E.A. Brown BF- 7mm BR Magnum- Advice needed!

Hey All- I have gotten myself into a bit of a pickle.

The 7mm Bench Rest Magnum is a proprietary cartridge loaded by the E.Arthur Brown company in MN. Essentially, it is a 7mm Waters improved, 30 degree shoulder and the neck blown forward. 40+ grain capacity.

About a month ago I followed an ad and responded- an EABrown BF pistol- in French Grey, scope, loading dies, formed brass, reloading data and so on. Figured it is one heck of a deal. Sent the money, he sent it to my FFL.

Starting to reload it- man,does this thing kick! and I am still 2.5 grains under the "accuracy load". Little did I know (or remember) some wonderful injuries sustained in my much younger years. They are coming back to haunt me. My chiropractor had to fix the wrist and was pretty sure that I had either dislocated and was able to put it back in myself by the way the muscles were stretched out.

Perhaps I am not shooting it correctly? I have never shot a contender-style pistol and shot it like any other large revolver. Shooting it off the bench I am getting black and blue on the right elbow where it whacks the bench upon firing consecutive shots. Shooting it like a rifle, with one hand on the fore-grip really doesn't do much for accuracy.

Today I loaded some silhouette 145 grain cast boolits with 9 grains of Trailboss. Light recoil and still accurate. Will take some refining to get it where it's gonna be a show-stopper but it could get there. I want to ask the forum and request a number back and rationale.

If you were me, would you:

1. Leave it alone, shoot cast in it and just call it a day. Possibly even have a brake installed to see if it makes a difference.

2. Send it off to have a new barrel put on or even punched out to a gentler caliber- like 30-30. Granted, the barrel would have to be set back a couple of threads to do this. So it might be cost prohibitive.

3. Sell it and take the loss- chalk it up to a lesson learned.

This forum would be the best option to sell it- everyone here has the knowledge to fire-form the cartridge and load responsibly.

Thank you one and all for the responses and insights.

I'd go for option #1, and practice my silhouette freestyle position so you can shoot full loads if you want without getting beat up.

As an old IHMSA guy, I've had my share of experience with wildcat Contenders. Your '7mm Bench Rest Magnum' sounds an awful lot like the old 7mm JDJ #2 from SSK which was a necked-down 307 Win blown out to a straight-wall case with an Ackley shoulder...basically a rimmed 7-08.

1. Get yourself a good athletic elbow pad...like something the skateboarders use. A pair of PAST shooting gloves might help some, too.

2. For load development, forget shooting 'off the bench' from a conventional 'revolver' position...you'll wind up with big band-aids on both elbows. Run a Bing search for 'creedmore shooting position'...in my younger, dumber days, I shot 90-round (80 targets + 10 tie-breakers) from creedmore with a 7mm JDJ #2 without a terrible lot of pain (won a few of those, too).

3. A brake might help but, remember, all that's going to do is change the recoil vector...nearer to straight back as opposed to muzzle rise. Been there, done that with a couple of 'handcannons's.

Last thing, that gun/cartridge combination was developed to drop full-size steel rams (weighing somewhere around 50 lbs.) at 200M...if they don't fall over, they don't count...so, yeah, with full-house loads, it's gonna kick.

Bill

A lot of us used to shoot Wichitas in 7 Int-R, which is similar. The powder that made it tractable then was sr-4759. 18 grains with a 140 grain bullet was accurate and pleasant to shoot. Unfortunately, it is no longer produced, though you might scrounge around and find some. Accurate 5744 is similar, and Trail Boss is a good candidate too, as you are finding. All three are bulky powders that usually don't need fillers to shoot well.

Get a set of shooting sticks and set the forend in the vee. Try shooting it with a firm grip but not super tight. Have an elbow that is slightly bent but tensed. I really like the Waters but mine is a 23" rifle bbl.

Thank you one and all for the pointers and guidance! I appreciate the input from those who have been "there"!
Zingger

I'm another old IHMSA guy. Have shot many 40's with XP-100/7-BR and TC in 7 TCU. The year I started was the last year of rams set with full foot. (87 I think) After that they used the set-back. Use 4895 and you can back it off to make it as gentle as you want. That gun might have been made back in the "Old days" when you needed an elephant gun to knock the rams over. As I used to tell the shooters that would set off the Richter Scale with each shot, "You don't have to kill them. You only have to knock them down"

'87 sounds about right for IHMSA changing the rules for setting rams 'cause it was around that time I switched to an XP100 in 7BR...which I also shot in the Long Range Match of
the old Smith & Wesson Masters Tournament.

Bill

Thank you one an all for the direction with the monster. An acquaintance of mine saw it and fell in love. I was only too happy to do some trading. I was stuck between loading mouse fart loads or the nasty's.