Jon goes through his setup with the Mossberg Patriot 7mm PRC for his western elk hunt.
Transcription:
What's going on, everybody? We're out here in Colorado, elk hunting for the first rifle season.
I wanted to take a minute and talk to you about the gun I chose for this trip. This is the Mossberg 7 PRC, and the reason I chose this gun was basically for a Western setup. When you're deciding on a rifle for Western hunting, it's hard to beat the ballistics and terminal performance of a 7mm caliber.
The 7 PRC is a modernized cartridge almost equal to the 7mm REM mag in case capacity. The major difference is the twist rate in the barrels of factory rifles. The seven PRC has a faster twist rate.
Another difference is the 7 PRC has a shorter case, which allows you to see bullets out further, taking up less case capacity with the base of the bullet and still being able to fit into factory magazines.
The 7mm REM mag can only shoot up to 168-grain bullets—and some 175s, depending on the length of the bullet and the factory rifles. The 7 PRC can shoot heavier bullets and factory rifles and factory magazines.
The 7 PRC load we went with for this hunt is 160-grain Nosler Accubond at 3050ft per second. Nosler loads the same bullet in 7mm REM Mag factory ammo at 3000ft per second.
We went with this bullet because it's a bonded bullet that still has a high enough ballistic coefficient for the ranges we planned to shoot. The scope we ended up putting on this Mossberg 7 PRC for this hunt is the vortex 4.5 to 22x50, and it's got the XLR2 MRAD reticle.
We ended up going with this scope because we felt like it had the best features for hunting. It has high-quality glass—it's only 21.07oz. It's also a first focal plane, so the sub-tensions stay true at any magnification on the reticle. It doesn't make a difference when dialing elevation, but while holding left or right for windage, the first focal plane is easier since you never have to worry about what magnification it's set at. If you decide to hold for elevation as well, it would be the same.
A few other nice features of the scope are the locking turrets that way if you're hiking in, you don't have to worry about anything getting moved. It also has a zero stop, which makes it simple to return to zero after dialing up for elevation adjustments for long-range shots.
Overall, that is why I chose this 7 PRC. I had a lot of friends that helped me choose this. I'm not a gun guy, and they also helped me tell you why I chose this gun because, in reality, I rely on them a lot for this type of stuff.
Although we haven't haven't shot an elk with it, we've still got tonight. Practicing with it, I feel super confident with this gun. Shot it out to 600 yards and had no problem hitting a 12x12 square at that distance.
As always, we love the Mossberg Patriot. It's a super affordable rifle for somebody who's not going to be going out and hunting big game out west every year. This definitely does the job and gives you the range that you would want on a hunt like this. It's a cool round.
I'm looking forward to deer hunting with this a little bit this year in some of our more open country back in New York. And hopefully, we can have a little last-minute luck on this hunt today and shoot an elk with it. But that's the breakdown of why I chose the 7 PRC.
