7-08 AI

If an AI cartridge makes you happy, you should get one. However there are only a few AI cartridges that offer any real world benefits over the parent case and they are mostly old and obsolete case designs like 30-30 or 375 H&H.

Less trimming is often expressed as a reason but even that is invalid these days. Most people don't trim their brass very often and of course you can get an excellent automated trimming machine for not much more than a rechamber job.

Obviously, if you want a 7-08AI you should get one...but it's not a practical solution to anything that a standard 7-08 can't do.
 
Looked at it many yrs ago and decided the only real advantage for me would be to use for silos back in the day. But, I'd got rid of a 7RM at the time, as I'd wanted a more suitable year round gun, and the 280 or 284Win didn't turn my crank at the time., and to run 160's again wasn't really what I wanted to do with that gun, wasn't that hard into silos, so, didn't bother, as 140's did what needed doing for me. First couple of moose convinced me of that, and they were nicer to use on the range anyway. Then I bought a 338WM for a heavier hitter, kept it for 25yrs or so, never did shoot a moose or elk with it. Just the way things worked out.
 
I've built a couple of 7-08AI rifles. I sold the reamer about a month ago.

I've built four rifles in total, two in Winchester M70 actions and one each on a Rem Mod 7 and Rem 700SA.

All but the Mod 7 were for other people. All had 22 inch bbls.

This was nice, because we weren't trying to compare apples to oranges, when we worked up loads.

The three fellows that have the other rifles all worked up loads individually and I did my on work up.

We all independently came up with very similar results. We all got the best velocities/accuracy with W748, followed by IMR4350. All of us found that velocities/accuracy were so close between each rifle we would have been hard pressed to say which rifle shot better.

The fired cases from all of them could be easily rechambered in any of the other rifles, so the chambers were very close.

It was a very good test, of this very good cartridge, between different rifles without having to make up for differences such as bbl length, chamber differences, bullet types/weight, etc.

All of the barrels were made by Hart and factory profiled. I just cut the threads, chambers and crowns, then screwed them onto the actions.

All had #2 barrel profiles, and we weren't expecting match accuracy. These rifles were all intended for hunting.

7-08AI loads delivered appx 3000+fps with 139 grain Hornady SSTs out of all four rifles, which IMHO were close to maximum loads but not over.

All rifles shot moa with very little tweaking, with either powder, over CCI 250 magnum primers.

I gave my rifle/dies to my new Step daughter in law, and she likes it a lot. She's put a couple of hundred rounds through it, since she got it and I told her if she wants to shoot it, she has to do the hand loading for it. She loads five boxes of twenty at a time and manages to shoot them off over the course of a year.

The performance is quite close to book listed loads for the 280 Remington, which handloaders know are kept low in deference to pump and semi auto actions it was chambered in.

The sad thing about the 7-08AI is that, to my knowledge, it's a handloader only option.
 
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