One of the newest long-action cartridges to hit the market has just had its official SAAMI specs released. The 7mm Precision Rifle Cartridge (7mm PRC), has been the talk of the town in various internet firearms forums and chat rooms with many people who thought that the official specs would not be released until sometime this fall. However, we’ve got the specs now and it seems to be stacking up to be a very well-balanced cartridge for hunting applications.

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7mm PRC (Precision Rifle Cartridge) SAAMI Specs Released

So what is 7mm PRC? The SAAMI spec sheet shows us that this certification calls for a 180-grain bullet traveling at 2,950 feet per second. For many hunters out there, this strikes the perfect balance between bullet weight, velocity, and trajectory when paired with high ballistic coefficient bullets. The spec sheet also provided information about the cartridge’s maximum effective range and when comparing it to other cartridges like 6.5 PRC, 7mm Mag, .300 Win Mag, and .308 Winchester, the 7mm PRC has the greatest max effective range at 910-yards versus 6.5 PRC’s 686-yards and 300 Win Mag’s 561-yards (these ranges are determined when the bullet drops below 2,000 fps). Drop at 400-yards is similarly impressive and achieves only an 18.9″ drop at that range compared to .300 Win Mag which has about 26-inches of drop at the same range.

While many other cartridges that have been released by Hornady have received their SAAMI certifications months in advance of their official release, 7mm PRC was only certified on the 7th of June this year and thus I think we can still expect to see ammunition manufacturers start pumping out loaded cartridges sometime this fall. Based on the specifications listed here, I think this new cartridge might actually be the new “go-to” long-range hunting cartridge for many as it (as least on paper) demonstrates superior ballistics to other popular hunting cartridges and this would make it a great choice for hunting big game like elk, moose, etc.

Sure, many other great cartridges do already exist that excel at long-range hunting but I think it’s always good to see companies trying to push the boundaries of what’s possible in terms of long-range effectiveness. I’d also like to hear what you guys think of this new cartridge. Do you think there is enough justification to start planning for a 7mm PRC rifle for long-range hunts or do you think you’ll be sticking with your tried and true cartridge offerings? Let us know down in the comments.