As far as having a bad experience, no, that' s not why I don' t care for 7mm' s, bad experiences, in that context, can and will happen with any and all rounds given enough time and whatnot, everything bites someone in the arse at least once. That may be somewhat of a lie, as NONE of the 7mm' s I loaded (STW was fair, but RUM, WBY mag and RM were awful) could handle 150gr or heavier bullets for diddly squat, and I' m not a fan of throwing 130grs at animals bigger than whitetailed deer. Many have done it, and I' m sure many still do hunt bears with 7mm' s where legal, but buffalo were once hunted almost into extinction with .30-30' s, anybody want to hunt a buffalo with a .30-30 today?

My problem with the 7mm' s is the hype. It' s good, but the bragging it gets would make it seem like they are the end all of centerfire small bores, that they surpass all others in performance, and the increased recoil is worth it (not a problem for me, but it is for my significant other, and others who often use my arms), when in all actuallity, I can get MANY rounds that will push a 150gr bullet

To each his own, I' m always one to preach that, but to me my own as well, and I wasn' t really impressed by any 7mm' s that I' ve owned. The STW was an unusally good round, and I like belted magnums (even though the belt' s basically cosmetic), but to hear 7mm shooters speak on the subject, shooting a 7mm bore will blow your mind, yes, you have to live with increased recoil, but the increased power and accuracy and range is so astonishing that you' ll never need/want another cartridge/caliber. Uh-huh, riiiiiight, granted, I' ve always been a fan of fat bullets not moving terribly fast for my 300yrds or less cartridges, but my battery contains several of various magnums and other fast movers, and fast is fun, but when you' re only fast because you' re skinny, you wear bbls and cases quickly and kick like hell, you' re not worth the trouble, if I buy something that kicks harder than what I' ve got, it had better be because it' s for bigger/more dangerous game, or at least a considerably longer range, which the 7mm' s don' t offer over many standard velocity cartridges. If you want to say your round is the best simply because it kicks the daylights out of you compared to it' s non-mag counterparts (should I even include 30cal? counterparts), travels at over 3x the speed of sound, and does everything standard velocity cartridge does, then brag up on it, but as far as I' m concerned, the increased power/flattened trajectory isn' t that worthwhile. If recoil and energy was my game, my .416rigby' s or my .458Lott whomps the 7mm into the dirt, but I seldom take those out after deer, because any of my 30cals are just better deer cartridges.

Now that I re-read my original post, I need to retract and alter a statement, I claimed I' d never own another 7mm, which is possibly false, I should have said I' ll never own another 7mm mag, because I' m a fan of the 7-30waters and the 7-08, the 7-30 offers a great improvement over the .30-30, and is probably the best small bore levergun deer cartridge available, since 35cals are getting up there in weight for deer. The 7mm-08 is in the same category, but what these two offer that the others don' t is better performance than similar rounds (or equal performance in the 7-08), but it doesn' t come at the cost of unnecessarily increased recoil.