7mm Mold Recommendation

[iplaywithnoshoes]

I'm looking to bring my 15" 7mm-08 barrel back out again for my T/C Encore and want to get a little bit into Silhouette.

The barrel is a stainless Rochester built with a 1:9 twist.

I'm looking for some mold recommendations. I would like to use it both for silhouette and potentially hunting.

Individual molds for either use or even do-it-all bullet designs will be very helpful. Velocities that are planned are between 1600-2100+ ft/s.

shoe

[quilbilly]

My 7mm TCU T/C carbine shoots extremely well with the boolits from the Lee mold. Lee makes two molds in 7mm, one standard RNGC 130 gr. and one specialty RFGC 135 gr. I got from Midsouth. The standard is more accurate and the specialty RFGC is an excellent hunting boolit for deer but for me is slightly less accurate. My carbine is at its best with velocities about 1800.

[Walks]

My old T/C Contender has a 14" 7mmTCU bbl that likes the discontinued Lyman #287405. It's an old Loverin design. I never used it to shoot Silhouette. But my old range had a 150yrd gong, I regularly hit it from the Creedmore position. It weighed 151grains with lube & gascheck cast on #2.

Not that info on a discontinued bullet will help you much. But I only lubed & Sized to the bottom 4 grooves.

[Shopdog]

285-130R Lee water dropped old W/W with a little rotometal,dang near lino thrown in.

Nose bumped up 1/2 a thous,which also creates a meplat. GC seated/sized .286,body as cast.Any less,3-1 Bw-vaseline... would be none. Just above GC,applied with a small pen knife.

37g of Varget is a common starting JB load... it happens to be a great cast load. Depending on a few metrics.... load should produce round 2500fps. Too lazy to get chrono out,and it wouldn't change the target?

Optics are the limiting factor on the one 7-08 that is my daily companion. It wears,in old fashioned Weaver tipoffs,two scopes. A 1-4X20 Luepold..... and a minty B$L 3-9x40. The former is for "round the estate"... the latter is for varmint blastin. Easily tear the bttm out of a beer can @150 yds which is about my personal limit for varmint cast action. The 1-4 will tear a beercan up @75,offhand and very fast. R700 stainless SPS,24" brrl. Good luck with your project.

[MT Gianni]

Lee specialty soup can from Mid-Sout, RCBS 145 Sil. or NOE 405 150 fr fp hunter.

[oconeedan]

I had good results with the RCBS 7-145 Sil mould in my 7-08. Dan

[iplaywithnoshoes]

I had good results with the RCBS 7-145 Sil mould in my 7-08. Dan

I just picked up a few bullets of that design and was thinking of that mold. Is there a good place to get some data on that bullet?

[oconeedan]

I just picked up a few bullets of that design and was thinking of that mold. Is there a good place to get some data on that bullet?

I'm sorry but I don't have that load data, or the barrel anymore. But it was a very good combo, the 7br and the rcbs 7-145. I remember shooting all year without cleaning the barrel, it shot cleanly. I do remember it was sized to .285, I think it was around 1900fps, Lyman Orange Magic lube, and ...not sure about powder but I think it was 5744,

[iplaywithnoshoes]

My 7mm TCU T/C carbine shoots extremely well with the boolits from the Lee mold. Lee makes two molds in 7mm, one standard RNGC 130 gr. and one specialty RFGC 135 gr. I got from Midsouth. The standard is more accurate and the specialty RFGC is an excellent hunting boolit for deer but for me is slightly less accurate. My carbine is at its best with velocities about 1800.

I happened to pick up the current 285-130-R recently and I've heard good things about it so I'll give it a try once the weather warms up a bit.

My old T/C Contender has a 14" 7mmTCU bbl that likes the discontinued Lyman #287405. It's an old Loverin design. I never used it to shoot Silhouette. But my old range had a 150yrd gong, I regularly hit it from the Creedmore position. It weighed 151grains with lube & gascheck cast on #2.

Not that info on a discontinued bullet will help you much. But I only lubed & Sized to the bottom 4 grooves.

That sounds like a great setup and mine might be quite similar once it's done. Thankfully I have access to a handmade gong at about 300 yards so it should be interesting trying to hit it laying down.

285-130R Lee water dropped old W/W with a little rotometal,dang near lino thrown in.

Nose bumped up 1/2 a thous,which also creates a meplat. GC seated/sized .286,body as cast.Any less,3-1 Bw-vaseline... would be none. Just above GC,applied with a small pen knife.

37g of Varget is a common starting JB load... it happens to be a great cast load. Depending on a few metrics.... load should produce round 2500fps. Too lazy to get chrono out,and it wouldn't change the target?

Optics are the limiting factor on the one 7-08 that is my daily companion. It wears,in old fashioned Weaver tipoffs,two scopes. A 1-4X20 Luepold..... and a minty B$L 3-9x40. The former is for "round the estate"... the latter is for varmint blastin. Easily tear the bttm out of a beer can @150 yds which is about my personal limit for varmint cast action. The 1-4 will tear a beercan up @75,offhand and very fast. R700 stainless SPS,24" brrl. Good luck with your project.

It's quite funny that the same load for jacketed and cast works well. I bought some 145-SIL out of straight linotype and gas-checked so I'm curious if they survive to your observed 2500 ft/s without leading especially since they are sized to .285 from the manufacturer. In my case, I'll be using a Williams FP and the 10" Contender front blade instead of my usual scoped setup.

Lee specialty soup can from Mid-Sout, RCBS 145 Sil. or NOE 405 150 fr fp hunter.

I've been looking for this older soup can mold lately so I will give it a good look all over.

I'm sorry but I don't have that load data, or the barrel anymore. But it was a very good combo, the 7br and the rcbs 7-145. I remember shooting all year without cleaning the barrel, it shot cleanly. I do remember it was sized to .285, I think it was around 1900fps, Lyman Orange Magic lube, and ...not sure about powder but I think it was 5744,

Understood. I'll look around some more. I hear that 7mm-08 data is close to the 7mm IHMSA and 7BR data.

[quilbilly]

The Lee "soup can" drops from my mold and my alloy at 137gr plus or minus about 1.5 gr. My carbine has always liked about 19 gr of 4198.