Oh, the 7mm WSM is one of my favorites. I have a left-handed Win. M70 that I really like. But, I don't know if I could pass on a left-handed 280AI if one popped up.
Patrick, these targets were shot very early in my load development, before the barrel was broken in, before cleanup of the throat area, before bedding the action, and before switching to H-4350 (which gave me better accuracy than Re-16).
My ultimate load was with H-4350 with the 130 gr. Sierra...
Patrick, I shot about 17 deer with the 260 Rem. using the 120 gr. BT. Now I have a 6.5 CM and had some good results with the 129 ABLR. For the game you plan to hunt with it, I think the 129 ABLR is the perfect bullet. Either the 125 Partition or 130 AB are great second choices.
Ernie, my comfort zone (for deer size game) is 400 yards. I passed on a beautiful mule deer buck last fall at 417 yards, at last light, with a cross breeze.
After I developed a deer and antelope load for my 7mm WSM using the 150 gr. ABLR bullet, I decided I should work up a non-lead load for my 7mm RM. I searched for reloading data for the CX bullets and talked to the Hornady tech rep. (twice). Hornady indicates that 3000 fps is about the top...