gobigorgohome
Regular
- Location
- Saskatchewan
Who here hunts big game, specifically moose/elk with the 7mm STW? Any real world noticeable gains from shooting the STW over something like the 7mm WSM or 7mm Rem Mag?
Big Game hunting with 7mm STW
- Thread starter gobigorgohome
- Start date
My son has been shooting a 7mm STW for the past 12 years, a Cooper Model 56 custom classic. Accuracy is the best I ever witnessed in any .284 dia. cartridge, with one exception of a 7mm Dakota built on a Ron Smith barrel. It's a very fast, flat shooting cartridge with plenty of downrange energy. This cartridge has proven itself many times over, of it's attributes and killing power.
https://imgur.com/a/Op8P1nt
https://imgur.com/a/Op8P1nt
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The 280 nosler would be wiser choice. Or 7mm Ultramag.
To say the 7mm STW is most accurate 284 cartridge is laughable.....as it has almost zero following in ANY type of competition.
The STW is also going to have very short barrel life.
Your from Sask?
Your hunting farmland or forest for Elk or Moose???
Not too often in forest are shots much farther than 100 yards....and in that case the big cased 7mm STW is overkill and possibly could see failure if wrong bullet was chosen on a close range shot.
The 7mm Rem Mag is cheaper to shoot the same bullets and its doubtful any animal will tell the difference unless your out past 900 yards.....your just burning more powder, burning out your barrel quicker and getting more recoil.
To say the 7mm STW is most accurate 284 cartridge is laughable.....as it has almost zero following in ANY type of competition.
The STW is also going to have very short barrel life.
Your from Sask?
Your hunting farmland or forest for Elk or Moose???
Not too often in forest are shots much farther than 100 yards....and in that case the big cased 7mm STW is overkill and possibly could see failure if wrong bullet was chosen on a close range shot.
The 7mm Rem Mag is cheaper to shoot the same bullets and its doubtful any animal will tell the difference unless your out past 900 yards.....your just burning more powder, burning out your barrel quicker and getting more recoil.
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Ive had one since the 80's. Great long range hunting cartridge. More potent at longer range than either the WSM or RM 7's. Fwiw. - dan
I’ve used the STW for years, pretty much from the beginning. Moose, elk, deer, bear, you name it have found themselves ST tabernacked. An STW can still be used as proof of Saskatchewan residency. 
I originally used the cartridge the way it conceived; a long legged MPBR cartridge, but it was hard to ignore that most everything went down like some giant invisible sledgehammer smashed it into the ground. The cartridge successfully made the transistion from light bullet hot-rod to heavy VLD bullet horizon as a target holder cartridge.
I’ve still got 4 of them, but likely will continue to move over to the 7-300 win for reasons such as mag friendliness and brass availabilty.
I originally used the cartridge the way it conceived; a long legged MPBR cartridge, but it was hard to ignore that most everything went down like some giant invisible sledgehammer smashed it into the ground. The cartridge successfully made the transistion from light bullet hot-rod to heavy VLD bullet horizon as a target holder cartridge.
I’ve still got 4 of them, but likely will continue to move over to the 7-300 win for reasons such as mag friendliness and brass availabilty.
- Location
- Western Manitoba
I was helping a guy who inherited one from his grandpa - turned out it had a custom barrel - hard to do by email and text messages, but eventually I mailed to him some cerrosafe and he was able to get some dimensions of his neck and throat - that "custom chamber" was well below SAAMI dimensions - for "accuracy", no doubt. So, "normally" re-sized 8mm Rem Mag brass, from his Grandpa, had too thick walls for a bullet and that neck area. The first major clues was that the bolt was hard to open, with supposed Start loads, he could not re-chamber (close the bolt) on a fired case, and he could not slide a bullet into the neck of a fired case. My only guess is that Grandpa had not done the case neck reaming on that batch of brass yet - he certainly had the gizmo's and other evidence of knowing what he was doing for forming brass to fit.
