I never thought the 270 had that much recoil but, I was shooting a Browning BAR its an auto and pretty heavy.

I love caliber debates, especially these two. I have a 6.5 Creedmoor which I'm selling. Love the round, but I'm using the money to build a 16" 7mm-08 which I plan to only shoot with a suppressor. With the slightly larger diameter bullet it should do better in a short barrel. Plus, Hornady is now making a 7mm 150 gr ELD-X bullet I really want to hunt with.

My encore handgun with 15" 7-08 barrel us one of my favorites. Love to hunt pigs and whitetail with it.

You can't argue with the fact that different people have different recoil tolerances. It has nothing to do with size or toughness. In fact my experience is smaller wiry people handle recoil the best. Telling the OP to tell his son to put on his big boy pants is pretty pathetic.

I can feel the difference between 7mm-08 recoil and .270. I also believe the difference in felt recoil between a 6.5 Creedmoor and 7mm-08 is negligible.

I prefer .264 caliber over .284 and have been shooting a Swede for quite a while. The only difference on which to buy is nothing but personal preference IMO with one caveat. OP mentioned the possibility of elk and Fireman stated 7mm-08 would be better if elk were ever on the menu. I concur. I don't believe a magnum is needed for elk like many do. I took my one elk and one nilgai quite nicely with a .270. A 6.5 Creedmoor is slightly underpowered on elk for my taste.

Man I don't think there is much difference in recoil...yea the 7-08 might have more recoilover the creedmoor--but man not much---and the 270..what a light kicking jewel. Either the gun is too short in the LOP, the muzzle blast throws him off, or the gun is really light and he is very sensitive to recoil. I had a very trim custom single shot in a 270..it weighed 6lbs and was a gem to shoot. I'd throw a break on the 270...

Ed

Look at the Hornady Custom Lite ammo in the 270. My kids have shot them in 7-08 and 7RM. Both have proven to be accurate and effective with little recoil.

I have my 6.5 Creedmoor for long range stuff and I am doing hunting with it..
But, I am doing a 17" 708 for a lightweight/compact deer hunting rifle with a can.
Agree on the theory with you..

i will never own another 708, between me and my friends we went through about 7 different ones and none of them shot factory ammo worth a darn, and took a lot of work to find a handload they liked, get a creedmoor feed it factory ammo and it will shot sub moa and kill lights out.

Curious Vanguard - can you recall the ammo choices you tried? And what rifles/scopes were you using? And lastly, can you define, "not worth a darn?"

To the OP - I've shot all three, and if I wanted a noticeable drop in recoil, and did not have an elk hunt booked, I would simply use a 243. Flat, accurate, deadly, plenty of range, what is not to like, with a very mild recoil and blast. What is not to like? Now I have shot them all, and on deer, they all killed equally well with good bullets, placed well. Use 95 ballistic tips, either handload or Winchester Supreme, they will kill all the hogs and deer you can find. Penetration with expansion = Dull knife.

All I can say is that you either made very poor choices in the rifles you purchased .... or somebody doesn't know how to reload. I reload for one and I've found 3 different loads that it shoots @ .5". And it didn't take much effort to do it.

139 gr Hornady is a pleasant round to shoot !

we tried all factory loaded ammo , yes every single one, the list of rifles were weatherby vanguard, weatherby vanguard sub moa, remington 700 cdl, thompson cva, savage, savage axis, h&r, the cdl is the only survivor, it went to hill country rifles for accurizing only to come back still not shooting, but i did find a load it likes and hes using it that way. these rifles shot at best 1 1/2 inch groups to 5 inch groups with factory ammo, most all of them wouldnt shoot 140 gr bullets and almost everyone liked 120 gr bullets. scopes were leupold to nikon and mueller, thats not the issue cause were still using them on our rifles that shoot great. my vanguard 708 shot at best 2 inch groups in factory ammo and went to 1/2 inch groups when i screwed a factory 22-250 barrel on it with no other changes. i love the 708 but we are done with that chamber, we will not give it another chance,

This^^^

They have plenty of punch for any whitetail. Might be worth a try before shelling out the bucks for a new gun.

That's interesting Palehorse. I've had 4 7-08's and never found one that wouldn't shoot 140's well.

I have had the same results...every 7-08 that I've bee around shoots 140s great... But why not a 260...seems to split the difference...In our family we have 3 260s and all are deadly accurate and light in recoil...

Ed

Love my 260. If somebody told me they had a bunch of rifles in 7-08, and none would shoot accurately, I'd be inclined to think it was user error. No way it's the fault of the caliber itself. No way. But no offense intended to the shooter or shooters...

Of course it's not the cartridge. The 7mm-08 has been a great gun for many years and will continue to be. The problem obviously was something else in the mix. My son's gun shoots cloverleafs with 120 & 140 grain loads and the load development was as easy as any rifle I've ever loaded for.

Not wanting to personally own another one is fine if that's the stance he takes. But condemning the cartridge is unwise considering the history it has made over the years.

I think this is the best advice. I've had several different rifles of the same caliber (.280 Rem) and experienced brutal recoil with one of them, and it was due to the way the stock did not fit me. The other three of them were (and are) absolute pussycats. I could probably have rebarreled that particular rifle to .260 or 6.5 CM and still not liked it.

I was referring to the OP using the Hornady Custom Lite in the .270 his son already has.

Me too, I currently have 3 of them, It was hard finding the"best" load because all were easily sub moa and best loads were 1/2 to 1/4 moa. Barrel twist are 1 in 11 to 1 to 9. 140 grain to 162 grain. All great shooters.

never tried a CM but I love my 7-08 (cheap marlin x7s but it's a tack drive

If you reload, you can load them mild to wild and up to around a 175 gr bullet if you are shooting something really big. I usually shoot a 139gr and it takes white tails nicely.

I've shot many 7/08s long ago, mostly handloads. Varget and IMR4064, 120-140s mostly, 150 SMK also. The 139-150s shoot bugholes if using good brass and seated close or into lands. Factory 700 BDL SS Sporter, and a BDL Varmint, both chopped to 21"......had a 3 M70s as well, sub MOA. Oh, and an Abolt Micro-Medallion, shot 5/8- 3/4" -

I'm curious as to how one simply 'screws on' another barrel on a Vanguard when many smiths won't even work on them due to the difficulty getting barrels off.....

I found a factory take off on gunbroker brand new unused, some guy builds some kind of muzzle loader out of the vanguards, any way he gets the barrels off unscathed, we werent able to get mine off with out leaving marks but it didnt matter, the gunsmith i used works out of his garage and i watched him do it, screwed the one on i bought, checked headspace and it was all good,
if your gunsmith cant get a barrel off a vanguard find a new smith.
i think the main reason smiths dont want to rebarrel vanguards is the metric threading, they cant do that threading, not that they cant get barrels off.

A lot of it comes down to the weight of the gun. My . 270 has a composite stock. Recoil is not excessive to me in a hunting situation, but at the range can wear on you. Heavier guns can tame some of that. I love it for hunting. So I see no reason to look elsewhere.