Thread: 7mm ss cs 7mm saum vs 7mmsst

I did a lot of back and forth of which cartridge to use for my project. I was also looking at wildcats based on the SAUM. My criteria was to be able to easily take shots at 600m and have the finished rifle with suppressor, scope and ammo at around 3 - 3.2kg. I have accurate weights for a bunch of modern actions and can estimate barrel weight via CAD. In the end the Tikka beats everything short of custom titanium actions plus the barrel shank is smaller than standard, so you gain extra weight savings there. You can also shave about 140g from a tikka action by milling the receiver, fluting the bolt and replacing the bolt handle, further improving on other actions.
My rifle is around 3.2kg as show above (without bipod) and it is pretty lively to shoot. Bad technique will see it shooting around 1 - 1.3moa. Proper shooting technique will shrink that to 0.4 - 0.5moa.

At the end of the day a 7mm08 tikka in a senator stock popped up on TradeMe for a good price and that sealed the deal on which cartridge, as 7mm08 is very easy to convert to 284. It may be a an inch or so longer than a short action with the same barrel length, but it balances perfectly on the magazine and is a pleasure to carry and shoot.

The way I look at it, is I'm getting 24" 7mm08 performance from an 18" barrel, can use a suppressor and still be shorter than a 24" barrel.