Developed in 1976 by Ken Waters as a wildcat cartridge, the 7-30 Waters is based on the .30-30 Winchester necked down to 7mm to improve velocity and trajectory, with a significant drop off in felt recoil. In 1984, Winchester began to produce rifles chambered for cartridge, legitimizing Waters’ dream, and establishing it as a commercial cartridge.
Your hunting rifle doesn’t need to produce painful recoil to get the job done. Here are six centerfire hunting cartridges that are easy on the shoulder yet effective on big game.
The Model 26B over/under double rifle handles well, carries efficiently, is seriously accurate and is handsome enough to hand to your friends to admire.
Hunters looking for a gun that offers high performance with a straight-wall rifle cartridge should welcome the 444 Marlin. It functions well, provides excellent accuracy for a big-bore lever-action and accepts a scope.
Hornady has added the classic .348 Winchester to its popular LEVERevolution line, using the 200-grain FTX bullet. With its proprietary Flex-Tip meplat, the FTX bullet is perfectly safe to use in the tubular magazine of the Model 71—and many other lever guns—yet offers the downrange benefit of a spitzer bullet.