Starting off with a reduced load is a fantastic suggestion. Typically I buy shells off the shelf, so I hadn't thought about searching out a reduced load. Thanks.

Love the suggestions here, and I'm going to have to side with the 7mm08 crowd. I would offer a couple of further suggestions though.......chop that barrel to 18" and add a suppressor. You can run 140 accubonds to a smidge over 2700fps, and/or 120 BT's to 2900fps with very little recoil, it's ear friendly to the shooter and everyone nearby, and it will simply kickassss on anything up to and including elk. My version looks like this......

No one has said anything about a 280 so I'll throw that in the hat. On my 2nd one , a Remington LSS that is a dream to shoot. The 1st was a Winchester Featherweight that I let a bud talk me out of.

Not saying that a reduced load is a bad idea, but, just anecdotally:

I worked up a very accurate "reduced" hand load for my daughter's 7mm08, driving a 120 gr Sierra Pro Hunter bullet a meager 2650 fps behind a middling charge of IMR 4895. Was quite pleased with myself! She then used that load when she pulled the trigger on a mature 9 pt buck that had stepped out right at 100 yds. Despite a great deal of effort on my part, though, I couldn't find a hint of a blood trail after he ran off.

Three weeks later, I found him floating, just barely, in the middle of a stock tank that was maybe 100 yds in the opposite direction, and across a wide dirt road, that I'd seen him run. After retrieving and field-dressing that deer (cool water had kept him somewhat refrigerated, and insect-free, so really not near as nasty as it sounds), I found that bullet just under the hide on the off-side. It had taken out the near-side lung, with a lot of clot in the chest cavity on that side, and then skirted just beneath the diaphragm and on through the dome of the liver.

I bet 9 times out of 10, maybe more, that reduced load would have exited and left us clear evidence of a successful shot and a blood trail to follow. But, with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I'd let her shoot those reduced loads at the range and then loaded up (after checking for POI difference) a fully charged 120 or 140 gr cartridge when the chips were on the line. With the excitement of the moment, I'm certain she would never have noticed the difference.

A full power load may not have exited. I don’t get an exit every time on my .270. That deer was dead shortly after you shot him.

My kids and wife use the hornady reduced recoil loads. They claim to be 2650 fps with the 120 grain bullet.

We have had great luck with them. Not always do we get an exit but internal damage is great and deer have not run far.


My question is; you said you field dressed him. Surely you didn’t eat him after he was floating in a stock tank for 3 weeks?

Ha! No, I left him for the coyotes and vultures. But, I did take the head with me so she'd have a choice of how to mount him. We went with european.

The field dressing was just so I'd know exactly where she'd hit him, and what happened to the bullet.

Been loading a reduced load for my wife for years in 270 win. My wife and some other women in my family have used it to shoot several large bodied south texas deer and hogs. It’s a 110 grain pro hunter @2565 fps. Always been a complete pass through and no or short track.