Too boot, we discovered an error (?) on the Nosler reloading website for 7mm STW - is still there. The table for 175 grain bullets are much higher numbers than in their Nosler 7 and earlier books - turns out that table was identical to the table they post for 160 grain bullets. So, in his case, he had simply went to that one website - and used the start load shown for 175 grain bullets (74.0 grains) - which is a larger number than the Max shown in the Nosler #7 book (72.5 grains) - He was using H1000 powder, as I recall. I do not know why Nosler had changed their numbers - but very much worth to be checking out by getting information from more than one un-related place.
My impression from digging through much reloading information - and mis-information - was that very few people could actually take advantage of the 100 or 200 fps that most of the big 7mm have over the 24" barrelled 7mm Rem Mag, or the 26" barrelled 7x61 Shape and Hart for that matter. A few days ago, I was helping another young fellow to set up his new Leupold scope on a Weatherby Mark V rifle chambered in 7mm Wby Mag - those Weatherby factory loads that we sourced - now can find none - anywhere - were over $8 each per shot. That 7mm Weatherby Mag is just not "that much better" than a standard 7mm Rem Mag, unless you make a habit of shooting game beyond, say, 500 yards?? And looking at the pressure tested reloading data, there is just not a whole lot to chose from among the, say, biggest 3 or 4 of the 7mm cartridges. I think it is mostly marketing and sales stuff - not performance.
If you load up a 160 grain Nosler Partition in a 7mm Rem Mag to 3,000 fps, and do not get your game, you would not likely have got it, either, with same bullet in a 7mm Wby Mag, a 7mm STW, a 7mm Dakota, a 7mm Rem Ultra Mag, etc.
Too boot, we discovered an error (?) on the Nosler reloading website for 7mm STW - is still there. The table for 175 grain bullets are much higher numbers than in their Nosler 7 and earlier books - turns out that table was identical to the table they post for 160 grain bullets. So, in his case, he had simply went to that one website - and used the start load shown for 175 grain bullets (74.0 grains) - which is a larger number than the Max shown in the Nosler #7 book (72.5 grains) - He was using H1000 powder, as I recall. I do not know why Nosler had changed their numbers - but very much worth to be checking out by getting information from more than one un-related place.
My impression from digging through much reloading information - and mis-information - was that very few people could actually take advantage of the 100 or 200 fps that most of the big 7mm have over the 24" barrelled 7mm Rem Mag, or the 26" barrelled 7x61 Shape and Hart for that matter. A few days ago, I was helping another young fellow to set up his new Leupold scope on a Weatherby Mark V rifle chambered in 7mm Wby Mag - those Weatherby factory loads that we sourced - now can find none - anywhere - were over $8 each per shot. That 7mm Weatherby Mag is just not "that much better" than a standard 7mm Rem Mag, unless you make a habit of shooting game beyond, say, 500 yards?? And looking at the pressure tested reloading data, there is just not a whole lot to chose from among the, say, biggest 3 or 4 of the 7mm cartridges. I think it is mostly marketing and sales stuff - not performance.
If you load up a 160 grain Nosler Partition in a 7mm Rem Mag to 3,000 fps, and do not get your game, you would not likely have got it, either, with same bullet in a 7mm Wby Mag, a 7mm STW, a 7mm Dakota, a 7mm Rem Ultra Mag, etc.
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gobigorgohome
Regular
- Location
- Saskatchewan
Fringe mostly. So there is the chances of both really close shots (under 100 yards) but also ones out to 400 yards... So basically I need something that can do it all. The reason why I was intrigued by the 7mm STW has a lot to do with its design and hehe reasons why it was designed.
As much as I like the STW unless you handload its not worth it and even if you do gains may be hard to truly appreciate for most of us. The thing that shooting moose, elk or big bears with a 7mm STW does better than any other 7mm Magnum cartridge is scratch the itch of using a 7mm STW to do it.
