Rise of Remington s Big 7mm Magnum BRATI LE CE NG 50 Y E A RS S TH AN K S TO E AD OUR RE R Special Commemorative Double Issue! Complete Reproduction of RIFLE Number 1 January 2019 No. 302 50 Years of Single-Shots Display until 02/12/19 Printed in USA
6 COLUMNS 50 Years of Rifle Magazine Thanks to You! From the Publisher Don Polacek 8 Rifle Sporting Firearms Journal Spotting Scope Dave Scovill 12 16 20 22.243 Winchester Lock, Stock & Barrel Lee J. Hoots.444 Marlin Mostly Long Guns Brian Pearce The Truth About Groups Down Range Mike Venturino Ruger 10/22 Magazine Improvement Light Gunsmithing Gil Sengel 26 Swarovski X-Series Spotting Scopes A Rifleman s Optics John Haviland 62 Alamo Precision Rifles Custom Corner Stan Trzoniec 66 Rock Island Auction Walnut Hill Terry Wieland On the cover... A Remington Model 700 Classic with a Leupold LPS 2.5-10x 45mm scope, and a custom rifle built on a military Remington No. 1 Rolling Block action. Photos by Matthew West and Yvonne Venturino. Special Commemorative Double Issue! Complete Reproduction of RIFLE Number 1 Page 12... Rise of Remington s Big 7mm Magnum 50 Years of Single-Shots 50 CELEBRATING Y EARS THANKS TO OUR READERS January 2019 No. 302 Printed in USA Page 42... 28 FEATURES Original Ruger M77 A Classic Bolt Rifle for 50 Years Brian Pearce Rifle Number 1 Jan-Feb 1969 The Way We Were, 50 Years Ago 36 Remington s Big Seven The Belted 7mm Stands the Test of Time John Haviland 42 48 54 Special Insert.338 Winchester Magnum Still A Top Performer After 60 Years John Barsness 50 Years of Single-Shots Rifle Magazine at the Front Line Mike Venturino.22 Match Ammunition Testing Loads with Three Very Different Rifles Terry Wieland Page 66... 4 www.riflemagazine.com Rifle 302
LIGHT GUNSMITHING by Gil Sengel It was not long ago that the major complaint regarding.22 rimfire repeating rifles was they had a tendency to stop repeating. Often these rifles had tubular magazines using little stamped sheet metal parts powered by tiny wire springs to move cartridges out of the tube and into the chamber. Lots of use wore these parts out, and hard usage without cleaning caused them to bend. Today the tubular magazine is pretty much gone, replaced by the ubiquitous detachable box magazine that many folks call a clip. Almost without exception, they are stamped, soft, sheet metal or plastic creations. Not only do they wear, but if dropped the feed lips or body will be dented. Reliable feeding can be a thing of the past. When Ruger s 10/22 came on the scene in 1965, everything changed. The Ruger detachable box contains a rotor similar to the centerfire Mannlicher-Schönauer and Savage M99. Made of a proprietary General Electric Corp. product called Celcon that is tough as grizzly bear toenails, and featuring a cast steel throat, the magazine is nearly indestructible. It s also dead reliable. There are, however, two problems often noted by hunters. The first is the rifle s failure to lock the bolt open after the last Ruger 10/22 Magazine Improvement A 1 8-inch hole is drilled through the guide made from a short section of.250-inch drill rod. round is fired. Making this happen would require modifications to both magazine and rifle. Doing so would add cost, so it won t happen. The second item is the subject of this column: Being able to know at a glance how many rounds are in the magazine. Old five-shot metal magazines had to be refilled each time the rifle was fired at game to prevent running out of ammunition at the next opportunity. Doing so requires laying the rifle down on the ground or leaning it against a tree, removing gloves and picking a couple of the tiny cartridges out of those annoying plastic boxes. It is a noisy two-hand operation that is undesirable if targets are scurrying about. Ruger s 10-round magazine greatly reduces the frequency of such fun, but if one cartridge remains in the magazine there is no way to know how many more (if any) remain. A few readers have asked about 10/22 magazines with holes of some type to expose the presence of remaining cartridges. One fellow said he used a clear plastic magazine for years, not realizing how convenient it was until he lost it. The modification shown here was worked out several years ago after a customer brought in a 10/22 magazine with slots cut in the rear and asking to have others so altered. Holes were easier and hardly a revelation to people Shown (left to right) is a U-clip, factory axle screw and fabricated axle screw used for magazine disassembly. Disassembly of the magazine begins by pushing the U-clip in place to hold the magazine throat toward the rear of the magazine. Remove the factory axle screw from the magazine and replace it with the headless axle screw, then pull the magazine apart. 22 www.riflemagazine.com Rifle 302
