7mm RM for moose?

[Bushman]

I'm trying to talk myself into or out of making a .35 Whelen out of a .30-06, but I already have a 7mm RM that could be used like with a 175 grain TBBC. From what my moose hunting buddies have told me, moose just soak up what ever you shoot them with and then go down within a 100 yards or so. Do moose justify a specialized rifle?

[dave-t.]

No need if you have a 30-06 and 7 mag.

35 Whelen is an attractive cartridge though.

[southtexas]

I've never hunted moose, but the answer to your question is: "Of Course!!".

And whitetails require a special rifle (or 3), and mule deer, and pronghorns, and elk, and coyotes, and PD's, and... ALL require special rifles!

[Bushman]

You mean they are like golf clubs, right?

[Altjaeger]

I've never hunted moose, but the answer to your question is: "Of Course!!".

And whitetails require a special rifle (or 3), and mule deer, and pronghorns, and elk, and coyotes, and PD's, and... ALL require special rifles!

But you also need different rifles for whitetail. You need a short carbine for a "woods" gun, a modified varmint rifle in a hyper-velocity round for senderos, a medium weight super-longrange round for coues deer, a medium rifle of a moderate cartridge for most everything else.

Then you have to consider there is the Canadian moose, the Alaskan moose and and the Shira moose along with the European Elg. They are all hunted under different conditions and vary in size. Therefore you need...:D

[Just a Hunter]

The only animal in N-America that I would feel undergunned in using the 7mag would be the great brown bears.

[John/Alaska]

The 30-06 is fine for moose as they are easy to kill. However I do like the reasoning of the others. Yep a specialty rifle is a good thing

[southtexas]

John: welcome aboard! Hope you stick around and enjoy some good company!

[Smokey]

I have never shot a moose myself but have been with relatives and friends when they shot these little creatures.
They do soak up some hits even good ones. The five I've seen shot showed little or no reaction to the shot. Rifles used were 300 Win Mag, two were 30-06, .308, and the 7mm Mag. Most were hit through the ribs into the off shoulder. They walked 30 to 75 yards before they laid down. One shot with the 30.06 needed a finishing shot. The one shot with the 7mm took two shots as it was walking towards the water and we did not have scuba equipment with us.

They are not hard to kill but you need to hit them right like anything else. My cousin with the 7mm said he usually uses his 338 and he has knocked two of the four he shot with it down on the first shot with high shoulder shots.

Any of your rifles would work. In Canada they kill a bunch of them with the old 303 and 30-30. But then again it is nice to have a special rifle for one of them.

Always remember with these animals - don't shoot them when they are close to or in the water.

[John/Alaska]

Southtexas - Thanx for the welcome but I was on this forum when it first started several computers ago. Just haven't been on recently and I take it there was a problem forcing all to reregister. So that is what I just did.

As I said before moose are not hard to kill and almost any calibar will do. The funny thing about them is unless you bust something like a shoulder many times they'll just stand there not reacting to the shot. They are dead but just don't know it yet.And then they'll just fall down. They don't seem to have the same fight or flight reaction like most other animals do when shot. That is why many hunters think that you need to keep blasting away. But the one thing that is very predictable is if they are near water when shot they will head for it. That is when it is nice to get anchoring shot in. Beyond that one decent shot and the hunt will be over and then the work begins.

[alan]

I agree with all that has been said. I would add to give the moose time to bleed out & die before pursuing. Makes for a shorter recovery.

[Badger]

Bushman,

All 3 of those calibers would suit me since I have examples of them in my vault. I think I would take the .35 Whelen first stoked with 225 or 250 grain spitzers. Second would be the .30-06 with 200 grain spitzers and finally the 7RM with 175 grain spitzers.

Badger

[tjhuels]

"They don't know they're dead...."

That's for for sure. The brain of a 1500-lb moose is only the size of a baseball - or less. they just stand there after the shot until the blood stops pumping to the muscles. (Unless you're lucky enough to hit them in the spine..)

TH

[Pat Hurley]

I shot my Alaska Yukon Moose with a .340 Wby. My load was a 250 grain Nosler Partition Gold at 2950 fps. If I were hunting today the load would be a 225 or 240 grain North Fork bullet. The Nosler did a perfect job for me, the North Fork is somewhat more accurate in my rifle. Where I was hunting in the Farewell Burn, the Grizzly Bears are thick and I wanted something that would do the job on them. The 7mm Will do the job, the .340 will do the job better, bullet placement is ultra important no matter what the chambering of the rifle. Good shooting.

