Thread: Keeping the 7mm ahead of the 30 cal?

Don,
That may have been the case with the thin jacketed VLD's in some barrels, but it depends more on how hard pressure and velocity wise you are driving them. I have had the old thin moly coated 180 VLD's shoot in a Kreiger barrel for well over 1000 rounds before it started to destroy them. This was at 64,000 psi and 3200 fps. Kirby ran a lot of rounds through that barrel doing testing for his customers, at some pretty serious pressures and velocities. You can get away with this due to the high quality brass they're based on. Someone else on this forum has a habit of doing the same thing occasionally, eh Kiwi Greg?

I have run many more rounds through one of our 7mm SF's than Kirby has through his own personal 7mmAM you're talking about, without any deterioration in accuracy, but we run the Lapua brass at 65,000psi, not the 70,000 plus some others run.
Anyway, this certainly isn't the case with the Hybrids and other similar ogive and jacket thickness bullets. That's the advantage of them, they are very throat tolerant. If used as a lightweight hunting rifle/load combination, the barrel life even with the biggest 7mm's or any other overbore cartridge will last for years. If you want to bust lots of rounds at gongs etc, then don't pick a big 7mm or any other largest case in any calibre, whether it be 22 cal on up. Build a 338 Edge and bang away to your hearts content, but do realise there are other cartridges that are better in the wind if a high round count is not important to you.
Horses for courses!
Greg

The 195gr will be a hunting bullet so should have a hunting jacket? not like the 180gr target hybrid with a thick jacket that even you admit will only expand up to a modest distance.

Don,
The 180gn 7mm and 300gn 338 Hybrid's I have lots of experience with expand just fine out to 1000 yards no problem. Not sure what you mean by modest distances? They are no different to SMK's, in fact expand better in my opinion. We have no issues with them terminally at all, and their superior ballistics makes them go to's for us. Sure, 180gn and 300gn A-Max's would be even better, but that's not likely any time soon by the sound of it. In the small and medium 7mm's out to 800 yards the 162gn A-Max is superb, but it ain't as good in the wind as the Hybrid, and that's a fact. I'll take hitting them in the right place first over a small terminal advantage any time! Do you think the CE's you've got for your 375 build are going to expand any better? Not in my experience they won't. I can show your footage of a Bull tahr hit smack in the middle of the shoulder with the 252gn CE doing 3550fps at 600 yards that takes off like he wasn't even hit. But we found him 100 yards away dead, hit exactly right in a very strong wind. There's no such thing as the perfect bullet yet, but they're working on it. When Smitty from CE puts his new alloy tips into his long range bullets, then we'll be almost there I reckon!
Anyway, the Red stag Willie shot at 720 yards on Monday night while we were in a "big country" headwater with a 180gn Hybrid out of the 7mm Fatmax just rolled over dead. Point of the shoulder, DOA!!
Greg