Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Finn Aagaard on the 280 Remington

WA: Convert .277" to MM's....see what you get.

I know Bob, but having a nice round number doesn't seem like a really good reason for a new bore size.

Li ke John said....who knows why except they maybe didn't want another .284 for whatever reason.

We could ask Tom Johnson but he's dead.

Remember 1925 was just 7 years after America/Britain (and our Allies) won the war in Europe and there was a anti German/European sentiment.

That's my SWAG.

Doesn't matter much now. It worked out well for them.

The 7x64 Brenneke is not the 280 Remington.
1) It is a European cartridge.
2) How many people in 1912 would have known it existed?
3) With the name Winchester so intrenched in Americana, how much traction would something with the name "Brenneke" get in a pre WW America?

I wonder if the .280 is more of an eastern thing. I don't have any trouble finding it in PA or NC. And I can get Remington,Winchester,and Federal.

With that said, I've still only known three other people who use the .280.

One reason you might find .280 ammo more easily there is it was originally designed for use in pumps and semiautos, as a lower-pressured cartridge providing .270-equivalent ballistics. Pumps and semiautos have never been as popular in the east as out west, and even though there may be more bolt-action .280's in the east these days, there are probably still a lot of pumps and semiautos around.

I don't remember anybody here in Montana owning a .280 until it became an "in" cartridge among people who had custom rifles built in the 1980's, after Jim Carmichel started promoting it in OUTDOOR LIFE, and other people started promoting 7mm bullets as providing extra killing power, not explainable by foot-pounds or other statistics. This was long before some hunters started shooting big game well beyond 500 yards, so this wasn't due to the higher BC of some 7mm bullets, but something magic in the 7mm diameter. (Which is, as Bob pointed out, the actual diameter of .270 bullets.)

These custom-rifle loonies mostly chose the .280 for the same reason they chose 1909 Argentine actions, French walnut and other special stuff, because they wanted to set themselves apart from the crowd. I can even remember one of these leaning over the counter of a local sporting goods store, talking to a clerk who also believed in 7mm magic. They bonded like a couple of fans of obscure single-malt Scotches.

I own a 280 and 7mm Rem Mag. If I feel that I can't remember to put my ammunition in the truck I pack the belted one.

That said, when the 280 barrel gets tired it will likely be replaced by a 277 one.

This thread got me to look in my copy of "Finn Aargard Selected Works" to see what he had to say about different cartridges. Didn't find anything specifically on the .280 but did find the article "Shots with a 7x64mm". Next to the obligatory picture of the cartridge under scrutiny standing next to similar cartridges is the blurb "...Finn rates the .270 Winchester, 7x64mm and .280 Remington as three of a kind."

I also found this advice in "Killing Power Myths Fact or Fiction?": "Rather than worry about killing power formulas, a hunter would do better to study animal anatomy and learn field marksmanship." In this I think he agrees with Mr. 270 himself who once wrote, "it's where you hit'em, not what you hit'em with."



Something else of interest, in the first paragraph of the 7x64mm article where he is relating how he bought his first one, he originally went to look for a 7x57 but the store had none. He writes, "...they tried to sell me a .30-06 instead. I opined at the time that the '06 was too close in power to my .375 H&H big gun. I wanted a wider spread in power..."

Just in case anybody wanted his opinion of the .30-06...

There isn't a lick of difference between the 7x64 and the 280 Remington ballistically.......they even look the same. Ever hold them side by side?

What solid reason, commercially, would Winchester have to chamber an almost identical cartridge?



How much traction another 284 based on the 30/06 would have gotten in 1925 is moot. Fact is the 7x64 didn't get any......then or later...when the 280 finally came on the scene in 1956 or so. It got buried in the noise of the 7 Rem Mag,and never has touched the 270 in sales or popularity. Even Elmer Keith and the OKH (another 7mm on the 30/06 case) did;t breathe any life into the concept.

I love you guys who like to speculate on revisionist history and convince the rest of us the 270 wouldn't exist if Winchester had created the 280 instead. Really WTH cares? It didn't happen.

What a ridiculous argument.

Kinda like....

What if a frog had wings ?

They don't so the question is ridiculous!


I actually like the 280 R AND the 270 W.


Truth be told..IF you like the one...you HAVE to like the other. Those 2 cartridges are TOOOO similar for any difference to be real.


Jerry

Exactly...if you have any common sense..and have killed anything with both.

The 280 is a true rifle loony and handloaders cartridge. Some folks don't have much appreciation for loonies and handloaders. This is where factory ammo along with mass produced chamberings such as the 270 fit in nicely.

And then there is the 7X57 Mauser and the 6.5X55 Swede. Every non Magnum cartridge that has been invented in the last 100 years basically duplicates what was already being done.

From a logical standpoint neither the 280 or 270 made any sense. They both burn more powder while at the same time you see no difference in there ability to take game.

The 270 for many years made little sense whatsoever. It pushed 3100 fps with cup and core bullets that largely were not up to the task at those velocities.

Had Mr Bell at that time decided to perhaps use a 270 instead of the magnificent 7X57 Mr Bell likely would have left this world much sooner and loonies would not read of a non Magnum cartridge that really could do it all.


If not for hype and sales pitch the 270 likely wouldn't exist today




Shod

Didn't Bell say in later years that the .308 Win would be his choice if doing it all again?

Um, not exactly. The .270 would hardly have become popular if all .277" 130-grain bullets came apart.

Here's a quote from somebody who used the .270 considerably in its early years: "The expansion of bullets is controlled by various means. One of the first successful bullets of this type was the original 130-grain .270 bullet called by Winchester the Pointed Soft-Point Expanding. It had a heavy solid base, thick jacket along the shank, a sharp point protected from battering by a cap of tin. This is the bullet that made the .270's reputation. I have never seen it fail to perform according to the script and I have shot with it animals from the size of javelina to animals the size of moose."

That sounds very much like the Nosler Solid Base, the bullet that eventually got a plastic point and became the Ballistic Tip. But when the Solid Base bullets were soft-points, they held together very well, even at pretty high velocity. I only recovered one back in their day, a 100-grain started at 3000 fps from a .243 Winchester at only 100 yards. It took a whitetail buck in the short ribs on the left side and ended up perfectly mushroomed in the right shoulder, retaining 61.5% of its weight.

The original Remington Core-Lokt had very heavy jacket sidewalls and held together well--and the 150-grain round-nose still does. But the spitzer Core-Lots were "redesigned" around 25 years ago, apparently to save money, but as far as I know the round-nose versions still have the heavy jacket. There were other early controlled-expanding bullets, like the Peters Inner-Belted, and John Nosler started selling Partitions to the public only 23 years after the .270 appeared.

But like the claim that if the .280 had appeared first the .270 would never have appeared, the suggestion that Bell would have been trampled if he'd used a .270 is specious. He didn't use the .270 because it hadn't appeared, but he did have plenty of bad experiences with other cartridges, and learned through experience (either his or that of others) what worked and what didn't. He didn't, for instance, use the .280 Ross.

Just because some hunters still assume any 130, 180 or even 250-grain bullet is just like any other doesn't mean that hunters of a century ago didn't select what worked--and manufacturers didn't recognize the problems and work toward solutions.

I'd guess that the thousands of satisfied hunters and customers should be discounted.............

more ridiculousness!


Jerry

I think he said a .308 Win with either 200gr or 220gr bullets. I can't remember which

I love you guys who completely miss the point...and then argue against it.