The Tikka’s are great rifles. A light rifle in either 7 or 300 will certainly come with a healthy dose of recoil, but a muzzle brake and/or shoulder pad makes them easily managed.

I’ll admit, the 300 and the 7 are among my favorite cartridges, and deciding between the two is difficult for me as well. Luckily, I stumbled upon an arbitrary system to decide which I should use - my wife shoots 7’s, I shoot 300’s.

The on game performance difference is there, but either will cleanly kill anything in North America, and most anything elsewhere. So unfortunately, I recognize this isn’t much help in your decision making process, but there really isn’t an application where one is a right answer and the other wrong. A 300 barrel will last longer than a 7, but I assume you won’t put 800 rounds through this rifle in 3 lifetimes, so the difference is largely moot.

I will say, in 2019, it is hard for me to recommend any belted mag. I’m not saying a guy needs to go all in with 6.5 PRC or 300 RCM, but certainly give these a look before you commit to a belted mag.