[Hi Ball]

Bushman go do the 35-Whelen and then go kill a couple of moose! :cool:

Now I hunted years ago with several OLD FARTS that new a heck of a lot about hunting and shooting. Their choice of weapons or tools for moose hunting was the 30/06 using 220 bullets! Now the other half of the campfire used 35-Whelens and this young sprout totted a .270 Winchester on my first moose hunt....Ug.

I did better the 2nd go around though! I then used a 30/06 with heavy bullets called Winchester Silver Tip. All I can say is they sure did the job and moose can certainly soak up lead like a sponge. Sometimes they fall quick and some time it takes 5 minutes before they start to wobble. Save yourself a lot of work, don't shoot them in knee high water ever no no. I was stupid only once in that regard.:eek::rolleyes:

[GF.]

My cousin with the 7mm said he usually uses his 338 and he has knocked two of the four he shot with it down on the first shot with high shoulder shots.


High shoulder being the same thing as mid-spine, it shouldn't take a .338 to knock one down with any bullet that doesn't fall apart before it gets down to the bone, should it?

I'd expect that a moose would not run the way that a deer will, simply because a mature animal in good health has few predators--and up against a pack of wolves, a bull is probably just as well off standing to fight, rather than exposing his hamstrings and unmentionables to every fang in the pack....

Funny, thing, though... I've always heard that moose go down easy, which I figured was a function of having a very large 10-ring and therefore being relatively easy to hit well. That, and blood pressure within a vessel goes up exponentially with vessel diameter, so an 'identical' hit on a moose might well result in a quicker bleed-out than it would on a deer, despite the wound channel being 'smaller', relative to body size...

But if I were so fortunate as to be going on a moose hunt and having to decide which rifle(s) to bring....

I guess it would really depend on the terrain. I suppose in some areas you might get a long shot at a moose, but I tend to think of them as being hunted at comparatively short range.

JMO - there's absolutely zero up-side to magnum velocity [and blast...and recoil] if you're not likely to shoot over 300 yards - let alone a measly one hundred, so why send 175 grains down-range a whole lot faster than you need to when you could launch 180 or more at something far more civilized and just as lethal? Besides, a 7 mag just has no sense of history to it....

So long and short, I guess... I used to own a 7 mag, and I would never bother to replace it. There are no flies at all on the old '06, but of the three you mentioned, it'd be the Whelen for me. The '06 is great all around, but the Whelen just has MOOSE written all over it.

[Greybeard]

3 BIG mature bulls all killed with 7mm Rem. Mag using Nosler 160 grain partitions. 2 with high shoulder shots and 1 in the back of the neck. All went down immediately and did not get back up. My buddy shoots a .300 Win. Mag. and every one of his bulls has kept going because they did not know they were already dead. He shoots them in the lungs if possible. Indian guide I hunted with many years ago used a 7mm Rem. Mag. rifle for all his hunting which mainly consisted of Canada moose, about 3 a year. So yes a 7mm Rem. Mag. is good and your 30-06 is also good. Greybeard/

[Bushman]

My old post 64 M70 .30-06 is long gone and what I have now is that 7mm RM and some smaller deer chamberings. When I was in Gander Mountain buying fishing stuff, there sat this very nice pre-64 M70 .30-06 that I thought would be a very nice platform for the .35 Whelen. I guess for the few times that will ever go moose hunting, I could just as easily swat them with the 7mm RM as build up something new. The seven has worked well on the elk, and from what they tell me, elk are harder to kill than moose are. Thanks.

