Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles .280 Rem. Handloads?

I like to send those skinny barrels off to "300 Below" for cryo treatment. Stops them from walking off, ha. $100 stops alot of hair pulling! I used R22/150 NBT in a 280 MR I had reamed to the Ackley Imp (only gained 50fps, but it was fun playing with it!) I also had good results with IMR 7828/160 Hot Cor. But really....as far as I am concerned, my experience with ANY skinny barrel is "you just have to find what it likes", ha. Good luck to you Pard!

My 280 likes this combination

Frustrating is right! I’ve been turning the AC on high in my car and storing it in there after each 3 round group while I shoot another gun waiting for it to cool! I’m really glad you mentioned the twist rate, I had been wondering that as well. It is a 1977 if I dated the barrel correctly. Just went out today with another load ladder with 160gr Sierra 1920 and worked from 52gr-54gr of RL 19. Results were the same as every other powder I tried with any 160gr bullet. So far I’ve had the best groups with 140’s. Only have used IMR 4831 with them and the results were much better. Wondering if I should go lighter?

I'd give the 120 TTSX a whirl!

If it's a 1977 it's not a Mountain Rifle, they were introduced in 1986.

I use a product called "barrel cool" and a thin damp terry cloth towel over the barrel to help cool it down quicker. There is another product by Magneto Speed that is used to help cool the barrel down on rifles also.

Found an old thread that maybe points toward a 1 in 10 twist:

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/1926195

Only way to know for sure is to measure

My M70 fwt in .280 will shoot bug holes at 200 with Federal blue box 150gr. Try that. I can't duplicate the accuracy of the load so I'm not even going to try.

How repeatable is that?

Plus one on the 150 eldx. I use this bullet in all our 7mm-08s, at 2790 fps. My nephew used this load to kill a 5x6 bull a couple of years ago, 409 yards.





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Failry when I do my part.

140, 139, 120...normal groups. 150's are ridiculous in this thing.

One of those shi'tty BACO M70 fwts.

Excellent results with H4831SC, CCI 200 and R-P brass.

140g TTSX
140g AccuBond

I picked up some Nosler 150gr NBT's yesterday. We'll see how they work.

Great shooting tz! Keep me in mind when you sell that one

Well I guess - hot dang! Nice shootin'.

Yeah it does! lol

Thanks. The problem is with the anemic factory ammo.

I did pick up some 150 NBT and yesterday some 140gr NAB to try. I may be pissin in the wind at this point though. lol

In a standard .280, for deer and hogs, I used 55gr/IMR 4831/Hornady 139gr IL. I was a good killer on both!

I measured the twist, and it is a 1/10. Lightened up the bullets to 140 grains. Tried one ladder with IMR4350 and 140 grain Nosler Accubonds, had two loads on the ladder that had 2 touching but one the 2nd round was 1.5 MOA off and the other the first two touched and the third was 1.5 MOA off again even after letting the barrel cool completely between the first two rounds and the third. Going to try out some 140 TTSX and 150 NBST loads and see what she does. Just wondering to myself if it is the powders now or the bullets. On the plus side, I got one hell of a node out of my 7mm Rem Mag today!

I’ve been looking to try RL23 but I’ve never used it and can’t find much on it for charge weights. How many grain charge are you running?