Well, according to the Gospel of Speer Reloading Manual 13, "If you own a good 280, there's little reason to trade it in for any of the 7mm Magnums."
page 237.
I bought my 280 a dozen years ago, and every time I think of a 7RM I go back and read that Speer manual...
Although I own and like both, I have to agree with Speer.
If all I had was a .280 and I wanted more horsepower, I'd probably opt for a .300 Magnum of some sort.
Thinking back, I kind of did that - bought a .300WM for more horsepower.
Mostly it was a question in my mind of whether I had made the right decision 21 years previously when I purchased my 7mm RM.
The .300 WM provided significantly increased recoil with at best marginal additional, useful lethality at the ranges I'm willing to shoot. Then I built a .338WM. It makes bigger holes and kills stuff dead, but no deader than the 7mm RM.
My last elk was killed with a 7mm RM and a 160g Speer Grand Slam at 411 yards, 4 steps and down. The last elk I killed with the .338WM went about 25 yards (225g Nosler AB @ 487 yards) and the last with the .300WM (180g Barnes MRX @ 400 yards) went maybe 5 yards.
Not only is there nothing wrong with the 7mm RM, I've found it easy to load for with recoil about the same as a .30-06 (can be more or less and tales of its fierce recoil have always puzzled me). If it were to do over, and knowing I would be handloading, I'd make the same 7mm RM choice again. If not handloading my first choice would be a .30-06.
