7-08 and staball 6.5

[Seanshooter]

This was the first time loading with staball 6.5 in anything. It’s seems to always be available locally so I figured I would give it a try. I found three boxes of Hornady 7mm 162 eldm on sale at sportsman’s about a while back that where on clearance,so through my research it looked like it was a good combination. Rifle was an original Tikka 7-08 compact 20” barrel I had threaded and recrowned, round count is approximately 250. The last few years I have gone light on my deer rifles and have always used SFP for hunting. I put this together for this fall with a FFP scope to see how I would like it for hunting. Just did a quick work up to see where I was at. This has been a hammer of a barrel from shot one, deer load I settled on was nosler140BT over 45.5 gr of Big Game @ 2760 which produced clover leafs. 100y target.Brass is 3x Lapua, conditions where perfect no wind 45*. This is also a switch barrel rifle, that’s on my Tikka action that usually has my BR barrel on it.

 

[Infrequent Shooter]

excellent shooting and loads. what has been your most accurate bullet?

 

[Seanshooter]

excellent shooting and loads. what has been your most accurate bullet?

The most accurate bullet from barrel to barrel in serval 7-08’s has been the 150 Lapua. I bought a bunch a pre covid when there prices where reasonable and sadly I’m getting low. 150 SMK is ok, but this 162 has my interest.

 

[Frankm]

I think I d go load something between 46.8 and 47.4 and go shoot stuff!!

 

[S3silver]

Nice shooting! My Tikka 7-08 compact 20” barrel is a hammer just like yours.

 

[64Rambler]

Nice shooting! I could never really get the 162 ELD-Ms to work in my 7-08. 80% of the time I'd have 2 touching and a 3rd some distance off. For your loads, I'd look at the POIs for 46.5 - 47.1. Focus on 46.8. +/- 0.1 and +/- 0.2. Should give you some good temperature adjustability.