[SeniorCoot]

As we age or get more $$ we all seem to move to bigger and better(?) guns-- me I'm old enough to be going back to my 06 after years going from it to 300Win mag- 338, 416(for guiding) and many cal betwixt-- not anything except maybe Kodiaks that cannot be taken with an 06--I tried some of the new cal with fancy id's along with numbersRM, WSM,etc. meant to get us to buy more guns but went back to my 300 Win mag and now my 06 along with it. That said the 338 is about as popular a cal used by moose huters in AK. Just go to butchers in fall and look in the bullet bucket lots of Noslers come out of those 338's

[Bushman]

I don't expect that I will get to AK. for their moose because Ontario moose are lots closer to WI. We saw three on the drive up here (and 5 bears) and they look plenty big to me and AK. moose are even bigger, right? There was a time when I was going to make my 7mm RM into a .338 WM after a couple of elk did not seem too impressed with 160 grain Nosler Partitions, but using what thought was a better bullet in a 175 grain TBBC kept it a 7mm RM. Isn't the 7mm RM case length and the .338 WM case length about the same? I make that rifle up lots of years ago when I thought that one size fits all, but it is too much gun for my whitetails.

[SeniorCoot]

For moose i used 180's in my 300 WM and 225's in my 338--yes AK moose are bigfger in general BUT any moose is big-- best rack i have shot in Ont. was 48" and buddy got a 47"er also-- That's a nice moose any place. And lots of work to gwt to camp.

[Hi Ball]

Bushman....I think I have the solution to your problems my good man!!!;)
Now a 35-Whelen is the "Cat's Meow" for moose in the thick woods and range is certainly good for 250 yards down range and maybe a tad further using a 250 grain bullet ok. ;) :D

However, putting a new rifle together takes total committment and if your not ready, fine and dandy sir. YOU just stoke that 7mm mag up with some of those BARNES ORIGINALS weighting 195 grains and your good to go after moose and any bears that are lurking around too. Trust me on this one Bushman because they work like a charm. :D

Now the 195 grain Barnes bullet has a B.C. of .570 and the Sectional (.S.D) Density is a whopping .345 just in case you might have to take that South bound shot at the tail of that critter while it's going North, it will punch through a lot of in between to reach those vitals. Also 74 grains of H870 powder will give you 2660fps velocity and that is plenty. Bushman, You can also try 61 grains of H4831 at a velocity of 2660fps with that 195 grain BARNES Original bullet.:)

[Bushman]

Holy smokes Hi Ball, I never knew that they made a 195 grain bullet for a 7mm. That much weight in an all copper Barnes bullet must be a long one. Actually it was a bullet test in Gun Test magazine that had me switching away from a 160 grain Partition to the 175 grain Trophy Bonded Bear Claw bullet for my last elk hunt with that rifle. They had tested that bullet the year before into their test medium and named it their #1 choice for the big 7mm's. Then one of their guys gunned a moose with a 7mm RM and recovered a perfectly mushroomed 175 TBBC bullet. My results were perfect on the last elk that I shot with that load although I did not recover the bullet. That fifty cent piece exit was good enough for me. A moose is bigger than an elk though.

While I've got you by the thread, how would you compare your .338-06 against a .35 Whelen for a moose or elk cartridge? My buddy has shot a bunch of elk with a 210 grain Nosler Partition from his .338 WM and likes the results and I think that bullet would be near ideal out of a .338-06 as well. The .35's were never as popular as the .33's have been and I'm thinking that the bullet selection might favor the .338-06 if a guy handloads. I do see that Remington loads a .35 Whelen with a 200 grain and a 250 grain bullet that seem reasonably priced. If a guy doesn't load, I do see a pretty nice selection of .338-06 bullets from A-Square and Nosler Custom.

[M99ER]

The Barnes Original is a traditional type bullet using lead and copper jacket. I'm not sure if they are still made. You may need to look around in some old stock at local gunshops.


A moose is bigger than an elk though.

Taller maybe, but not as wide. You need a better (penetration) bullet for Elk than you do for moose. IMO.

[Hi Ball]

Bushman I have got some of those 195 grain old style (lead & copper) bullets laying around somewhere down stairs or perhaps at the farm. I would gladly go try to find them and send you a few but I am waiting for the wife to return home to take me to the med-station for a badly bitten up left leg.

Two dogs got into it and I tried like a big Dummy to break them apart. Well I got pinned against the fence and bit several times, not good for an old man. I got something like 17 holes in this good leg of mine now.:eek: :rolleyes:

[Chuck S]

Sorry to hear about your leg!:( Not good at all. I'm still trying to find some of the 250 gn, 308 Barnes Originals to no avail.:confused: Anyhow, take care and good hunting.

[ADK Jakes]

That's plenty of gun for even the biggest Bull.