Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 280 AI......I want one. Tell me all about it.

RBO: How would you expect anyone to respond to this?

Your post sounds like the add copy for some new Nosler cartridge in the back pages of Petersens' Hunting......You can't really expect me t take any of what you wrote seriously can you?

If you want a (partial) list of cartridges that will and have accomplished all the same things that you say the 280AI is suited for we can think about the 270, 7x57, 280, 284, 7SAUM,7mm WSM, 270 Weatherby,7mm Weatherby, 7mm Rem Mag , 7x61 S&H,7mm Dakota,28 Nosler, 30/06, 300 WSM, 300 H&H, 300 Win Mag, 300 Weatherby,30 Nosler, etc etc.

I'd toss in the 338's. They can do the same things but I always regarded them as specialized sluggers in a different category.

I didn't include the 6.5's because the list would start to get ridiculous and you have to draw the line somewhere but obviously many of them are capable of taking exactly the same game you mentioned and at the same distances as well. An old now deceased acquaintance of mine killed a couple of grand slams and all the African plains game with a 264 Win Mag....so.......

If you want to talk about wildcats the list gets longer and the low pressure fire form loads for my 7mm Mashburn with 140 gr bullets easily equals the performance of the 280, and at less pressure,...... while leaving the 280 AI completely in the dust with anything from 140 to 180 gr bullets with full house Mashburn loads. That's from rifles with the same action length and a 24" barrel weighing 8 pounds and under. The 7mm Weatherby, 7 Rem Mag and STW will do the same things.


Some of these cartridges are a bit slower in velocity than a 280 AI, some are a bit faster with the same or heavier bullets and have the case capacity to meet or exceed 280AI velocities very easily....and with heavier bullets to boot, but all kill the same animals in much the same fashion if you pick a good bullet and place it right.

So...in all those categories you mentioned, I could just as easily apply a 30/06, 7 Rem Mag, 300 Winchester mag,270, 280, 7mm Mashburn or Weatherby..... or any of the others mentioned above and stack animals on top of one another from one end of the continent to the other. I could do the same thing with a 280 AI but there isn't anything particularly distinguishing about it except in the bowels of the imaginations of fans like you.

Magnums are powder burners that offer no advantage at 600yds or less which I would guess 95% of hunters never reach out to in the first place, plus with a magnum you get a magnum recoil which i would guess subconsciously causes a flinch in most hunters taking any hunting advantage that magnum rifle might of had and throws it out the window.

I never said the 280ai was the only rifle capable of being a killing machine out to 600yds, I said when you average all things it was the best in my opinion.

The 280ai is a wildcat that is starting to make mainstream with manufacturers mass producing them, and now Nosler is now making factory brass and ammo for them. You know why? Because they realize the efficiency of this cartridge.

What is a "better" all round cartridge and why? I don't want a generic list of all the cartridges in its class, give me a specific cartridge and the reason it's better. I think the 30-06 and the 270 are as close as you can come to being the perfect hunting rifle, with the 280rem taking the best of both worlds then PO Ackley came along and improved it, with even Parker admitting he thought the 280 was the most efficient of his creations.

Get upset with my post, call me a crazy fan boy, but at least back it up with some with some facts and reasons. Like I said, flat like a 270 and hits like a 30-06 with no magnum recoil and factory chamberings. I don't need to hear about the cartridges that can do it, I want to hear about the ones that can do it better, and why.

I agree with you on that to a certain extent, and not to mention it has a short action which makes for a lighter platform. If the maximum range for an average hunter in North America was 300yds I would choose the 7mm-08 all day long, but I think 500yds is a more realistic maximum range for the average hunter, for deer might be ok but I wouldn't try it on a moose or elk at that range with a 7mm-08. I think once you get out past the 500yd range you get into someone who is not your average hunter anymore, that's territory I'm not talking about.

Magnums are powder burners that offer no advantage at 600yds or less which I would guess 95% of hunters never reach out to in the first place, plus with a magnum you get a magnum recoil which i would guess subconsciously causes a flinch in most hunters taking any hunting advantage that magnum rifle might of had and throws it out the window.

I never said the 280ai was the only rifle capable of being a killing machine out to 600yds, I said when you average all things it was the best in my opinion.

The 280ai is a wildcat that is starting to make mainstream with manufacturers mass producing them, and now Nosler is now making factory brass and ammo for them. You know why? Because they realize the efficiency of this cartridge.

What is a "better" all round cartridge and why? I don't want a generic list of all the cartridges in its class, give me a specific cartridge and the reason it's better. I think the 30-06 and the 270 are as close as you can come to being the perfect hunting rifle, with the 280rem taking the best of both worlds then PO Ackley came along and improved it, with even Parker admitting he thought the 280 was the most efficient of his creations.

Get upset with my post, call me a crazy fan boy, but at least back it up with some with some facts and reasons. Like I said, flat like a 270 and hits like a 30-06 with no magnum recoil and factory chamberings. I don't need to hear about the cartridges that can do it, I want to hear about the ones that can do it better, and why.