Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Elk Hunting 280 rem vs 7mm mag

I love 10 year old threads.

I've owned and most of the commercially available 7mms and a few cats. The 280/280AI is the sweet spot in my opinion. If I had a 3" mag box SA, I'd do a 284 win. I find the 280 to be enough gun and can be had/made in a lighter rifle with acceptable recoil. Of course the gray girl (270 win) fits the same slot.........

Sorry, but a 280 will not get the same velocity with less powder.

Yep, when loaded to the same pressure, in the same barrel length with the same bullets, the .280's about 200 fps behind the 7mm RM.

Whether that makes any difference in the real world is another question.

I ran a 280 for years and love the cartridge. However a 7mm rem mag it is not and doesnt need to be. IMO I need more jam than a 280 I just step up to a 300 magnum of some sort.

when you just want to argue with some one, this is a safe bet.

and you spend all that effort offering advice to a member who probably hasn't been on this website since the original argument 10 years ago!!

There are no animals existing that the Remington will take and the .280 won't.
Cartridge arguments are classic Gack.
Bullet design and placement is the only fact or else the 7x57 and 7/08 could not exist in a world obsessed with velocity differences in this caliber.

The biggest problem I see between the two is barrel length. The .28 works well with a 22" tube, the 7mm mags are not ideal. My mountain rifles are compact rifles. Cut the latter down to 22" and see what you get.

The .280 was a flop when it hit the market... That tells me all I need to know..

All it should tell you is that the timing and marketing was mishandled. Sales numbers do not always tell the whole story.

To be mentioned/compared in the same sentence as the 270Win, 30-06, & 7mag puts it in very good company. Those three aforementioned chamberings were three of the reasons for slow 280 sales.

It might have been a sales flop, but the 280 still ranks near the top for North American BG cartridges.

Very well said.

My 7RM shoots 140 Partitions into tiny little clusters. I can't think of a better all around rifle/bullet than that

I have, hunt with and like both. At closer ranges there is nothing the 7mm RM can do that the .280 cannot do as well. For longer ranges I prefer the extra 200-300fps the 7mm RM provides.

Neither cartridge is a high pressure cartridge - the .280 Rem is rated for 60,000 psi MAP while the 7mm RM is at 61,000 psi. The big difference is case capacity - about 67 grains for the .280 compared to about 83 for the 7mm RM.

Just split the difference and get a 280AI

280, 280 AI, and 7 RM are all fantastic.

In the 280, I shoot the 160g at 2930 with IMR 7828, fed 210, load right out of the nosler #4 manual. 160g Sierra btsp at this speed is awesome on deer and hogs.

YUP

So true. Note the undeserved bad luck of the 284 Win.

Well did you get a rifle? Me I would pick the lighter one every time. If not a hand loader the 7 mag has a better selection of premium loads the 280s are on the anemic side.

I surely hope you have better sense than that.

I have owned both 280 and 7mm and believe "shot placement" is the key. I prefer the 280 for all around hunting.

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