7×64mm

The 7×64mm is a hunting cartridge the German designer Wilhelm Brenneke developed in 1917 by lengthening and enlarging the case of the German military’s 8×57mm-family cartridges, an approach he had already tried with the earlier, commercially unsuccessful 8×64mm S. Brenneke’s idea was straightforward: a larger case head and greater overall length than the standard German service round, combined with a raised pressure ceiling, could deliver more velocity than the state’s own 8×57mm IS cartridge did, and by extension outperform contemporaries such as the American .30-06 Springfield. The German military itself never adopted either of Brenneke’s rounds, preferring not to rechamber for a new case, but the 7×64mm found lasting civilian success and remains one of the most widely used hunting cartridges in Central Europe.

Its 11.95 mm case head diameter and 84 mm overall length let it be chambered easily in standard-length actions, which is part of why it caught on as a hunting round. Its naming follows the general European convention of stating the bore diameter and case length together (7mm bore, 64mm case) rather than any load or performance figure.

All dimensional and pressure figures on this page come from C.I.P.’s own published standard and are recorded as verified; SAAMI, which also recognises the round for the American market, rates its pressure ceiling somewhat lower under its own separate test method. Bullet mass and velocity come from RWS’s own current product listing for its 9.1-gram HIT hunting load, also verified.