The 7mms deliver the most downrange performance within recoil levels the average shooter can handle.

The rest of the story I'm sure you know--Winchester's 7mm Short Magnum, Remington's 7mm Ultra Mag and 7mm Short Action Ultra Mag, all introduced within the last three years. All told, there are currently 14 cartridges of 7mm caliber being loaded among the major ammo manufacturers--Federal, Hornady, Norma, PMC, Remington, Winchester and Weatherby.

(Left)Same cartridge, two different headstamps: In the late '70s Remington tried to breathe new life into the .280 Rem by changing its name to "7mm Express Rem." It was soon changed back. (Right) The need for speed can be adequately addressed with a 7mm like the Ultra Mag.

So to what do we owe this relatively sudden turn of rags to riches for the 7mm bore size? There is, of course, no simple answer, but if there were, I believe it would be primarily attributable to the fact that today's hunters and shooters, typically those who read magazines like RifleShooter on a regular basis, are a lot more knowledgeable than a generation or two ago, plus the fact that there's a lot more of them.

Let's face it, anyone who opts for a 7mm, whether it's the 7mm-08 or the 7mm Ultra Mag, is looking for high energy retention and flat trajectories, which means a .270 or a .30 of some sort would be the only logical alternatives for consideration. There is nothing inherently superior about a bullet that measures .284. Anything a 7mm can do, a .30 caliber of comparable sectional density and ballistic coefficient can also do. The catch is, in order to send a .30-caliber slug over a trajectory as flat as that 7mm bullet, about 20 percent more recoil is going to be generated.

There's no question that whatever the terminal range--200, 300, 400 or more yards--the .30 is going to arrive with more energy. The question is how much you need. A 7mm Rem Mag, for example, pushing a 150-grain Barnes XBT at 3,100 fps, arrives at 400 yards with nearly 2,100 ft-lbs of energy; that exceeds the 2,000 ft-lbs of delivered energy they say is required to make a good elk cartridge. Pushing a .30/180 Barnes XBT, which has comparable SD and BC ratings, at the same 3,100 fps from a .300 Win Mag would have it arching a slightly less flat trajectory and arriving with about 250 ft-lbs more energy. How important is that, particularly when you consider that in an 8.75-pound rifle, the 7mm is going to belt you with 22.8 ft-lbs of recoil, compared to the 28.5 the .300 delivers? That's 20 percent more recoil for a less flat trajectory and 15 percent more energy.

The 7mm has been the author's favorite bore size his entire life, his having taken more game with it than all others combined. This springbok was taken with a custom 7mm WSM before either rifles or ammo was available.

Another way of looking at it is that, based on similar recoil levels, you can be shooting either a .308 Win. or a .280 Rem, a .30-06 or 7mm Rem Mag, a .300 Win. Mag or a 7mm STW. In all three cases the 7mm produces clearly superior downrange performance in terms of delivered energy and trajectory at any given recoil level. You could say you get more buck for the bang.