Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 284 win

IMO the 284 shines in a Savage 99 and thats about it..It certainly is a fine cartridge but in a good bolt action my all time favorite and always will be is a long magzine, long throated 7x57 loaded with large doses of H414 Powder and any bullet weight..With it I can equal about any 7 mm caliber including the factory loaded Remington 7 mm magnum, but not the handloaded 7 magnum..the long magazine and long throat will duplicate the 7x57 Ackley Imp. with ease, but without modifying the case and only with H414 as far as I can tell.

You might want to check this out on Accurate Shooter. It has some very good info on the various 7MM. They are quoting up to 2950FPS with 180 grain bullet in a 284 with RL17 powder. Most of this is by Bryan Litz, Berger Bullet's ballistician and has a doctorate in projectiles.
http://www.6mmbr.com/7mm284.html

Butch

I'm trying to track Melvin's thinking.

Winchester 284 brass is not up to quality.
Is Winchester making their 7mm-08 brass better?
He surely can't recommend Remington 7mm-08 brass as being superior.
That leaves Norma and that brass is usually on back order and just about as spendy as Lapua 6.5-284 brass.


I'd go 284 Win all the way using Win brass.
You'll gain 200 fps to 250 fps over the 7mm-08 or 7x57.

That's a substantial gain and the same that a magnum case would gain over an 06 sized case.

Total bs.

A short bolt action 284 win will get 3,050 with a 140.




And even more bull.

Cartridge water case capacities.

7-08 Rem 56
7x57(R) Mauser 59
.284 Win 66
.280 Rem 67
7x65R 68
7 WSM 81
7 Rem Mag 84

284 is one I don't have. I have the wildcat 25-284 though. If you can get 200fps more out of a 284, I'd say go for it. Can you get a decent COAL with a 284? With my 25-284, I can't go far out as I'd like to, with a standard sized mag box.

Calvin,

In my 6.5-284 I'm getting 250 fps over my 260 with pressures in the low 60K range.

While I'm a 7x57 slut I have to call bull on it matching .280 Rem velocities, let alone the 7RM.

I'll also agree with SU that Winchester brass is superior to Remington brass.

I don't know what rifle SU has but the OP is looking at the NULA which sports a 3" magazine.

I use a SA 700 incorporating a Wyatts box that takes it out to 2.990. I generally load to 2.975 to 2.985.

QL shows it getting about 250ish on my 7-08. I don't have a 284 to verify though.

SU35,

If you are getting 250 fps over the 7-08 with the .284 then you are loading the .284 to much higher pressures. It's that simple. You're getting 7mm SAUM velocities. That doesn't happen at the same pressures in a smaller cartridge.

The big difference in .284 and 7mm-08 brass is that the 7mm-08 is popular enough that it the ammo manufacturers replace their brass forming dies when they start to get a little worn. .284 brass doesn't sell as well, in fact I doubt they are making much of a profit on it, so the dies tend to get used even after they're pretty worn. So yes, major manufacturer 7mm-08 brass does tend to be more uniform.

You guys, read the link that I posted. It has facts and not what the guy said a the gunrange.
Butch

(with the 6.5-284 i am over the 260)using both Magnum and RL 17)

With RL17? I'm not the only one using this powder and gaining higher speeds within pressure limits. I'm a stickler for staying at and under 65K with everything I shoot.

I stretched 2,850 with a 140 out of 708 and gain 200 with the 284 win.



Maybe not as much volume as the 708 and just maybe 284 win brass is an even better seller per handloader capita.





Hmmmm

I would like to know why and how Melvin came to his conclusion. Something he heard or by field experience or Winchester telling him.

Last batch of 500 284 win brass i bought this year has been pretty good.




You bet I read it, more than a few times.

From the site butch listed look at the difference between the 708 and 284 with a heavier bullet.

.284 Win 180gr Berger VLD 2830 11.31" | 4.10" 73.27" | 17.69" 269.88" | 54.26"
7mm-08 168gr Berger VLD 2670 13.32" | 4.67" 85.03" | 20.39" 317.97" | 64.04"

SU35,

How do you know you're getting 65,000 psi or less? Have you had your .284 ammo pressure-tested? These days it is pretty easy to load ammo to 70,000 or even more without seeing "pressure signs," because of improvements in both brass and rifles.

It's especially difficult to depend on traditional pressure signs in custom rifles, since they tend to both have smooth I have chambers and lapped, square locking lugs. I know this because, as an experiment, I've loaded ammo using all the traditional pressure signs, including miking case-heads, then had it tested at a piezo lab. In one instance .270 loads that gave NO sign of excessive pressure in my rifle (an FN Mauser, not even a custom rifle) averaged right around 69,000 psi.

So far only Alliant has any pressure-tested data with RL-17. Unfortunately the only bullet weight they list for the .284 is 110 grains, so far. The closest approxmation in their data is the .280 Remington, where with 140's RL-17 doesn't show any velocity advantage over RL-17.

It is pretty easy, in my experience, to get 2900+ with the 7mm-08 using published data, especially with the 139 Hornady.

Winchester did an extensive re-tooling of their ammo-making dies in the early 2000's. Before that .284 brass was getting so bad that Melvin was strongly advising customers to go to the 7mm-08 rather than the .284, unless they were willing to rigidly cull and rework brass. (This was before Lapua and Norma started making 6.5/.284 brass.)

Then, with the re-tooling (which they told some people about, including gunwriters) Winchester .284 brass got really good again. The brass is still OK (I got some last year myself) but not like it was immediately after the re-tooling.

Yeah, some handloaders buy a lot of .284 brass. But selling 500 cases here and there isn't the same as selling tens of thousands of rounds of both 7mm-08 brass and loaded ammo a year.

In the Nula at 5lbs 14 0z the 7mm-08 recoil-with 140gr-is just enough to not be excessive when shooting 40 to 50 rounds in a day. Not sure I would say the same with it approaching .280 numbers. The Nula is to nice a package to let sit on the shelf due to recoil.

But we're all different, so it may not apply to others.

If debating the cool factor in 7mm the only one would be the 7x57........

Yep.

MtnHtr

Probably a dumb question but why does a company release a new powder before they have published data on it?

Good question Bobby. Lots of the top long range and FClass shooters are using it with the heavy"115grain" 6mm bullets to and including the 180 grain 7mm bullets. I'll email Bryan Litz and ask about the pressure readings that they are getting.Bryan Litz is the current NRA National Individual Palma Champion. In 2008, he won three Long Range NRA regional tournaments (MI, PA, and TN), as well as the Midwest Palma championship. He was a member of the winning Team USA at the 2008 Spirit of America match. Bryan, an air-to-air missile design engineer for the US Air Force, also runs a consulting business,'Applied Ballistics, LLC', that provides ballistics testing, software development, and bullet design analysis. Bryan is now with Berger Bullets.
Most of them think the powder itself is worth 200fps and that is a lot if the pressure isn't dangerous.
Butch