Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Please educate me on the .280 Rem....

And Weatherby still uses a 1-10 in some of their 7mm Wby. Magnums. I had one for a while and it shot 175 Hornady Spire Points just fine, but that's not a particularly long 175, and I live at 4000 feet above sea level.

JB
That rifle sounded like something special. Kinda sorry to hear you let it go. It would have covered an aweful lot of needs in the lower 48.
John

If you just look at the cartridge itself, it's a superb hunting cartridge with an excellent balance of power to recoil. It should be good, it splits the difference between two other excellent hunting cartridges, the 270 and the 30-06. If I didn't own either and someone gave me a 280 I'd happily hunt with it.

If you look at the cartridge in the context of other available similar cartridges, it turns out there's not enough difference between the 270 and the 30-06 to really justify a third nearly identical cartridge. It exists only because Remington wanted a cartridge in this size with their name on it. It's never really caught on therefore few guns are chambered in it and ammo selection is limited, expensive and relatively hard to find.

It's primary appeal is to people who find the 270 and 30-06 too common and want to convince themselves that they're connoisseurs because they're shooting something else. No animal could ever tell the difference between a hit with a 270 and 280.

Taking the two cartridges in the same rifles, etc., loaded to the same pressures, using comparable BC bullets, I don't think you'd see the difference in the field with over a hundred pick-ups full of game. Make that three or four life times of very intense and successful hunting. Maybe never.

An argument could be made for more and better BC bullets in 7 mm in the past than in .277 but I don't know if that's true any more.

I think the Winchester M70 FWT and Ruger #1 are 10" as near as I can determine. I tried checking out the Mauser with the custom barrel and it too is 1 in 10. The ABLRs just don't want to group in them. I know the Mauser is good for .50" with selected handholds with the 140 gr. Ballistic Tip. The M70 run .75 on average with the same bullet. The #1 is anywhere from 1.0 to 1.25 depending on the load.
Paul B.

Agreed.

15ish years ago, I had a hankering for a KS in 270 and set out to find one.

The first KS I'd come across was a 280 at a decent price so I figured "close enough" and made it mine; ergo, the 280 is superior to the .270 because I have one.

No! No! My 270 can beat up your 280 !

Jerry

That's impossible: The .280 is bigger.

Remember, it's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the size of the fight in the dog...

To be such a maligned round, that .270's gotta have an attitude...

DF

D F

Way to go. <G>

John,

Sorry I missed your post.

I have owned many rifles that were definitely st least above ordinary, if not something special. But have never been interested in owning only one, and while the 7mm Weatherby worked very well indeed, I had shot the mystery out of it.

Aside from heirlooms, only about a dozen centerfire rifles have stuck with me for over a decade. Exactly why is often a mystery even to me, as at least one I haven't taken into the field for over 16 years.

Somebody named O'Connor once noted that he'd eventually discovered all rifles only shot bullets. In my experience he was right, and the things that make one rifle more desirable than another go beyond shooting bullets. Still haven't pinned down exactly what that something is, but based on previous experience I won't quit trying for a while.

M D -

Your statement about things that make 1 rifle more desirable than another is spot on.

There is "something" about my 70 - 300 WM that I can't put my finger on BUT that rifle and I are 'matched' somehow ? No matter how I could describe it, IT just does something naturally that other rifles I have, do not and have not.

OTOH I don't have a single rifle I don't like. They are GONE.

I know I don't NEED a 300 for WT hunting but I like hunting that rifle, ??
There are several things I could say and describe about THAT rifle and yet not adequately answer what that 'something' is. ? ? ?

My 270 is called 'CUJO'...

The special way "it" settles into your hands and the mental images from past events associated with it? Those things impart a pleasing anthropomorphic quality to me--like a good, silent friend.

Didn't you mean 'WIFE' ? <G>

Yes, but aren't "silent" and "wife" incongruous terms when connected?

And I mean that in the best way.....really! No, really!

Never mind the the edit.

YES !

INcongruent Indeed!!

That's him...wonder what the 280 looked like?

Maybe like this?