Over the years I have shot animals with a 7x57 (chamois & red deer), 7x65R (roe deer), 7x61 S&H (red, whitetail and fallow deer, chamois and tahr) and now use a little 22" barrel blind magazine plastic fantastic Marlin XS7 7mm-08 with which to date I have shot red deer and tahr. Hiunted a lot with a friend who had a 7x64.

Of all the 7mms I owned and used the 7x61S&H was a fantastically accurate hard hitting round but the 26" barreled Schultz & Larsen rifle at 10lbs was f....king heavy. The BSA Hunter 7x57 was a nice rifle with medium length action made just for the 7mm Mauser cartridge, good performer. 7x65R was a combination shotgun/rifle, okay in Europe but would be a PITA here for our hunting.

Now onto the 7mm-08, very light rifle, accurate out of the box, short action, light recoil and muzzle blast, will send 140gr ballistic efficient pills down range at 2,900fps factory loads or duplicate reloads, big range of factory ammo, common and cheap cases to buy new or second hand or can make in one pass through a FL die from 243Win or 308Win cases, a good variety of rifles chambered from the cheap Marlin/Weatherby Vanguard to as expensive as you want to go.

Whats not to like about such a well balanced easy to shoot modern cartridge like the 7mm-08? They say the proof is in the pudding.

My Marlin 7mm-08 laying in wait for a Tahr (May this year)

My youngest son's Weatherby Vanguard 7mm-08 with a couple of bulls that didn't get away.