7/30 Waters Contender

Matt N.

New member
I have had a few 14" Contenders in 7/30 Waters and shot Speer 115gr HPs & Sierra 110gr hps, and Sierra 120 Gamekings all mostly with Winchester 748, and got pretty good accuracy. Unfortunately all I ever really did was punch holes in paper with them. I am curious. What are people using their 7/30 Waters Contenders for? What kind of bullets are you launching, from what length barrel, powder, velocity, etc..?

Thanks.
Matt
 
When I lived in Az, we hunted off of mules and horses. We ran into a lot of back pack hunters to about the 8 mile mark away from the parking area. It was rare to run into a deer hunter back packing that was not using a 7/30 Waters in a 20" contender. The 120g Nosler Ballistic tip was what all of them was using.

I helped one ole guy get his deer out that he had made heck of a shot on, 320 yards.
 
When I had my 7-30 waters it was also in a super 14. I shot one deer with it. I used the 120 gr. Nosler BT. If I remember right it was a little over 200 yards for the shot. I also shot a lot of rock chucks, and PD's with 100 gr. Serria 100 gr. bullets.
 
I have used and shot a 7-30 Waters Contender pretty much since the first one rolled into CO. To date I have owned 4, 2 pistol lengths and two carbine lengths. Probably the best big game round you can launch from a Contender and everyone of them was amazingly accurate.
My favorite right now is a factory carbine SS that I use for deer and antelope. I'm shooting a max load of RL-15 behind a Speer 130 gr. BTSP in fireformed WW 30-30 brass. Handloaded with bullets correct for the task I personally don't believe there is a better youth/small framed hunter/novice deer rifle around. I used at least once a year for deer or antleope and I am neither young nor small framed nor novice.
Last I checked this combo gets me just under 2500 fps. But I don't push my Contenders at all.

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I have a 14" 7/30 Contender barrel and used to have a 16 1/4" carbine barrel I have to agree its one heck of a deer cartridge, I loaded it with 748 and a 120gr Sierra SSP they would expand a little to quick for me on deer worked great on ground hogs. I use to fire form with some old 160gr round nosed bullets, the fire form loads were surprisingly accurate.
 
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