7mm Remington Magnum

New Bullets and Powders

- John Barsness

The 7mm Remington Magnum seems to be a somewhat contradictory cartridge. Its first contradiction occurred when introduced in 1962. Remington promoted the round as a superb longrange, big-game cartridge – yet one of the two original factory loads featured a 175-grain “roundnosed” CoreLokt at a claimed 3,020 fps. Why load a ballistically inefficient bullet in a long-range round?

Two thoughts come immediately to mind: First, back then many hunters still believed roundnosed bullets worked better when hunting in heavier cover, due to less deflection when “bucking brush.” In fact, some of the era’s other new belted magnums came saddled with roundnose bullets, including the .257 Weatherby’s 117-grain factory load.

Also, Remington might have had a bunch of 7mm roundnose 175s on hand, due to shrinking demand for the 7x57 Mauser, the only other cartridge Remington ever loaded with that bullet. Before World War II, the 7x57 had been relatively popular in the U.S. – Winchester even chambered it in the pre-’64 Model 70 – but faded after the war. The factory ammunition lists in the 1963 Gun Digest annual (where Ken Waters reviewed Remington’s new 7mm cartridge) did not include any Remington 7x57 ammunition.

Some reviewers mentioned this ballistic anomaly, but Remington didn’t fix the problem for a few years, perhaps after finally loading the last of its roundnose 175s. The factory ammunition tables in the 1966