Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters ? For Mule Deer .280 Rem Related

Hey Mule Deer I am pretty much a 85% white tail hunter and I
have been so since 1978. I am very skilled and have very good
knowledge of guns rifles in particular.The first 10 years I
hunted I used a .270 win the last 20 plus have been with the
.280 rem. My question is why now after all these years has the
.280 rem become so popular it has all ways been very popular
in custom rifles but stock factory guns & ammo has been lean
at best now you see alot more in the field and much more to
read about in both ammo & guns to. I have 2 Sakos one in a GreyWolf in .308 and the other a.270 wsm synthetic stainless

Are they really more popular? Almost nobody still chambers it in a regular production factory rifle. I felt the round was on life support? I never see any afield anymore.

Just my opinion but, with high-quality modern bullets, the 270 Winchester will do anything that the 280 Remington will do. With a 30 year (or so) head start, the 270 Win was too well entrenched and hard to displace by a similar cartridge.

That said, the 280 Rem. in one of my favorite cartridges; I don't even own a 270.

Born as a 270 wannabe but loaded to lower pressure to work in a semiauto. Stands out if you roll your own at the same pressure as a 270, but factory loads somewhat anemic. Thus a rifle looney's cartridge.

I read years ago that the 280 Remington was loaded to a lower pressure than the 270 Winchester and have always wondered about this. The 280 was chambered for Remington's 740 semi-auto, as was the 270 Winchester; if it held up to the 270 chambering, why would it not stand up to an equal pressure 280?

The SAAMI pressures for each are: 270 Winchester = 65,000 psi and the 280 Remington = 60,000 psi.

Would a 5,000 psi lower pressure really add much to the Remington 740 lifespan? Did the 270 chambering result in lower reliability in the 740?

Semi-auto shooters are generally not high volume shooters, so a 5,000 psi difference shouldn�t add that much.

I have seen 280's in the field but I was the one carrying them...aside from a couple of buddies who have used them.

....for quite awhile I let my fondness for the rifle be the determining factor in choosing between the 280 and the 270;having hunted with and loaded both,I never saw any practical difference between them.Watching both a 270 and a 280 work last year in Wyoming,I started to revisit the same general impressions.

If I saw a rifle I really liked, chambered for 280, I would not hesitate to buy it.

Brunettes, blonde's or Redheads...many cartridges do the same thing, just depends on your preferences. I chose a 280rem because it wasn't as popular as the 270win. I have always liked 7mm as a bullet, not sure hwy, just have. Love having choice though ;-)

IIRC : The real reason for the lower pressure standard of 60k psi was for Consistent pressures to cycle the autos action reliably

I believe that the 740 was also chambered in 6mm/.244 , not a low pressure factory load.

Too many name changes (7mm-06, 7mm Express) didn't help the .280 either.

Over 40 + years of big game hunting now, I have seen just 2 280 Remingtons in the field, and it was me shooting both. Its popular with the custom gun crowd, My last 280 was a Dakota # 10. It never did shoot accurate enough, no matter what I tried. I ended up selling it at a small profit, and replaced it with a Blaser R-93. I also had for a time a Sako in 7 x 64. That rifle shot and shot well. It too went when I paired down my collection. The 280 was pretty much dead on arrival, the 270 been around for 40 +years and then in 1962 Remington came out with two things, the Remington 700 Rifle and the 7mm Remington Mag. The rest is well history, its a handloaders cartridge. Its not a bad one, It just had the deck stacked from the get go.

+1

Add to that the later introduction of the 7mm-08 which virtually duplicates the 7x57 in a 2.8" magazine Short Action.

You can look at the .280 as a compromise between the larger 7mm and these smaller (shorter) cartridges. For a while I thought that the 7stw was the cats meow, but mine didn't have the accuracy to justify the extra reach.

So back to the .280 for me!

For deer hunting they are all good. Just depends on you and your hunting situation.

270 & 280 Have used both a bunch Now refer to then as the 275

The 740 was never chambered for the .270. It couldn't handle it. That's why the .280 was introduced. The 742 was reworked so it could handle the .270.

I suppose people would look at factory load charts and compare the 280 with the 270 and get the idea the 270 is a better cartridge because it is faster. If the 280 was factory-loaded with 130 grain bullets and equal pressure, it might have been a different story.

We tried a Remington automatic in 270 when my wife wanted to hunt with an auto. That rifle gave new meaning to the nickname "jam-o-matic!" We took it back and got a Ruger Mini Thirty that wouldn't consistently hit a paper plate at a hundred yards. We took it back and got a Ruger M77RL ultralight in 257 Roberts. She lost a nice buck with that so we traded it in on a sweet little Winchester M70 Classic Compact 308. She poleaxed a big caribou bull with it. She's happy now.

I shot the 7 mag for a few years, but when I tried the 280 a few times, I found that that particular rifle would shoot like a magic wand. I sold the boat paddle synthetic stocked Ruger 7 mag, and bought the 280. It's never given me a problem, and I do hand load for it. I also use Winchester Fail Safes in 140 grain as they shoot very tight groups right from the box for me. The amazing thing? It's a 7400. Shuck the plastic dust cover, and it's good to go (they can rattle and make noise). I like a 270 that shoots well too, and I have a Savage that will do so, but I love my 280. I would have never believed a semi-auto would shoot so good, but I still have it. It has taken a lot of deer over the years for me.

My Rem 740 in 30-06 was a tack driver and never jammed.

Browning
Remington
Cooper
Nosler (AI)

Both Ruger and Weatherby have offered it in the past few years as well.

Remington only chambers it in the 700 Mountain rifle.

I find boring when someone tries to convince me the 270 is some how better than the 280 or conversely that the 280 is some how better. I think it can be described as a distinction without a difference. I gotta go with idea that the rifle means more than the slight difference in these two rounds.

I built a pair of rifles in 19(mumble): a .280 Rem to shoot metallic silhouette; and a 6.5-'06 to use hunting. They were stocked alike, but the other details differed. I still have both and shoot them although I haven't shot MS for about two coons' ages. I owned a .270 Win for about 15 minutes once -- won it in a drawing and a friend really wanted it. In those times there were only two bullets available for the .270, and nothing of target persuasion.

If I was doing the same today I would make both rifles factory cartridges, and either 7-08 and .260 Rem or 7mm SAUM and 6.5-.284 depending on the phase of the moon.

jim

I have had 2 .280s, a Sako M75 and now a Cooper. I handload, but there are some pretty good factory loads available.