I went down Friday To SD to hunt again. I decided to try my kind of new NEF 280. When I got the thing the trigger was awful heavy. I worked on it myself off and on for a month. Got it pretty good finally. All I had on hand buy the time I decided to use it was a box of Sierra 120 grain pro-hunter bullets. I was a little worried that they may be to fragil but Sierra says in the manual that they are good deer bullets for the smaller 7mm cartridges. I chronograghed them at 2920 fps. Loaded with IMR 4831. Early Friday morning we came on a good size bunch of Mule deer. I picked the biggest doe in the bunch. She was almost275 lbs live weight. They were on top of this canyon about 200 yards away and about to bolt. I dont like to do shoulder shots because of meat damage but they were to close to that deep draw so I held directly on the upper front shoulder. At the shot she went down right in her tracks. On skinning I found the bullet had broken the shoulder and took out the lungs and exited about 10 inches further back on the opposite side. I quess this is excellent performance for a lighter for caliber bullet. I can look up the exact load if anyone is intersted in that combo. I really like the NEF 280. I have a 3x9x40 Swift scope on it. It seem to be a good combo. It groups about 1 1/2 inches with most loads. Not bad for a 190.00 dollar rifle. I do want to try the Nosler BT. I have a dozen of them loaded but the waether really went to hell after our hunt and I didn' t get a chance to try them.

i have a nef 243 bull barrel and i am very pleased with its grouping out of the box i have a nikon 3 x 9 x 40 its a perfect rifle for my 11 yr old . it shoots about 1 " moa at 100 yards.later

A Sierra 120 in a 7MM.....who would have guessed.....

I had a 243 Ultra that shot real well too. I got to many Irons in the fire though and had to trade it in on another have to have project. This 280 has not been played around with much as yet because the trigger was about nine lbs when I first got it. I think it may be capable of one inch groups If I could shoot that well. I am not a very good tiny group shooter. The old arms are not as steady as they once were. I just about have to shoot in the prone position to get off a good shot. I have a blind fixed up with a good bench in it for real cold weather hunting.
I was really suprised at the performance of the 120 grain Sierra. For some reason I just never used many Sierra bullets. I know they are known for accuracy but I always had good luck with Hornady and Barnes so I just never got around to trying them.

Yes! It sure sounds like good performance. I suspect they bullet had slowed to around 2450-2500 FPS by the time it got to the 200-yard mark, which helps to explain why it didn' t explode too badly!

I may try the Gameking bullets from Sierra. I am anxious to try the Nosler Accu-bon also. Layne Simpson thinkls they may be one of the best all around bullets to come out in a while. He thinks From pronhorn to Grizzly in the same rifle, they are the way to go. He usually have a pretty good hold of these things. At least he is open to learning something new. Some of those guys are not.

James B
I consider Layne Simpson the gun & reloading god. I bought a 7mm.STW that shoots good groups with just about any load I put in it. I am looking for a 358-STA to complete my rifle collection. The 7mm-STW & 358-STA were both invinted by Layne Simpson.
If Layne says the Accubond' s are the best bullet out there thats good enough for me.[:-]

I place quite a bit of store in his writings to. If something don' t work for him he says so and is really up to date on his reloading and testing. One of my hunting buddies bought a 7mm stw based pretty much on his writings. He loves his too.