bellydeep:Pass the standard 280....HOLD the 280AI.
It's no secret I've been a 7mm RM shooter since I started big game hunting in '82. Still have that rifle and it still does the job. Last year I bought one of those $499 CDNN Ruger Hawkeye rifles with the idea my daughters might use it instead of my .257 Roberts for hunting mule deer and elk.
At the time CDNN had quite a variety of chamberings available. Rifle weight, recoil and capability were my key considerations. Recoil and the fact that I already had them eliminated the 7mm RM and .30-06 from consideration. A 7mm-08 didn’t offer much past what my .257 Roberts could do (110g AccuBond @ 3163fps and 120g A-Frame @ 2947fps) so it got dropped as well. That left only the .270 and .280.
My choice was an easy one - an All Weather (stainless/synthetic) .280 Rem. I don’t kid myself that the .280 Rem is vastly superior to the .270 or that it can perform on par - even in the AI form - with the 7mm RM. It isn’t and it can’t. Nor does it need to. The big advantage and the deciding factor was I already had a lot of .284" bullets on hand - including over 200 North Fork 140g SS hollow points and boxes of Barnes 140g TTSX, Nosler 140g AccuBond and North Fork 160g SS. Buying a stash of .277 bullets didn't seem to make any sense.
To do it over, I’d make the same decision. The .280 Rem has a relatively low SAAMI pressure standard and staying within those limits results in fairly gentle recoil and long case life with good velocity and trajectory. Works for me.
