Got a call from a shooting buddy last night telling that he just picked
up an older Rem M700 in 7mm BDL Rem Mag. He had won the auction at an estate sale and said the gun is in excellent shape. So I headed out to his place
on the farm and brought along my M700 30/06 along with 100 of my handloads. The gun itself is like new, barrel is imaculate but no scope yet.

He always told me he will get started reloading but has not yet, maybe this
will convince him. He went and picked up 3 boxes of Winchester
Winchester Supreme Ammo 7mm Rem Mag 150gr @$39 per box of 20ea with tax!! Anyway I set up a target at 25 yards to get on paper and adjusted the iron
sights and was printing 100 yard groups at about 5".!!

I told him after we both shot off a rest that the rifle is more accurate than
that and I felt something was wrong. I than drove home (4 miles) and picked
up my 2 chronys, CED Millennium 2 Chronograph and a F1 shooting chrony and headed back to his place. I than shot 5 rounds thru both
chronies and they averaged 2550fps!!! I thought ok lets try a new batteries in
the chrony's and the factory loads still were averaging 2550fps!

Ok, now we are going to try my /06 with my handloads, the loads for the /06
were 165gr Speer deep curl with 57gr of ramshot "hunter showed" 2800fps
constanly across the chrony. I then fired 5 more 7mm rounds thru the chrony
and as before it was averaging 2550fps. I told my buddy something is wrong
with these factory loads as they should be around 2700 to 2800fps.

When I had my 7mm Rem I always had good results with the loads I made up and
even when I gave it to my son, it was and still is a tack driver. So what to
make of this? Since my buddy brought 3 boxes and we shot 2 boxes, I told him lets head back to my house and reload the fired cases since I still have the
dies for them. So since I have 8lbs of H1000 and 45 of Nosler's 175gr
partition 7mm boolits laying around, I loaded 25 of them with 64grs of H1000
with oal at 3.290" and headed back to his place.

Viola, speeds were up back where they belong at 2815fps constantly.
Very disapointing for the 7mm Rem Winchester white box factory cartridge. But the good thing out of all of this is he opened his credit card and bought a Hornady lnl and scales, dies and has said he will never buy another factory round.

That being said, he will still call Winchester on Monday and tell them. Also
called Bass Pro Shops an still waiting on a phone call back.

Just food for thought, there are a lot of shooters and hunters who do not
roll their own and use factory rounds all the time. Even so, let alone having a
chronograph!! The 7mm Rem has always been a good round for long range shooting and then some. I have not shot a factory round in 35 years and am defiantly wondering why is the reason they downloaded this excellent cartridge?

Edit: just found out there was a recall on this ammo and in our case the lot
# was VL92 on all 3 of his boxes. And this recall was back in Aug/2005 and
Bass Pro Shops still had the dam things on the shelf. WTF!!

Ominivision1 wrote:

Edit: just found out there was a recall on this ammo and in our case the lot # was VL92 on all 3 of his boxes. And this recall was back in Aug/2005 and Bass Pro Shops still had the dam things on the shelf.

That's enough to frost anyone's butt! I feel for you!!

Thats why I own several rifles that have NEVER seen a factory round. I can reload for cheaper and far more accurate than the factory. Congrats on another convert to reloading.

Sheesh Bass Pro is certainly getting their dollars worth out of 7yr old recalled ammo!! Your buddy should be able to get his money back at least. Sure hope Winchester knows about this, they might just throw in some sort of bonus for him too.

dumb dumb shop people, they need a good swift kicking. winchester is sure to give them a bollicking!!!!!
those velocities seem mild for tthe 7mm I thought she was hotter than that??
yip just checked my hodgdon and ADI manuals and they add another 1-200fps ontop of those.

the humble old .270 pokes them out faster than those factory rounds

Elvis wrote:

the humble old .270 pokes them out faster

It has been my experience that the benefits of the 7mm Rem Mag isn't realized until it is loaded with heavy, long, low-drag bullets. Otherwise, the velocities for 150gr and lighter bullets are basically what a .270 Win will do but your consuming significantly more powder in the 7mm.

Glad you have him back up to "speed" OV1.

Well my shooting partner called me at work this am and said he called Winchester and told them the story where he bought the ammo from in Altoona, IA and he said the guy at Winchester was floored that anybody still had these cartridges around after so many years.

He had to fax the receipt to WW and got a call back within a 1/2 hour and WW will be sending him a prepaid ups label to ship the old ones back along with 3 new boxes plus a voucher for $30.00 towards any Winchester product.

I would sure love to be a fly on the wall when Winchester calls Bass Pro Shops.

That's good customer service and ditto on the fly. Someone missed the memo and man, they take that stuff super serious.

Glad Winchester handled it this way. Maybe BPro should stick with fishing like their name states.

good on winchester.
thanks for the update.

Glad to see that Winchester takes a responsible stance. Federal certainly didn't several years ago when it was found that roughly 60% of any given box of their 7mm Remington Magnum "Premium" ammo wouldn't chamber in standard chambers!

Well, it shouldn't have happened in the first place, but it did. And when a customer takes the time to complain and you get the chance to put it right, you better do it because that's great advertising (when not all your goods return that way, because then it shows poor quality control).

slimjim wrote:

Glad Winchester handled it this way. Maybe BPro should stick with fishing like their name states.

I think your right Slim, Bass Pro was called 3 times since Sunday and they never called back once. Kudos to Winchester.

I be pissed if I ordered that online and they sent me old stock. I check all the stuff I get real closely in the mail, like shot-shell and whole rifle ammo I order for the brass and so far so good it's all been fresh new stuff. What kinda dork would grab old stock off the back shelf and hand it over to a customer??? That some messed up stuff and someone's ass would be in a sling after that! Could you imagine getting that mailed to ya??? I'd snap! Aint like its some obscure caliber either...it's 7mmMag!