ORIGINAL: dmurphy317
I've been working more on my muzzleloaders this year and am just getting around to loading for this years hunts. While getting ready to load some 7mm rounds I noticed that the 3400fps figure was for the max load tested which did have some pressure signs. The final load I use is closer to 3350fps. Sorry for any confusion.
I think you may have something a little off in your ballistics program to get the downrange energies that you quoted earlier. The 140 Grain load would have be travelling at 3445 FPS and that is faster than the IMR velocities for the 7MM RUM (3290) with 7828 powder.
The same is also true of the 160 grain load which calculates out to 3250 FPS when the 7mm RUM is only pushing 3140. That is with more powder than the 7mm Rem case can hold and is also above its pressure limit. The only 2 variables I can think of that would account for the performance you are gettingis: pressures are quite high, or you have a long barrel/custom barrel, or probably a combination of both. At any rate it apparenty seemsto have beena safe load in your gun andthat is all that that really matters.