Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What can you do with a 280 that you cant with a 270

Shoot 175's at 2,800 fps.

There you have it from AS GOOD A SOURCE as there is.

I had that .284 itch as well for quite a long time so I got one. 2017 was my first season to hunt it.






I shot this guy in the back of the neck as he walked directly away from me @ 175 yds. Knocked his nose in the dirt. Literally. Gave him bug eyes.



A .284 Win that is! M 98, 21" bll,. Boyd's stock, Timney trigger,

Since I had multiple 270s I went with the 284 Win. > 139 HBTSP, 59 grs Surplus 4831, > @ 3000 pfs.
Not much difference between the 270, 280, 284 W.


Jerry

To answer the OP original thread title " of what can you do with a 280 that you cannot do with a 270"?

About the only thing I can think of is, you can re-chamber the 280 into a 280 Ackley Improved. Otherwise the answer is nothing unless you re-barrel!

And so what?

He asked the question I gave him an answer. So what.

Heck even I have a .270 and my brother has had one for decades.

Began my hunting career in 1978 with a 308, which I loved. Somewhere along the way I wound up with a 280, then another, then another, etc. Before I knew it I had 7 or 8 of them. I still do. Over the last 4 years I have returned to my first love, the 308. Now the battle rages every time I have to choose a rifle for a hunt.

270 anything? Not for me.

For those who have NOT read the thread !

As has been stated before, "270/280/30-06, if you have one you have the other."

Fire .7+ BC's.

280 Rem = 162 ELD's at 2930 with IMR 7828, load right out of the Nosler #4 manual

= 175\180 ELD at 2700+

Have 2 270 Win's and 2 280 Rem's. Under 500 yards which is as far as I care to shoot at big game, 0 difference.

In theory the 280 has some advantages but where the rubber meets the road, nada.

I have 270's, 280's and a 280 AI.

The 280 has a little more power than the 270. (What are you hunting?) If I were hunting bigger game I'd prefer the 280. If I were hunting smaller game I'd prefer the 270. But the 270 should be good for most anything up to Moose in the Western hemi-sphere. Though I took my 338 with partitions when I went on my one moose hunt.

I had 280's decades before any 270, mainly because I liked the bullet selection better. Now, it seems that there no lack of 270 bullets and there's likely little difference.

My favorite 280 load is with Hornady 162 grain SPBT in my old 700 and it will consistently shoot < 1/2 MOA 5 shot groups. But it also shoots 150 grain Nosler Partitions and 154 Hornady bullets in similar size groups.

My favorite 270 load 130 TTSX < 3/4 MOA 5 shot groups. Shooting squirrels at 400 yards that would be significant I suppose.

My 280 AI has a fast twist and I'll be trying low drag bullets this August in that with 168 ABLR's and !75 ABLR's.

I'll be trying 150 ABLR's in the 270 -- again for prairie dog shooting in August.

I'm not a minimalist as far as cartridges on game.

.270 Winchester: 3100 fps with 145 Hornady ELD-Xs, 3050 fps with 150 Nosler Partitions, both with manual-listed loads of Reloder 26.

Also, 2750 fps with the 170-grain Berger, which stabilizes fine in a 1-10 twist at 4000 feet above sea level. That's with either RL-26 or IMR 7977. Oh, and these loads are from a 22-inch barrel--NOT the 26-inch barrel used in Nosler's .280 data.

I would guess the new Nosler 165-grain AccuBond Long Range will also stabilize in a 1-10, at elevations more than a little above sea level.

On the other hand, I have found the .270 more than adequate for any big game up to and including elk and moose with 140-grain monolithics or the 150 Nosler Partition.

Years ago I started with a .270 Win. in a M760 Remington pump. My close buddy got a .280 in Rem 760 from a local Remington factory representative at an attractive price because the gun had been a demonstrator model. We both went out and killed stuff. I have taken the greatest number of my moose with a .270 but not necessarily the M760. 150 grain partitions were the most used bullets. In late years I switched to a .338 Win. It smacked them harder but no deader.

My friend reloaded so finding ammo was no problem for him.

My conclusion, same-same.

Jim

If you put the same powder charge same bullet weight in the 270 and 280, the 280 will be running 10,000 cup less pressure. This is what most people do not realize how the bore dia has such a dramatic effect on loads.

Correct thinking is that the 280 is as Magnum 270.

Those high BC 7mm bullets trump all 270 anything.

Then by your explanation the 7mm is three times better than the 6.5?

The .270 runs about 5K higher because it's loaded in the factory like that because the .270 was never loaded in a weak action. It was never a military round and was loaded for more modern high pressure rifles. When hand loaded for a modern firearm the .280 iis the ballistic equal of the .270. But if you only use factory ammo, the .270 will usually out run the .280.

I came to this site years ago and a similar thread was one of my very first. I have hunted with both cartridges for 20 years and always felt the 270 was the choice for most folks because of ammo availablity.

For handloaders the 280 will do everything a 270 will do,and a few things it won't.

The 280 because of it's slightly larger bore diameter and faster twist will handle heavier bullets better.

And heavier bullets are certainly out there for the 280.

The 175 grain Partition and the 180 grain Hornady Eldm are two that come to mind that depending upon the application could be incrementally better than something comparable in 270.

The notion that anything may be incrementally better is enough for any first order rifle loon.

Accuracy wise, I have tended to see more really accurate 280s than 270s in factory rifles.owning at least a dozen of each over the years.

Perhaps the edge in accuracy is due to the 280 rifles typically being part of small production runs versus the 270 which has always been a high production,high volume manufactured item.

Or maybe just luck of the draw or test bias on my part.

Wow, I've never owned a 280, but from what some here have suggested, you CAN put lipstick on a pig!

ruraldoc,

I suspect the accuracy edge you see in .280s is due to a small sample. I have owned a bunch of each and both cartridges have been extremely accurate in some--including a Model 78 Remington .270, the "cheap" birch-stocked version they no longer offer.

As noted earlier, killed enough big game with the .280 during the 1990s (and the .270 from 1974 on) to know the theoretical killing-power advantages are just that. But rifle loonies often believe very firmly in small "paper" advantages.

If I feel the actual need for more than a .270 on big game, I tend to jump quite a bit beyond the .280, to a "medium bore."