from that rifle.

When the old rifle finally was wearing out.. He went and bought another 7mm identical and I snuck into his closet and sent the old girl out to get refurbished and presented to him again on his 60th birthday. The new one went back into the closet and the old one is with him once more still dropping animals with a single shot.

Anyways Have fun!...

Last edited by nekred; 01-25-2008 at 09:03 AM.
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