- Location
- Western Manitoba
So, a moose at 400 yards is well within capability of normal 30-06 180 grain at 2,700 muzzle velocity - still have over 2,000 fps impact velocity - it works - won't bounce off. Slightly less impact speed for a 30-06 200 grain at 400 yards, but still above design expansion - numbers from the Nosler 7 reloading manual - Partition bullets - velocities stepped back a bit since most hunting 30-06 are 22" barrel, not the 24" that Nosler used. And, no question, that is a quite a longish shot to make under hunting conditions - have seen it made and not made several times. Trigger time and practice rounds make a huge difference - head stamp and rifle brand do not.
A 7mm-08 will reach out to 400yds with the right ammo choice. (Federal Premium ammo w/ 140gr Trophy Bonded Tip bullet is still going over 2k fps at 400yds, so is the 140gr Nosler Ballistic Tip load from Federal but some people wouldn't consider that a good moose/elk bullet.)
Its a good thing we buy guns based on what we like, not what we need though! Besides, the STW will give you a higher change of the glorious "giant invisible sledgehammer smashed it into the ground" effect that Dogleg speaks of.
- Location
- Western Manitoba
Bolded part above is absolutely correct!! From a guy with more rifles than I have years left to shoot game with!! A perfect sig line someone has on this website - something like "life would be pretty boring if we were all shooting Stevens 200 in 30-06" - yeah, and I have probably mis-remembered it exactly! No real fun in that, though, is there?? - but would be completely true for 98% of us that go after game!!!
I spent first 20 years or so after Saskatchewan White Tail and Mule Deer with a 308 Win - 165 grain Speer HotCor. Took my first elk with it. Son decided to inherit it early - also took his first elk with it and many deers, so far. I bought a 338 Win Mag for going back to hunt elk - took #2 and #3 at 1/2 and 1/4 the distance as the first one, so really wasn't needed. I hunted deer for last 20 years with a Ruger #1 in 7x57 - 150 grain Partitions. No regrets. Was asked to go up to North West Alberta to help on a moose draw that brother had - I got a coyote/wolf tag so I could carry a rifle in the bush. Was mostly worried about meeting up with grizzly when packing out pieces of moose - so took a 9.3x62 on that trip - as it turned out, never fired a shot - brother shot his moose beside a trail on the morning that I had left - he phoned me on the way home from his pick-up parked beside that moose, so I got out of the meat packing/ recovery thing as well!!! Greatest trip, ever!!
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Nosler reloading lists 175gr only 80 fps mv increase over 7mm RM. And uses 30% more powder. Diminishing returns.
https://load-data.nosler.com/load-data/7mm-shooting-times-westerner-stw/
https://load-data.nosler.com/load-data/7mm-remington-magnum/
https://load-data.nosler.com/load-data/7mm-shooting-times-westerner-stw/
https://load-data.nosler.com/load-data/7mm-remington-magnum/
I've loaded for six different 7 Rm's, two 7 Wbys, and two 7 STW's. RM and the Wby versions both have all been arou d 3000 fps with 160 gr bullets from 24 inch barrels. The STW's push the same bullet to aroumd 3200. Other's mileage may vary. - dan
Code:
Cartridge :[B] 7 mm STW[/B]
Bullet : .284, [B]160, Nosler AccuBond[/B] 54932
Useable Case Capaci: 87.461 grain H2O = 5.679 cm³
Cartridge O.A.L. L6: 3.650 inch = 92.71 mm
[B]Barrel Length : 26.0 inch [/B]= 660.4 mm
Predicted Data for Indicated Charges of the Following Powders.
Matching Maximum Pressure: 62000 psi, or 427 MPa
or a maximum loading ratio or filling of 104 %
These calculations refer to your specified settings in QuickLOAD 'Cartridge Dimensions' window.
C A U T I O N : any load listed can result in a powder charge that falls below minimum suggested
loads or exceeds maximum suggested loads as presented in current handloading manuals. Understand
that all of the listed powders can be unsuitable for the given combination of cartridge, bullet
and gun. Actual load order can vary, depending upon lot-to-lot powder and component variations.
USE ONLY FOR COMPARISON !
