During my career I’ve been wrong about many things. One of them was the7mm-08 Remington. Back in 1980 the cartridge was brand-new when a Remington 788 in 7mm-08 Rem came into the office. You remember the 788 bolt-action, Heavy, unlovely, rear-locking…and they shot like gangbusters. Colleague and friend Payton Miller and I were assigned to wring it out, I think for that year’s G&A Annual. The rifle grouped extremely well, but the truth is we both got it wrong: We scratched our heads, and didn’t understand what this brave new cartridge was for…or what it could do that existing cartridges couldn’t.
As to the latter, probably nothing…but that can be said about almost any new cartridge. As to what it was for, it was a mild-kicking, short-action cartridge that was probably very effective. Part of our problem was we had no first-hand experience with the 7mm-08 Rem on game. This was not entirely our fault. Payton and I took that early 7mm-08 Rem on several forays up the Central Coast for wild hogs, but we never got a shot. We figured it would do just fine…but we didn’t know.