The rotor is turned to fully loaded position. The front of the magazine throat must touch the front of the rotor or be wired down as shown. who have been drilling cartridge counting holes in semiautomatic pistol magazines since before any of us were born. To alter a 10/22 magazine, it is first necessary to disassemble it. In Rifle No. 280 (May 2015) this is explained in a bit more detail, but it s quite simple and shown in the photos. A U-clip is made from.030-inch-thick sheet metal. There are no critical dimensions here; just make it fit tight, because it holds the magazine throat in place The drill guide is shown properly placed on the rotor. It is touching the cartridge groove only at the rear and is perpendicular to the magazine back plate. when the body is removed. An axle screw must also be made to copy the factory screw without its head. This allows the magazine body to slide off, leaving the rest of the parts locked in place. Be sure to keep a fingertip over the axle nut when removing the factory screw and installing the headless one, so rotor spring tension is not lost. Now it s necessary to orient the magazine rotor to its fully loaded position. This is absolutely necessary, or the drilled holes will not be in the correct locations. To do this, push cartridges into the magazine throat as would be done when normally loading a magazine. So long as the U-clip is made from steel no thicker than
There are five rounds in the magazine. The hole for the second round cannot be drilled because of interference with the steel magazine throat. that specified, it will not interfere. Only three cartridges are needed because two will stay in the magazine throat. When the third is inserted, the first will drop out onto the bench since there is no magazine body to retain it. Pick up this round, load it back into the magazine and repeat until it will no longer enter, indicating the rotor has hit its stop and the magazine is fully loaded. At this point, if the U-clip is not quite strong enough or the rotor spring is too strong, the front of the magazine throat may not be resting on the cylindrical front of the rotor. It must touch here, so This photo can be used as a template. simply wire it down as shown in the photo. A final item to make is a drill guide. This is a 1.5-inch piece of a 1 4-inch drill rod with a 1 8-inch hole drilled through it. The hole s diameter was picked because it is the shank diameter of Dremel tool accessories. It is much easier to control a Dremel tool than a full-size electric drill when drilling through the back of the magazine. The drill guide is placed over the drill, then it is laid in the cartridge groove next to the magazine throat. It is tempting to now drill through the magazine back and move on to the next rotor groove. Don t do it. Even though cartridges are perpendicular to the rear of the magazine when pushed in, they are moved well out of line by the rotor. This is necessary to assure the rim of the round on top is always in front of the round below it, thus allowing the top cartridge to strip cleanly from the magazine and not hang-up on the lower round s rim. The back of the magazine is quite thick, so drilling at this angle will result in a hole that is far out of line on its outside surface. To correct this, allow the drill guide to lay in the rotor groove only at the very rear. Lift the front of the guide until it is perpendicular to the magazine back plate. Drill this hole and continue around the rotor. Note that only eight holes can be drilled because the second cartridge location in the magazine is blocked by the steel magazine throat. The plastic is easily drilled despite its toughness, so holding the magazine in one hand may seem logical. However, a backer board should be used. The board has a small hole drilled in it to accept the protruding axle nut, thus allowing the magazine to fit flat and solidly on the board, protecting your hand at the same time. Use the backer board. Machine-shop types might be thinking, This is a lot of work to modify just one or two magazines. Making a template for hole location and drilling from the rear of an assembled magazine would be preferred. This is certainly possible. A Ruger magazine is 1.260 inches wide at the rear. A full-size photo of the finished magazine is shown. Copies can be made, cut out and affixed to the rear of a magazine. Punch the centers of the holes with a scribe. Drilling needs to be done on a drill press with a depth stop so the drill just passes through the magazine back and does not go in far enough to damage the rotor. Don t worry about chips falling into the magazine as a sharp drill brings the plastic out in two long, unbroken spirals. Yes, drilling the 10/22 magazine seems a bit involved, but not for anyone who enjoys working on long guns. Hunters will wonder how they ever got along with factory magazines. Ruger 77/22s use the same magazine, and there are probably more of them in the woods than 10/22s! R 24 www.riflemagazine.com Rifle 302
