I have plans on making a 7-08 imp with 22 inch barrel as a handy rifle. Scope?= any suggestions? I intend to shoot 100-140 grainers depending on game, vermins to beaver, roedeer.

Since i can't find any quality ( Norma or Lapua) cases in 7-08 in Sweden, I have to either neck down or up?

Which is the best case to start with 243win and open up to 7mm or a 308win that needs to be necked down?

Give me your thoughts and feelings about how to do this.
/JOHAN

Whats wrong with a standard 7mm-08?? Especially with a 22" barrel how much will you gain with the improved version??

My wife has a Win 70, one of the short barreled compacts in 7mm-08. When she got it I necked down about 50 rounds of .308 Match brass and have been using them ever since. After the first firing I did inside neck ream but probably didn't need to, only removed a small amount of brass. With 140's its a great round for deer and antelope at reasonable ranges. She took a cow elk with a 160 Speer at 2500 fps, got about 4 feet of penetration! In the chest, out the right hip, I was impressed.

FN

Frank
Thanks for your experience

The reason for picking the improved over standard is that the brass flows less and with a 140 grainer you would get 3000 fps from a 20 inch barrel.

SO should i use 243 or 308 cases to form Imp brass?

If you use a standard chamber reamer (not a tight neck), use the 308 brass and neck it down. It should go in one pass with your standard full length sizer die. This will give a little bit thicker neck that will result in less brass working and longer case life. You need to check to see if you need to neck ream, but I doubt it.

I would use at least a 22 inch barrel, 20 is just too short. The muzzle blast gets to you after a while.

Let us know how she goes.
Don

Johan,
Use the .243 and neck up. Accuracy is usually much better when you go up rather than down, simply because you don't have to neck ream which can lead to inconsistancies. If you do choose to neck down, I would suggest that you get Sinclair's necking die with their oversize mandrel and then outside turn the necks instead of i.d. reaming.
Bill

Thanks all of you!!
The rifle is supposed to be what some of you call three stand/truck rifle. I went to the tore today but can't decide which scope i should pick for my new toy, the magnification I mean. The brand is either Leupold, Swarovski.

Is there anyone out here who has a gun in this caliber, all advices are welcome.
Should i use large or mag primer for this case?

Johan,

You can see our advice is all over the map!

I'd put a 2.5-8 Leupold on it if it will see both open country and thick cover. If it's to be mostly thick stuff a small fixed power Like the M8 4x33 Leupold. I heard they started making the more of the old fixed 2.5 power, but I have not confirmed it.

Don

JOHAN: I shoot a Rem 700 chambered for the 7-08 Imp. It sports a 24" Pac-Nor SS barrel and a Leupold 8.5-25x40 scope. So far I've settled on Rem brass (7-08) and 120g Nosler Bal. tip bullets. I've been using 45.5 to 47.5 g of RL15 and reaching velocities of 3200 to 3300 fps. This load id a little on the warm side, so be careful.
I have used some XMR 4064 with the 140 Sierra as a forming load and have had some good accuracy with it.
Keep us posted on how it goes, I'd be interested to hear your experiences with it.
sodpoodle

Hej Johan!
I have 7-08Rem that do not have to be improved If I really would want 3000ft/s with I can always buy Hornady Light magnum or Federals High energy)
I have so far shot fox (at 230m), beaver seal, crows and two moose(50 and 200m) with it. As moose load I am using 160gr BarnesX at 800m/s and it have worked well. The rest is with 100gr Sierra (900m/s).
I am using 308win. cases since you can find loads of them at any range.
What I have noticed is that I can load Lapua brass to higher velocitys than the Norma brass.
I bought some Rem 7-08Rem cases to use during the moose hunt so that no body would mix them up with 308win.
The scoope I have on it is a Bauch&Lomb 4-12
PerN

Per
I think i will stick with the 243 cases. I have about a good pile of them, most of them new and about 20% that are fired! I had a 243 some time ago, I have a tendency to save cases and scopemounts and other stuff that might be usefull for future.

My "housekeeper" bitches about it alot, but who cares.

I would install a shepherd scope on the rifle they are fantastic. I would also neck up the 243. Seems to me I saw that necking down will accelerate throat erosian. Run the case case through full length 7MM-08 sizer die and your ready.

One of the benefits of necking down .308 barss is that you can easily partially resize the neck until you get a slight "crush" fit when you chamber a fire-forming round. This will allow you to make perfectly formed brass without creating excessive headspace and stretching the case. If you decide to go with the .243 brass I would first neck it up to .308 and then resize the neck partially (as above) and this will maintain the headspace control you want and if good brass life with limited trimming etc is what you really want coming down from .308 is the way to go. WARNING----when you are doing the "slightly crush-fit" process you want to be very careful not to overload the case with powder...you are looking for a fire-forming load and allyou really want to do is create the new case...not set speed records.