short magnums

[falls]

I am wanting to buy a new rifle. I will be using it for whitetails, bears and maybe for my wife to use elk hunting. I was considering a 7mm Rem. mag, but with all the hoopla about the new short mags i might change my mind.

Do any of you have any experience with them?

[300 wsm]

I have owned a 300 wsm for about one year now, and I love it. I have many different rifles including a 7mm mag, and i like my 300 wsm the best.It is a very powerful round that is flat shooting, but has a very mild recoil.The 7mm mag is also a very good caliber. Their are a lot of great calibers to choose from but i would take my 300 wsm over all of them. I just witnessed my wife drop an elk with it about a week ago. If you have any questions on the short mags, and i can answer them for you i would be happy to. You can email me at muay_thai_guy76@yahoo.com or just ask them here and i will see it soon.

[Guest Ernesto C.]

Hi Falls,300 wsm mentioned something very important to take in consideration:RECOIL. If you know someone that owns a 7mm mag,maybe you can borrow it and let your wife try it to see how she likes it,if possible try different calibers to see what shee likes and yes everybody is talking about the new caliber revolution.

Good luck with your new rifle and God bless you.

 

Ernesto C.

[Dodger]

Falls,

 

I just got a 7mm WSM this summer and used it this fall on my coues hunt. I don't have any experience with a regular 7mm rem mag, but I will say the recoil isn't that bad in the 7mm WSM. It still kicks. I shot about 15 rounds through it before my shoulder got pretty sore while sighting it in before my hunt. It was pretty sore the next day. I was debating between the 7mm WSM and the 300 WSM and decided to go with the 7mm because I don't really hunt anything except deer with a rifle and it did its job this fall with a 400+ yard shot with a 139 grain bullet. The 300 WSM will give you more bullet selection than the 7mm WSM, but I would suspect the recoil will be greater. I have shot a 300 win mag and I didn't care for the recoil. Muzzle brake might be a solution.

 

Just thought I would add my two cents.

Dodger

[catclaw]

The recoil difference between the 300WSM and a regular 300 Winny is negligable. The two main differences are the ability to use a short action with a short bolt throw which translates into a few microseconds faster reloading rate and the short, fat powder column which has served benchresters so well in the 6mm ppc and the likes. I personally have shied away from the WSM and Rem SAUM's as I did not like the way they fed in the repeaters that I handled. Unless you handload, these newer magnums are harder to find ammo for that the regular 7mm and 300's. I feel that muzzlebrakes are for extremely speciallized rifles because of their HUGE increase in noise. If you shoot a muzzlebraked rifle without hearing protection, you WILL cause damage to your ears.

If you think recoil may be an issue, I would recommend trying a 270 or 280 and see how that feels for her first- this is often about as much recoil as many people can tolerate. Most of what you have read about the short magnums is exactly what you charaterized it as- Hoopla.

 

All this said, If I could find the right rifle that fed and shot a WSM to my liking, I may have one built myself.

[Dodger]

Catclaw brought up a good point. The short mags are pretty fincky when it comes to cartridge length. I hand load my own bullets and measure each one with a caliper to make sure they will chamber. I can also only find one type of factory ammo for my rifle and it didn't shoot very well, but every gun is different. But I like my gun a lot. I didn't get a muzzlebreak put on my gun for the reason Catclaw stated, too much noise.

[Prohunt]

First of all,I do not have a short magnum. From what I have read they don't reach their full potential unless they have a 28" barrel. Most production hunting rifles are in the range of 22' to 26". With these barrel lengths the 300 WSM actually is slower than a regular 300 Win Mag. From what I understand the fastest short mags out today are the Lazzeroni's.

Just my 2 cents.

Travis

[More D]

Info in my magazine says that the 300WSM and the 300WIN MAG have the same velocity with the same bullet stlye and weight with same barrel lenght (like 26") but the 300WSM uses less powder. The reason is like stated before it is more efficient (short/fat). The 300WSM only needs a 26" barrel. Now if you were to have 30" barrel on the 300WIN MAG then that is when it has an advantage, more barre/time for extra powder to burn= more velocity, about 100-200 more fps than with 24" or 26". Problem is that not many of us want to lug around that long of a barrel.

 

Same artice said that there is a limit to burn rate. The example that was givin was a 300 Remington ULTRA MAG not the short. They put a regular bed sheet hanging in front of the barrel at 10 feet away with about 2 feet lying on the floor back to the shooter then shot the rifle, again a 300 Remington ULTRA MAG. They found a quite a bit of raw unburnt powder at the bottom of the sheet! An INefficient way to get more velocity.

 

I have been eyeing a 300WSM for a LONG time but I can't stand to pay $25 a box of bullets. heck even the dies a expensive.

 

 

[CHD]

There is an article on the new short magnums by John Barsness in the current issue of Rifle Magazine, if any of you want to learn a little more. It is kind of a summary of his opinions on several of them.

 

I am a rifle & handloading nut myself, and have found John to be extremely knowledgeable. He bases his opinions on actual testing and experiences, unlike some writers.

 

Chris Darnell