Remington s Big Seven The Belted 7mm Stands the Test of Time One of John s favorite elk rifles is a Remington Model 700 Classic 7mm Remington Magnum that has been used to test a variety of scopes, including a Leupld LPS 2.5-10x 45mm. The (left).264 Winchester Magnum never caught on compared to the (center) 7mm Remington Magnum. Many hunters consider the recoil from the (right).300 Winchester Magnum excessive. 36 www.riflemagazine.com Rifle 302
John Haviland When the first issue of Rifle was published 50 years ago, the 7mm Remington Magnum cartridge stood at the height of popularity. The 7mm Remington Magnum had been introduced seven years earlier along with the company s new Model 700 rifle, and the pair were quickly outselling all other rifles and cartridges. the 7mm Remington Magnum as a standard) when loaded with a 160-gr. spitzer bullet, and very few retain as much energy. From reading his book, it seems Hagel mostly considered 400 yards as the outer limit for shots at big game. Back then I hung on every word of praise Hagel and It did not take long for Rifle s writers to join the 7mm bandwagon. In John Wootters column Loading for Bear and other Critters (Rifle No. 2, 1969), he wrote about using a Remington Model 700 ADL 7mm magnum to shoot a mule deer and an elk in Colorado. He wrote that the 7mm was probably too much for mule deer, but it was just right for large game like elk. It is better, in other words, to be overgunned for the easier chances than to be helpless in the face of the hard ones, he wrote. Bob Hagel wrote in his article Magnums 6mm to.28 (Rifle No. 11, 1970), The 7mm Remington Magnum has become one of the most popular of American big game cartridges, and, in this country at least, one of the most popular of all magnums for big game hunting. Hagel kept up that praise for the 7mm Remington. In his 1983 book, Game Loads and Practical Ballistics for the American Hunter, Hagel wrote: As we have seen earlier, few cartridges will shoot flatter over long game ranges than a 7mm magnum (using others bestowed on the 7mm Remington Magnum. They said 7mm bullets were just the right diameter to provide a wide range of suitable bullet weights with plenty of weight in relation to their diameter. They noted smaller-caliber bullets lacked the weight to be ideal for large game, while larger-caliber bullets must be quite heavy to give them enough sectional density, and recoil was excessive when they were fired at high velocity. While I was considering buying a magnum cartridge 30-some years ago, most of my friends had already bought.300 Winchester Magnums. I shot their rifles but handed them back because the rifles kicked too hard. There was little sense of owning a cartridge intended primarily for long-range shooting if a voice inside my head said, This is going to hurt and cause me to yank the trigger. Still, I wanted a long-range magnum. I must have occasionally shouted in my sleep about longing for a 7mm magnum, because for my birthday in 1985 my wife bought me a Remington Model 700 Classic 7mm Remington Magnum. I mounted a Leupold Vari-X II 2-7x scope on the rifle and thought I was really something. My notes from back then show I bought a set of Lyman dies, a box of Speer 160-grain spitzer BTSP bullets and two boxes of Federal unprimed brass. I loaded the bullets and cases with IMR-4350. The rifle kicked somewhat more than my.30-06, but shooting the 7mm Remington Magnum regularly helped me adapt to its recoil. One day I shot prone with the rifle supported on a rolled-up blanket and fired three bullets into an inch at 100 yards, three more shots into January-February 2019 www.riflemagazine.com 37
