The 7-30 Waters cartridge was a wildcat cartridge developed by author Ken Waters in 1976 to give better performance to lever-action rifle shooters than the parent.30-30 Winchester cartridge, by providing a higher velocity and flatter trajectory with a smaller, lighter bullet. By 1984, Winchester introduced a Model 94 rifle chambered for the 7-30 Waters, establishing it as a commercial cartridge. In 1986, Thompson/Center began chambering 10-inch, 14-inch, 20-inch Contender barrels for the cartridge. A review of the 7-08 Rem. explains the design of the cartridge with the following: Anything a 7mm can do, a.30 caliber of comparable sectional density and ballistic coefficient can do. The catch is, in order to send a.30-caliber slug over a trajectory as flat as that 7mm bullet, about 20 percent more recoil is going to be generated.... 7mm produces superior downrange performance in terms of delivered energy and trajectory at any given recoil level. There are two primary reasons a 7mm recoils less than an comparably effective.30 cal. cartridge: to match the 7mm's ballistic coefficient requires a heavier.30 cal bullet.

This combination of heavier bullets with heavier powder charges increases the recoil of the.30 caliber. The.30-30 Winchester is limited to short ranges because of the small case capacity and the 150-grain and 170-grain bullet weights. To compensate for this, Waters necked the cartridge down to use a 7mm bullet, rather than the original.308 caliber bullet. Because it was designed to function in lever-action rifles, the 7-30 maintained the same low working pressure, yet Waters' original design fired a lighter bullet at a higher velocity. A typical.30-30 factory load fires a 150-grain bullet at 2390 ft/s, while the current 7-30 factory load fires a 120-grain bullet at 2700 ft/s. Muzzle energy is just over 1900 ft-lbs for both of these loads, but the lighter weight 7mm bullet has a higher velocity and flatter trajectory. Lever-action rifles with tubular magazines can only safely use round nose or flat point bullets as the first cartridge in the chamber with only flat-pointed bullets in the magazine, or if the rifle is used as a 2-shot.

Handloaders for single-shot 7-30 Waters rifles or pistols are not limited to flat-nosed bullets and thus have a wide range manufacturers and weights of 7mm pointed bullets from which to choose. Federal Cartridge offers manufactured 7-30 Waters cartridges—the Federal Premium Vital-Shok firing a 120-grain Sierra GameKing boat-tail soft-point flat-nose bullet at 2700 ft/s with 1940 ft-lbs of energy, it has a sectional density of 0.213 Hornady Manufacturing Company's 2020 new products catalog does show 7-30 Waters LEVERevolution ammunition which would allow the safe use of pointed, ballistically efficient spitzer bullets in tubular magazines. Speer Bullets offers a 130 gr, copper-jacketed soft-point flat-nosed bullet for use in lever-action rifles, it has a sectional density of 0.23 and a ballistic coefficient of 0.257Hornady Manufacturing Company does not offer either FTX or MonoFlex bullets in 7mm/.284" caliber. These would allow the safe use of pointed, ballistically efficient spitzer bullets in tubular magazines.

He 7-30 Waters cartridge, with its flatter trajectory and higher velocity, have made what many consider to be an ideal mountain rifle: lightweight, but capable of reaching out for the longer shots. By 1982, Waters had perfected his new cartridge, firing a 139-grain flat-point bullet at a muzzle velocity of 2600 ft/s from a lever-action rifle with a 24" barrel. By 1983, he had managed to attract the attention of Winchester, which led to the introduction of the Model 94 angle eject 20" barreled carbine and Model 94XTR angle eject 24" barreled rifle in the new caliber in 1984. After 13 years, production ceased in 1997. Thompson Center Arms' single-shot Contender and Encore rifles are both offered in 7-30 Waters in either stainless steel or blued steel through their custom shop. Thompson Center Arms began to chamber the 7-30 Waters in their Contender single shot pistol starting in 1986. Factory loads are capable of velocities of 2400 ft/s from the 14" pistol barrel, making the 7-30 Waters one of the fastest commercial rounds available for the pistol.

In addition, the single shot Contender and Encore pistols can safely use pointed bullets, which allows the handloader to gain additional retained velocity at long ranges for uses such as handgun hunting and metallic silhouette shooting. Paco Kelly, of leverguns.com: I like the model 94 Winchesters....and the 7 Waters fits the standard 94 action well. It is what it was designed for...a light and powerful round and rifle for deer and black bear. Bullets in the 110- to 120-grain range are suitable for small game and varmints. "The 7-30 Waters has proven its capabilities in the field on big game weighing up to 300 pounds at woods ranges. As this is written, two bullets of flat nose form are available to handloaders for use in rifles with tubular magazines. For whitetails, the 120-grain Nosler is an excellent performer, but when greater penetration is needed for Mule Deer and Black Bear, the 139-grain Hornady is a better choice." Nosler and Hornady no longer offer flat nose bullets in 7mm. Best performance is had with the rifle bar

Craig Powell in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia is an Australian poet. For ten years, he lived in Canada before returning to his homeland. Powell graduated in medicine from Sydney University and specialised in Psychiatry. From 1972 to 1982, he lived in Canada, he now lives in Sydney, Australia where he was a psychoanalyst in private practice and a visiting medical officer in Mental Health, at the Prince of Wales Hospital. In 2011, he fell, resulting in permanent brain damage that required him to retire from psychoanalysis and poetry, though his existing work is sometimes included in collections, he won the 1983 Mattara Newcastle Poetry Prize and was a co-winner of the 45th International Poetry Competition organized by the Quarterly Review of Literature, New Jersey. He has published eight poetry collections and individual poems were included in The Best Australian Poetry 2007 and in New Oxford Book of Australian Verse. More he published chapbooks The Poem As A Place and Poems For A Marriage through Picaro Press.

A Different Kind of Breathing: Poems. Sydney: South Head Press 1966 I Learn by Going: Poems. Five Dock, NSW: South Head Press 1968 A Country Without Exiles: Poems. Five Dock, NSW: South Head Press 1972 Rehearsal for Dancers: Poems. Winnipeg, Canada: Turnstone Press 1978 Selected Poems 1963–1977. London, Canada: Killaly Press 1978 A Face in Your Hands. Berrima, NSW: South Head Press 1984 The Ocean Remembers It Is Visible. Princeton New Jersey, Quarterly Review of Literature 1989 Minga Street: New and Selected Poems. Sydney: Hale and Iremonger 1993 Music and Women's Bodies. Wollongong, NSW: Five Islands Press 2002 The Poem as a Place: and other poems. Warners Bay, NSW: Picaro Press 2004 Poems for a Marriage. Warners Bay, NSW: Picaro Press 2008 A Mind Knowing Us. Warners Bay, NSW: Picaro Press 2013 A Country Without Exiles Music and Women's Bodies "A Mind Knowing Us" Poems at Thylazine