183 loads produced a Loading Ratio below user-defined minimum of 80%. These powders have been skipped.
Powder type Filling/Loading Ratio Charge Charge Vel. Prop.Burnt P max P muzz B_Time
% Grains Gramm fps % psi psi ms
--------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------
Vihtavuori N570 97.9 83.2 5.39 3299 97.6 62000 16450 1.207 ! Near Maximum !
Alliant Reloder-33 99.7 87.2 5.65 3290 97.9 62000 16303 1.206 ! Near Maximum !
Hodgdon Retumbo 101.7 82.4 5.34 3283 100.0 62000 14429 1.183 ! Near Maximum !
Vihtavuori N560 89.8 74.0 4.79 3228 99.6 62000 14750 1.197 ! Near Maximum !
Alliant Reloder-26 86.2 74.7 4.84 3224 100.0 62000 13805 1.212 ! Near Maximum !
Hodgdon H1000 99.0 78.9 5.11 3223 99.9 62000 14066 1.179 ! Near Maximum !
IMR 7828 94.0 73.6 4.77 3221 99.8 62000 14299 1.189 ! Near Maximum !
Code:
Cartridge :[B] 7 mm Rem. Mag[/B].(SAAMI)
Bullet : .284, [B]160, Nosler AccuBond[/B] 54932
Useable Case Capaci: 74.296 grain H2O = 4.824 cm³
Cartridge O.A.L. L6: 3.290 inch = 83.57 mm
[B]Barrel Length : 26.0 inch[/B] = 660.4 mm
Predicted Data for Indicated Charges of the Following Powders.
Matching Maximum Pressure: 62000 psi, or 427 MPa
or a maximum loading ratio or filling of 104 %
These calculations refer to your specified settings in QuickLOAD 'Cartridge Dimensions' window.
C A U T I O N : any load listed can result in a powder charge that falls below minimum suggested
loads or exceeds maximum suggested loads as presented in current handloading manuals. Understand
that all of the listed powders can be unsuitable for the given combination of cartridge, bullet
and gun. Actual load order can vary, depending upon lot-to-lot powder and component variations.
USE ONLY FOR COMPARISON !
157 loads produced a Loading Ratio below user-defined minimum of 80%. These powders have been skipped.
Powder type Filling/Loading Ratio Charge Charge Vel. Prop.Burnt P max P muzz B_Time
% Grains Gramm fps % psi psi ms
--------------------------------- -----------------------------------------------------------------
Vihtavuori N570 104.0 75.1 4.87 3223 96.6 61954 14427 1.197 ! Near Maximum !
Alliant Reloder-26 91.6 67.5 4.37 3161 100.0 62000 12258 1.207 ! Near Maximum !
Alliant Reloder-25 100.8 68.6 4.45 3158 100.0 62000 12028 1.191 ! Near Maximum !
Vihtavuori N560 94.9 66.4 4.30 3144 99.0 62000 12970 1.198 ! Near Maximum !
IMR 7828 SSC 94.1 66.2 4.29 3141 99.4 62000 12582 1.187 ! Near Maximum !
Hodgdon H1000 104.0 70.5 4.57 3123 99.5 61266 12324 1.185 ! Near Maximum !
Alliant Reloder-22 95.1 65.9 4.27 3118 99.8 62000 12406 1.205 ! Near Maximum !Given that nimrods pizz down both legs about the few fps an Ackley gets over its parent cartridge, the 300 fps + that the STW gives over the other 7mm's mentioned puts it in another league. Today's neutered loading data isn't what made it stand tall when it was introduced. It takes around 200 fps more velocity at impact before anything is noticeable. 
- Location
- Western Manitoba
So just looked at tables in Nosler 7 manual - that speed increase amounts to 5" drop difference at 500 yards (minus 38" versus minus 33"), from 200 yard "0", and the shot will need, what, 3 or 4 MOA windage (15" to 20"?) in a full value 10 mph wind? Having started to shoot at gongs at those distances, that extra or less drop is not such a thing to be noteworthy - but the windage call sure is!!
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