...was made in the bridge of my nose by the hook shaped latch of my Butler Creek scope cap when I squeezed off the first round. Yes boys and girls, as unmacho as it sounds the 120 gr. factory load lifted the 5.6 lb. rifle right out of my bunny ear sandbag and smote me on the nose. It hadn�t even occured to Holzauge to hold the forgrip of the stock with my left hand or use a sling to hold the muzzle down to protect myself from the triffling recoil of a 7mm 08! Too soon we get old and too late we get smart. After this humiliation I shot the barrel in without further bloodletting, but I will be getting a Gentry muzzle brake put on the little brute. A second big surprise came when I discovered the gun shot 120 gr. bullets better than the only 140 gr. bullets I tried. After consulting on-line with many 7mm 08 shooters I was so sure the 140�s would shoot better than anything else I bought five varieties of them to pick the ones the gun likes best. I only bought one box of 120�s. A good 120 gr. bullet should work for my purposes (moderate-sized eastern whitetail inside 200) as well as the 140�s, so it�s no big deal...I was just surprised. I�ll admit in my shell-shocked, nose-nicked state my groups began to grow after about the 30th shot so I didn�t bother trying to sight the gun in too much after I shot it in. The third surprise, a mild one, was that the gun shot the 120�s better at 100 yrd.s than at 50 yrd.s. Estimates of about 1.5� at 50 yrd.s 1.25� at 100 yrd.s. Although I�d told myself I�d be happy with anything under 3� at 100 for such a light gun, the groups sure looked big compared to my other hunting rifles. Thank God I did take my 9.5 lb. .270 to the range and shot one group through it to restore my feelings of competense and self-worth. I love the way the 7mm 08 handles but I clearly have some more work to do with it at the range...after I get it back from the gunsmith with the muzzle brake.

Just curious what kind of scope you put on that little monster. Leup. have always offered LOTS of eye relief.DOn't give up on the 140gr bullets yet, recoil grows on you after 100rds or so.

It's a VX-3 2.5-8x. I chose it for the eye relief and light weight.

Neither one of the 7mm-08's I've owned would shoot 140 gr's well. The Winchester FW liked 160 gr Speer Magtips and the Douglas barrel I had put on a Ruger M77 Varmint shot 168 Sierra bthp into one hole. And both guns did well with the 120gr Nosler or 130gr Speer sp to ding woodchucks out to 300yds.

fwiw, the Featherweight would occasionally rap my beak when fired from the bench. Didn't happen from field positions and that's what the little rifle is for anyway

Rick

H, good choice of scope, I think you just crawled a bit. Stay w/ the 140gr bullets. Your rifle has to weigh in about 6 1/4# scoped. I have a 7 1/4# .280 shooting 160gr bullets @ 2850fps w/ a steel butt plate & find it quite managable. Now my .404, that's another story.

I read your post and laughed my *(&( off, been there done that. Technically speaking, wouldn't that be your first "depression"?

Anyway, I have a Win M70 Featherweight in 7mm-08 and it is one of the most accurate rifles I've ever shot. One thing I was made aware of by a post, was that APPARENTELY they/mine don't like boat tail bullets. I read this in a post and realized that the only boat tail bullet I had ever shot in mine was a 140 grain Sierra. I only tried a few shots with them and never tried them again. Just by coinsidence, I've shot Speer 145 gr, 130 gr, Sierra 120 gr, 140 gr, Hornady 120 gr, 139 gr and all were flat base and all shot super. I couldn't really pick a bullet out of all of them that shoots best. With loads the gun liked it shot all of them into 1/2 MOA, and that's with me behind the trigger. But if memory serves, the 140 Sierra BT bullets were more like 1.5 MOA, which ain't terrible, just not inspiring. I need to try some boat tail bullets when I get time, so see if this boat tail thing has any merit. I think I'll try some Nosler BTs as they are very accurate in every rifle I've tried them in.

On the issue of kick (minus depression), I did notice that the Speer 145 gr when loaded hot, produced some fine groups and kicked way more than I expected. Nothing earth (or nose) shattering, but attention getting.

Anyway, you'll have to try some different bullets. As to powders for the 7mm-08, I find that RL15, H4350, IMR4895, Varget, worked pretty much equally well. H4350 was only used in the 145 grain Speer load and shot nearly one hole at 100 yds.

Good luck with the Ti, they are really nice looking guns, and I'm sure with a little tinkering it'll shoot up to snuff.