blacktailslayer
Regular
- Location
- Ladysmith, B.C.
Long range hunter/ shooting steel caliber.. Pick one of the 7mm calibers and why you would choose this one. Looking for balance between performance and decent barrel life.
.284 Win if you are stuck on a 7mm.
Brass should last almost forever if it is not taxed, no belted cases to deal with, standard bolt face, barrel life should be upwards of 2000 rounds or so for max accuracy life but would go longer if you don't mind the odd shot going somewhere other than where you wanted it to go.
little off topic but for my own learning, why are belted cases more off a pain to deal with?
I run a 284 win in a long action. Its an incredible caliber. As mentioned above, brass is great, I've necked up 6.5-284 lapua and run straight old winchester brass. The win took a pile more prep but runs just fine (worst with the win brass was culling it for weight and crap primer pockets, but is cheap).
With some of the newer powders out there (most note worthy RL17) velocity with the 7mm heavies is very good (h4831sc also produced good results with slightly lower velocities). I've had great results with the 168 and 180gr berger hunting vlds.
There are a ton of good hunting bullets, barns, nosler, etc that produce some nice 7mm choices.
And, in the 160 to 180gr range, its easily got enough juice to off most large Canadian game.
Recoil is very manageable.
Take care
Does the .284 feed well from a LA? I have a blueprinted LA, standard bolt face already , might be the ticket. And the Lapua brass is a huge plus!!!++++