Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Why .280AI is shite hot and 30.06AI not?

Hey guys, these two are obviously of the same case so why does .280AI shine and 30.06AI not so much - popularity wise and performance enhancement wise?
Don't mean to dis 30.06AI - if you love it please tell us about your experience - I'm just curious why one over the other when the parent cases are basically the same and there's only a coupla pubes difference in caliber.

A fair question I woulda' thought.

Well I can't speak about the 30/06 AI, because I have never owned one. But I do own a .280 AI. To my way of thinking a .280AI, is like a 7x57 on steroids. There is not much game that I'm going to hunt that a 140 or 145 grain pill, at over 3000 feet pr second is not going to take care of. I'm a big fan of the 7mm's, and to me the .280 AI make's the most sense, of all the Ackley cartridges.

It's the bore diameter, bigger bore in the 30'06 requires a heavier bullet to start seeing any advantage, as the 284 bore starts to show the advantage sooner. Plus in a lot a people's view, 7mm is the sweet spot in bore diameters!

The 280AI is riding a wave of interest because of some new rifles out there. Its a trend that will pass with time. The 30-06 is plenty good the way it is. There is no need to screw up a good thing.
For me, any benefits to AI ballistics are trumped by its "rifle loony" factor. Others will take exception but that
is what helps the marketplace.

I would imagine that this is because the 30/06 is already capable of all things wonderful and great....it didn't NEED to be improved on. The 280, however, could stand for improvement, since it was downloaded a bit to accomodate the Rem autoloader (740 or 742...I can't remember which). So...it was a great candidate for hot-rodding in my humble opinion...that was the perception anyway. You can't hot rod the 06 enough to equal a 300 Win mag, but you can hot rod the 280 to equal a 7mm Mag or so I've found, so there ya go. I use the term "hot rodding" losely....I know..

I love my 280 AI...its a wonderful round. Great accuracy, great velocity, not too awfully picky to reload, easy on brass...

The only drawback, as I see it, is that you have to be a disciplined reloader and not fall prey to normal human temptation and "if one grain more powder was good, then another will be even better!" Even my beloved 280AI does have its limits and I am careful not to push it.

You can find some good load data for the 30-06AI in Nosler #5... not sure about #6 and #7, as #5 is as far as I got.

the 30-06 is what everything else is compared to. just makes sense that rifle loonies try to out-shine it with the slicker 7mm bullets... 280, the 280AI, the 7RM, the 7WSM, the 7RSAUM and so on...

and the 280AI has panache.

Both of them are pretty good cartridges that provide something creative to do with the tired, old 30/06 case,and for folks with standard bolt faces and actions who grow faint at the sight of belted cartridges with magnum capacity,and an aversion to case trimmers.

They provide something different for the rifle loonies to play with,while they both work hard to fill a ballistic niche that doesn't really exist.

They also provide ample fodder for verbal exchanges by proponents on Internet sites...you rarely if ever see either one afield

That the 280 Rem comes close to,and the 7 Rem Mag easily exceeds,the AI version;and the 30/06AI provides nothing not already offered by the 300WSM or the 300 Win Mag,both provide busy work and the chance to use something different for those who get in a lather at the mention of their names,which is reason enough for their existence.After all, this shooting/hunting business is all about having fun.

Maybe they are a way of allowing users to avoid boredom,or to breath new life into the parent cartridges since the 280 has been around in some form since about the turn of the last century and has failed to become very popular;and the 30/06 is as mundane as it comes.

Like blowing out the 375H&H case to an "improved" version,the notion of "improving" the 30/06 seems a specious undertaking when a guy can have exactly the same performance with a box of WSM or 300WM cartridges from Walmart.With a track record on BG animals ranging from elephants,Cape buffalo and Alaskan brown bear down to javelina,it's doubtful there is much real reason for improving the 30/06,except in the mind of the rifle nuts who know something the Springfield Armory didn't know in 1906.

But like I said this is all about fun and games,and I am all for it.

Hmmm... to keep up with the 300WM and the 300WSM... looks like I will have to AI my 300 RSAUM.... bwahahahahahahahaha!

I like my 280 just the way it is. but I appreciate what it is not. The 280AIhas panache, but surely is a looney's cartridge. I am still swooning over the 7mm Mashburn Super, and we need to get aus looking in that direction.

I'm with the guys who think the 30-06 just didn't need to be Ackleyized or any other "ized". It's still the perfect all around cartridge. If I'd wanted a 7mm magnum, I'd get a 7mm mag, if I wanted a .30 cal magnum, there's already a few good ones out there.

It's the freak factor.

Who shoots a 30-06? Average Joes who are likely to think AI has to do with semen straws.

Who shoots a 280? Rifle Loonies who are at least 75% of the way to tame wildcats like an AI already.

The 280 in factory form has a lower factory MAP than the 30-06. Thus when improved and loaded to 65000 PSI, the results are a higher % gain over the factory "non-improved" round.

Also, the 280AI and 30-06 AI are not the same case, the 280 AI's shoulder is somewhere around .1" further forward, giving it a smidge more case capacity and thus velocity.

Game of ratios when trying to maximize a .473 boltface. The 280AI works perfect with the 160 class bullets. The 06AI does not show a real increase in performance until you get to the 200gr bullets in 30 cal. Once you get to 200gr bullets in 30 cal most folks are thinking win mag or rum to launch them with. I have both and like them both but find more utility in the 280AI thus it gets shot more.

IN the world of Loonies, I think the .284 bullet/BC selection horns the Loonies up where the thirty cannot.

Yep ^^^^^^

After tinkering with a couple 280AI's, I came to realize the standard 280 is no slouch, and if you need more then get a 7mag.

After dicking with a 30-06 for 25 years, I realized if I needed more, better just get a 338 Win mag. An AI version is great if you love wasting time making cases though.

This!

My guess because the majority hunt just deer.

Because the 162 A-Max doesn't work in a 30 cal barrel. Duh!

Shod

7 SAUM and .300 SAUM have about the same case capacity as the .280 AI and .30-06 AI. The SAUM versions probably run at higher pressures than the .280 and .30-06, so have about the same performance as AI versions. SAUM's are not big sellers, so I guess shooters do not care about their performance, or availability in factory ammo.