Remington s Big Seven A Browning X-Bolt Hell s Canyon Speed was used to shoot 100-yard groups with Swift 7mm Remington Magnum ammunition loaded with 160-grain A-Frame bullets. The (left) 7mm Remington Short Action Ultra Mag and the (right) 7mm Winchester Short Magnum never took any business away from the (center) 7mm Remington Magnum. The 7mm Remington Magnum with bullets weighing from 120 to 175 grains makes a great all-around hunting cartridge. 1.6 inches at 200 yards and a final three bullets into 3.5 inches at 300 yards. The first couple of hunting seasons I thought the 7mm magnum was the greatest thing since wool socks. I aimed right on a couple of pronghorn and mule deer way out there and killed them with one shot apiece. I planned to use the rifle mainly to hunt elk, and a 6x6 bull was the first elk I got a chance at with the rifle. With the first morning light, the elk came up from a field into the foothills. As the bull walked along at about 200 yards, I tracked it through my scope with the crosshairs at the front of its chest. At the shot, the elk stopped. I shot again as it started to fall. Both bullets passed completely through the bull. That was something that rarely occurred with my old.30-06. The performance of the Speer bullets, though, was rather erratic. Two of them had sailed right through that elk, but at about the same distance a couple of other bullets had disintegrated against deer and antelope. I wanted to shoot Nosler Partition bullets, but the price was too steep. I settled for a couple boxes of Nosler 162-grain Solid Base bullets. Their accuracy was good, and they were lethal on elk. I have recovered only two of those bullets from elk. One bull was shot at about 30 yards in the timber. The bullet entered the back of its left lung and lodged three-quarters of the way up its neck. Another bull was hit at a few steps over 300 yards. That bullet went through both lungs and stuck under the hide. Both bullets had held together and mushroomed perfectly. When I went back to buy more of the Solid Base bullets, they had been discontinued. However, many other good elk bullets have taken their place. In the years since, I have loaded and shot nearly every brand and style of 160-grain bullets from ordinary Sierra GameKings, Kodiak bonded bullets, Speer Grand Slams and Swift A-Frames to Nosler Partitions and AccuBonds. Some of those bullets have been loaded for five of my wife s cousins who hunt elk with 7mm Remington Magnums. Every season I ask them how the bullets worked. Well, the elk s dead, is the standard reply. My first handloads came up short of expected velocity. When I finally started using a chronograph, it recorded 160-grain bullets starting out at 2,816 fps when loaded with 61.0 grains of IMR-4350, not the 2,950 fps I had expected. Eventually, other powders like IMR-4831 and 7828, H-1000 and Ramshot Magnum boosted velocity of 160-grain bullets close to 3,000 fps. Some handloading manuals list slightly higher velocities, but long ago I quit chasing that need for extra velocity. A 7mm Remington Magnum shooting 160s at 3,000 fps fairly well mirrors the 400-yard trajectory and energy of a.300 magnum shooting 180-grain bullets at the same velocity. That s plenty good enough. My wife s uncle had always hunted with a Winchester Model 94.30-30 in the years before Remington introduced its 7mm magnum. On the recommendations Bert had read, he bought a Model 700 BDL 38 www.riflemagazine.com Rifle 302
This outline approximates an elk s body. Sierra 160-grain bullets were fired from a 7mm Remington Magnum at the target at 500 yards. In 2012 Remington commemorated the 50th anniversary of the 7mm Remington Magnum by offering a commemorative Model 700 BDL. 7mm magnum the second year the rifle was on the market. The moderate price of the Remington rifle certainly contributed some to his decision to buy the pair, but he also anticipated taking shots he never dreamed of with his opensighted.30-30, because he bought a Weaver K-6 scope for the Remington rifle and had a second crosswire installed in the scope to use for aiming on 400-yard shots. Bert never did shoot an elk or deer much farther away than 200-some yards with his Remington Model 700. He was impressed with how quickly his 7mm magnum killed elk. He said one big 6x6 bull he shot took only a few steps before falling over dead from a single bullet. A partial box of Remington 7mm cartridges of Bert s I found were loaded with 175-grain roundnose Core-Lokt bullets. Bert s change from hunting with his
