In the adventurous world of hunting, there are many great stories and books to make us all gasp, laugh, cry and more. If, as a hunter, you are a reader, odds are your life has been influenced by some of them. If you haven’t yet read enough of them, find them, read them, then pass them on to an aspiring hunter.
Just about every case shape imaginable has been modified to hold both 7mm and .30-caliber bullets, but it was gunwriter Layne Simpson who saw a gap in the lineup: there was no 7mm cartridge based on a full-length .375 H&H case. In 1979, Simpson took the excellent 8mm Remington Magnum and necked it down to hold 7mm bullets, giving his wildcat the name “Shooting Times Westerner.”
The .350 Rigby Magnum is vastly overlooked even among rifle cranks but was at one time as popular as the .375 H&H Magnum. Released in 1908, it is an entirely original design, and was the first to feature the sharp 45-degree shoulder which is the hallmark of the Rigby designs.
Released in 1980, the 7mm-08 Remington would go on to be considered one of the best deer cartridges ever conceived, and the gamut of 7mm bullets available make it extremely flexible.
If there were ever a classic rifle design—one that would go on to spawn innumerable copies—it is the Mauser 98. While the vast majority of American hunters rely upon the multitude of popular American bolt-action rifles, they owe a huge debt of gratitude to Paul Mauser’s turnbolt design.