The 7mm Rem Mag has a lot going for it.

The title spot for this accolade has always been the subject of dispute. Many — and with good reason, too — would arbitrarily assign the .300 Winchester Magnum the No. 1 spot here. If you have a .300 Magnum of any sort upon which you may dote, you probably don’t need to read any further, frankly.

In my mind, however, the 7mm Remington Magnum is the working class magnum. Without completely dulling your day with ballistics figures and summarized history, I hang my claim solely upon all the 7mm Magnum has to offer.

The .30 caliber has always been America’s darling, and as my readers know, given a choice, I will take a .30-06 every time for the proverbial all-around hunting rifle. But in choosing a runner-up, the 7mm Remington Magnum gets the nod without hesitation.

The .270 and .308 Winchester are both standouts in the same capacity but don’t have the versatility offered by the 7mm Magnum. I suppose we could nitpick and offer up for consideration the .280 Remington or even the Ackley Improved version.

Fine cartridges that they are, neither has attained the popularity of the 7mm Rem Mag, and therefore both rifles and ammunition are much more scarce, especially if one does not wish to handload.

Many of the same features which endear the .30-06 to me can also be said of the 7mm Rem Mag. The ubiquity of rifles and ammunition, manageable recoil, superb accuracy and knockdown power, and a versatile range of useful bullet weights are the biggest draw.

Introduced in 1962, the 7mm Rem Mag was a final contender in the Magnum craze, offering an affordable rifle and ammunition for those who wanted Magnum performance without paying premium prices. But how does it meet or beat a .300, you ask?

So similar in field performance are the 7mm and .300 Magnums that it would be pedantic to try to demonstrate any realistic difference between them. What one will do, the other will effectively do. The .300 Win Mag — which came along in 1963 — pitches a 180 grain bullet to about 2950 fps while the 7mm Rem Mag makes 2900 fps with its 175 grain bullet.

Tomato, tomahto.

The real noticeable difference to me is in recoil. For whatever reason, all else being equal, the .300 to me displays an uncomfortable level of recoil, especially from the bench. The 7mm Rem Mag, providing the same ballistic performance as the .300, to me is much more pleasant to shoot.

Now, in an apples to oranges comparison we could delve into the .300’s ability to shoot heavier bullets or the higher ballistic coefficient of the .284 caliber, but we won’t. As I said at the outset, if you’ve found Shangri-La in the arms of a .300 Magnum, good for you, they are fully capable rifles.

I myself am a dyed-in-the-wool .30-06 fanatic. That being said, were I to set out to buy an all-around rifle and I wanted a Magnum, the 7mm Remington Magnum would get the nod. It really is that good!

Are you a fan of the 7mm Rem Mag? Do you prefer a .300 Win Mag? Write to us at shootingthebreezebme@gmail.com and check us out on Facebook!