Remington s Big Seven Table I Table II 7mm Remington Magnum Handloads overall 3-shot loaded 100-yard bullet powder charge length velocity group (grains) (grains) (inches) (fps) (inches) Browning X-Bolt Hell s Canyon Speed, 26-inch barrel 145 Speer BTSP IMR-4955 66.5 3.280 3,143 1.69 RL-23 67.5 3,178 1.00 IMR-7977 71.5 3,084 1.37 145 Speer Grand Slam IMR-4451 61.5 3.235 3,008 1.91 IMR-4955 66.5 3,168 1.48 RL-23 67.5 3,174.82 150 Swift Scirocco II IMR-4955 64.5 3.280 3,097 1.84 RL-23 66.0 3,040 2.27 IMR-7977 68.5 2,907 2.02 160 Speer Spitzer BTSP IMR-4451 58.5 3.280 2,962 1.39 IMR-4955 63.5 3,001 1.05 RL-23 65.0 2,906 1.63 162 Hornady InterLock BTSP IMR-4955 64.0 3.280 2,996.81 RL-23 65.0 2,977 2.31 IMR-7977 69.0 2,866.92 175 Speer Grand Slam IMR-4955 61.0 3.260 2,819 1.71 RL-23 63.5 2,874 1.90 IMR-7977 67.0 2,803 1.70 RL-33 73.5 2,878 1.28 Remington Model 700 Classic, 24-inch barrel 115 Speer HP IMR-4831 70.0 3.120 3,461.43 120 Hornady HP H-4831 70.0 3.240 3,155 1.50 71.0 3,259 1.40 130 Speer BT W-760 62.0 3.280 3,151.95 140 Nosler Ballistic Tip RL-22 67.5 3.330 2,927 1.90 160 Nosler Partition H-1000 70.0 3.340 2,954 1.21 160 Speer Spitzer BTSP IMR-4350 61.0 3.240 2,816 1.00 IMR-4831 63.0 2,823 1.60 IMR-7828 66.0 2,838 1.20 168 Nosler Long Range AccuBond Magpro 70.0 3.290 2,790 1.84 175 Speer Mag Tip IMR-4831 60.0 3.250 2,732 1.00 For more data on this cartridge please visit LoadData.com. Be Alert Publisher cannot accept responsibility for errors in published load data. Listed loads are only valid in the test firearms used. Reduce initial powder charge by 10 percent and work up while watching for pressure signs. 7mm Remington Magnum Factory Loads 3-shot stated actual 100-yard load velocity velocity group (grains) (fps) (fps) (inches) 139 Hornady American Whitetail InterLock 3,150 3,155 1.57 150 Federal Premium Vital Shok Ballistic Tip 3,025 3,046.84 150 Federal Premium Vital Shok Trophy Copper 3,025 3,031 1.48 162 Hornady Precision Hunter ELD-X 2,940 2,988 1.05 Notes: A Browning X-Bolt Hell s Canyon Speed with a 26-inch barrel was used to test all loads..30-30 to the 7mm magnum must have been like working on his ranch and switching from a team of horses to a tractor. Other 7mm cartridges have attempted to cash in on some of Remington s 7mm popularity. The 7x61 Sharpe & Hart and 7mm Weatherby Magnum predate the 7mm Remington Magnum. All they accomplished was to stir up some interest for a commonly available rifle in a similar cartridge. The 7mm STW, 7mm WSM, 7mm Dakota and.28 Nosler have not put a dent in the Remington Magnum s popularity. Remington tried piggybacking its long-action 7mm Remington Ultra Mag and 7mm Remington Short Action Ultra Mag to its original 7mm. Those failed, too. The last time I checked, Remington is chambering its original 7mm magnum in 11 variations of its Model 700 rifle. The cartridge s popularity continues. My youngest son has used my Model 700 Classic rifle during the last few years while hunting deer and elk somewhat to fit in with his cousins who hunt with 7mm Remington Magnums in bolt-action Browning, Ruger and Remington rifles. Last fall, elk season opened at 7:25 a.m. At 7:30, I heard one shot come from the sagebrush foothills several miles to the north. I caught up with Thomas at around noon. He had shot a bull at a distance of 200 yards. The Nosler 160-grain Partition had gone clear through the elk. The previous season, Thomas spotted a bull grazing in the fading evening light below him in a mix of sagebrush and short Douglas firs. The distance was about 700 yards. According to some hunters beliefs these days, he should have dialed up the elevation turret on his scope to compensate for range and shot the bull from there. He took the correct course, though, checked wind direction and started stalking the bull. He saw the bull slowly grazing along about 60 yards on the other side of a veil of tree branches. He pushed his rifle s barrel through the branches and 40 www.riflemagazine.com Rifle 302
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 These 7mm 160-grain bullets work well for hunting with a 7mm Remington Magnum. They include a (1) Barnes Triple-Shock, (2) Hornady 162-grain InterLock, (3) Nosler AccuBond, (4) Nosler Partition, (5) Sierra GameKing, (6) Speer Spitzer SP and a (7) Swift A-Frame. rested the rifle on a branch. A single Nosler 160-grain Partition was fired and the bull collapsed. The popularity of the 7mm Remington Magnum in the years An X-Bolt Hell s Canyon Speed 7mm Remington Magnum produced this group at 100 yards with Hornady Precision Hunter ammunition loaded with 162-grain ELD-X bullets. after it was introduced is comparable to the excitement over the 6.5 Creedmoor today. The 7mm and 6.5mm have been promoted for bullets with relatively high ballistic coefficients that retain much of their velocity at long range and penetrate deeply in game. During John practiced with his Model 700 Classic from various shooting positions to become familiar with the rifle. the 7mm s heyday, 400 yards was considered a long shot. Many cartridges have tried to unseat the 7mm Remington Magnum as the most popular 7mm cartridge, and magnum cartridge. None of them have even rubbed the shine off it. The 7mm Remington Magnum should maintain that ranking for the next 50 years. R January-February 2019 www.riflemagazine.com 41