Totch94, there have been many, many deer larger than my brother's whitetail killed in Kansas. His deer was so old that it did not have brow tines, but a massive wide rack. His head is now hanging in the middle of a bunch of 200-220 lbs deer heads, and the 200 lb deer look like babies. No doubt that it is the largest deer that I have ever seen, but not even in the record books for those large Kansas deer.
I don't even consider my 7 STW barrel a fast barrel, but the zero freebore along with a tight chamber adds much velocity with extreme accuracy. If you don't believe how fast my rifle is, you surely would not believe how fast my brother's 27" pac nor 3 twist super match barrel is made with the same reamer.
Remington Brass is junk, very soft. Winchester is much better in terms of taking high pressures. If you are shooting Rem brass, you will be lucky to get 3500 fps out of the 140's and not loose your primer pockets after the first or second firing. If you can find any PMC, 300 Weatherby Mag brass, it is gold, buy it at what ever price they have on it because it Rockwell'd at 13% harder than Win. My brother has yet to full length size any of his brass fired on the PMC brass.
Brother and I both have Ohler 35P's, so I doubt if both chronographs are wrong.
If you have a 7 STW, then you may want to try some 7828 & R#22, in Winchester Brass with the 120g, Win Large Rifle Mag primer, and go to the top of the load of what is a max load for your rifle, not what the book says is max. Your best accuracy will not be the Max load, but the speed will be impressive. R#22 is also a great powder for the 120's, but I don't think that it is as stable as the 7828. The 120's are great bullets to shoot out to 400-450 yards due to their extremely flat trajectory.
After Lane Simpson wrote the first article on the 7 STW(1990?), I had my first reamer ground with zero freebore. My buddy put a 28" Hart Stainless barrel on a Savage 110. He hunted in Missouri and wanted a very flat shooting rifle. We could still get the 120g Nosler Solid base bullets with the lead tips which is a fantastic deer bullet. We were fireforming 8 Mag Remington brass with 85g of R#22 with a Fed 215 getting sub 1/2" groups at 3850 which he thought was fast enough for his 28" barrel. I think that 87g (with this particular lot# of powder, lot# of powder vary as much as 5% perhaps more)was max for his gun, but velocities over 3900 fps scared him. He and his Cousins have killed a lot of deer and coyotes with that 7 STW.
There is a whole new world out there when it comes to ballistics when a guy has a reamer made with zero freebore(or freebore to fit the bullet seated at the depth that is minimal) with minimum body clearance, .0005 over bullet dia throat because the pressure that is generated by the expanding gases are forced to stay behind around the bullet instead of blowinig out around the bullet as it does in sloppy factory chambers or standard SAAMI chambers.
I have also worked with the 257 Weatherby and the 25/06 that have tremendous increases in velocity with reamers made like I have described while also exibiting extreme accuracy.
One gunsmith in Texas makes a living basically off the 25/06 with a minimum spec, zero freebore reamer, using a Shilen 1-12 twist barrel, #5 taper that is 26" long. From what I understand, you aren't a good Texican if you don't own a 25/06. He consistanly gets 3600+ out of the 100g Sierra flat base shooting bug hole groups with 63.0g of R#25, Win Brass, with a Fed 215 Primer. Lot# of powder vary 5% or more so if you want to try R#25 in your 25/06, back off 10% and work your way up. With the 117g Sierra Flat base, using 58.0g of R#25, he is getting 3350 with groups in the .400 range.
I did not believe the Texas gunsmith until a friend had a rifle made by him and wanted me to work up the loads. I shot bug holes with the 100g sierra with the 63g load fireforming the Winchester brass at 3630 fps out of my Ohler 35P. What was really wierd, the brass only needed neck sizing at this pressure and velocity due to twist rate and chamber design. I did feel as if the 117g flat base was a total Max load for that rifle at 3350 and I suggested that he load the 100g bullet with it instead. Also, I felt as if the 1-12 was minimal for the 117g Sierra Flat base and in super cold weather, the bullet may not stabalize.
I tried R#25 in my Rem Stainless 24" sporter 25/06, and was only able to get 3475 fps out of the 100's with accuracy out of that chamber due to sloppy clearances.
A gunsmith friend in Dawson Ga had quite a following of customers with a 6.5/ 257 Weatherby Ackley Improved shooting deer with the Sierra 120g Match king at 3550-3700 fps (depending on the barrel and length) with the same minimal chambers that I have described.
One of the very best examples of an "improved" chamber that I have seen was on a 6.5 Rem Mag Ackley improved. With the "tight" reamer, I had a 29" Hart barrel put on and fire forming the 85g Sierra Hp at 3900+ fps shooting groups in the low 3's. I sold the gun and the reamer within firing a 75 rounds. A good friend hunted coyotes in Nv and needed a long range gun.
Another friend needed a "Rock Chuck destroyer". He was watching us fire form the 6.5 Rem Mag Ackley improved. After a bit of discussion about the impending doom of the 6.5 Rem mag and the soon to be non-existant brass, he ordered a min SAAMI match chamber for a 270 Win, and with a 29" Hart barrel was getting 3950 fps out of the 90g Sierra Hp, which just turned a chuck into a fly'en mass of jelly.
I'm rambling on, but the point I wanted to make is that Minimum spec chambers made to Match specifications with zero freebore (or minimal freebore) with .0005 over bullet dia. throat, 1 1/2* leade angle produces velocities much over what is usually thought of as velocities for that caliber with the bonus of extreme accuracy.
A well known gunsmith and wild catter by the name of Mike Bellum stresses the importance of throat dia., and swears that it is more important than freebore. He built his rifles with a .0003 bullet clearance in the throat, which he says "gets the bullet straight in the barrel" along with sealing all gases behind the bullet. Mike Bellum worked with P.O. Ackley and bought all of P.O. Ackley's equipment when P.O. passed away.
I hope that some of the guys were listening intently to what Catshooter said on load development with 2 shots only.
His point was, and I stress, if the bullets are not touching or just about touching, you are just wasting time, wear, and tear on your barrel shooting that third shot. I have been hesitant on mentioning this fact because the vast majority of folks are stuck in the mind set of the "shoot 5 shot groups" mentality. Those 4th and 5th shots really heat up the barrel and deposit a ton of copper in the barrel needlessly.
