recommendations for 7mm STW bullets

R

rickyb

New member
OK I'm ready to reload for my 7mm STW. It's a Winchester model 70 and I am looking at the most 400 yds shots on Whitetail deer. I would like some information from other STW owners on what bullets you like in this gun to start with.
 
I just recently got a 7 Rem Ultra Mag all factory set up.

Nosler 160 Accubond (great hunting bullet, Great B.C, Not a picky bullet)

Sierra 175 Match king (excellent all around bullet, Decent B.C, Not picky)

Berger 180s (awesome bullet but picky to seating depth)

I drive all three bullets as fast as I can accurately I have drops figured to 1100 yards.

I tried a pile bullets to start and those are the best for longer shots in my opinion. The two cases are only 150/200 fps apart so results should be similar.

Try

http://www.bulletsamples.com/

You can buy a few bullets at a time to sample. I started there to try Barnes bullets couldn't get them to shoot for groups or speed.
 
I tried the bullet samples place again after Tom sold it, and the new owner didn't reply to our calls or emails. It's too bad, because it was a really good business before.

I shoot a 160gr. Accubond out of my 280 AI at 2900. I shot a deer on Saturday at about 175 yards and the bullet performed very well. Decent hole through both lungs and offside, with a good blood trail. I'll see how it works out on an elk in a couple weeks hopefully.
 
Between brother and I we have 6 of the 7 STW's customs and Rem Sendero's.

Magic in this case is a 120g tripple shock with a Win mag primer with a load of between 82-84g of R#22. Start off at 79g and work up in your rifle. Seat bullet .050 off the lands. Velocity in our rifles is 3750-3800 depending on the barrel. Deer have not stopped this bullet.

400 yards is a chip shot and one of our food plots is 550 yards and deer just fold up...no deer has taken a step with this load.

We have shot quite a few deer with the old Nosler 120g Solid tip lead tip that have not been made in a long time, scarce, but if you find them buy all you can get your hands on.

If you like heavier bullets, then the 154g Hornady SST on deer is amazing with a heavy dose of IMR 7828 with a Fed 215, our velocity with the accuracy node is 3350 fps.

Reloading manuals are VERY conservative with this cartridge, and federal brass is junk. Buy all the Winchester brass that you can get your hands on, it will take many loadings at max pressures. If the primer pockets get loose, then go to a Win Mag primer and the pockets will be very tight once again.

Good luck
 
Any of the berger bullets will do great at that range. Will need to seat them on the lands for best accuracy.
 
Thanks guys for the info. The great thing about what you said Ackleyman is I have about 80 once fired Winchester brass that I have saved out of this gun. I have had a few rifles through my years, but I don't think I will ever get rid of the STW. RIck
 
Dont have a recipe for the AMAX with the STW ackleyman, but when I do build my LR 28" barreled 7 STW, thats the bullet I will be shooting, hands down...Hope to get them out at 3300fps with the 28", with a .625 BC, coupled with the surgical accuracy, it will be deer and elks nightmare to 1K...

Have shot the 162 AMAX in my custom deluxe 700 7 RM at 2950fps for a few years now and its an astoundingly accurate bullet to 1200 yards, and performs nicely on deer and elk at longer ranges where velocity had slowed down. It is a bit of an explosive bullet though (more so then SST's and NBT's and such) so I wouldn't recomend shoulder shooting anything inside 300-400 yards with it, however thats not what it was designed for. I dont expect a bullet that loses 75% of its weight to drive deep into things, it does however work in your favor at LR where it will still open up easily, but not violently and penetrate more then enough at those ranges to do the job.

For the price and performance, you cant beat them IMO for a great dual purpose LR shooting/hunting bullet in any 7mm for that matter.
 


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