Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 270 Winchester versus 280 Remington

If you're suggesting that the 280 AI case be necked down to 270, that at first blush seems a wonderful variation on the theme. Note that it can't be called an "Improved" cartridge, because one of the conventions connected with cartridges having "improved" in their designation is that they be able to accept and fire safely a factory cartridge. Given the headspace differences between the 280 and the 270 factory cartridges, a 270 factory cartridge can't be fired because of those differences. A 280 factory cartridge cnanot be fired because the bore diameter is too small.

Persons who carp will says the proposed wildcat cartridge is just a runty 270 Gibbs. Such derision can be silenced by pointing out the longer neck of the 280 AI-based case.)


In the context of Indian religions, wikipedia says that "Nirvana literally means 'blown out' (as in a candle) and refers, in the Buddhist context, to the imperturbable stillness of mind after the fires of desire, aversion, and delusion have been finally extinguished."

This seems to be appropriate in a couple of ways. The 280 AI is indeed "blown out", and the term has important connotations related to Barsness' promotion of candle-based annealing processes for brass cases. Too, users of this compromise cartridge will have "stillness of mind" and will have also extinguished desires and delusions relative to the 270-280 contention.

Despite this, the name Nirvana Green may need refining because of its probable abbreviation to "NG". NG is nicely ambiguous, and can signify National Guard, National Geographic, natural gas, nanogram, or possibly Nigeria. I'm afraid the riff-raff among rifle loonies might adopt the urban dictionary's first and primary meaning as the most appropriate: "No Good". (Link to Urban Dictionary.)


While I'm with you on bullet types, it's hard to be responsible for, or to control the toxic bullets that the hoi polloi rifle loonies might put into the case. Perhaps rifles chambered in 270/280 Nirvana Green will sell really well in CA?

--Bob

If JOC were alive today, I think he'd be shooting a 6.5 - perhaps a Creedmoor, like Wayne Van Zwoll dumped his 600+ yard elk

Thinking of a .485 BC at 2850, makes me think how efficient a 130 gr Accubond in 6.5 safely handloaded at that speed in a 260 or a 140 AB in a 7/08 are - running at the heels of many 270/280 loads.

Of course the 6.5x55 and 7x57 simply close the gap a tad more, so it's all back to 'Ballistic Masturbation' as some term it...in the end, they all work.

Me, I prefer non-mag recoil, and if forced to shoot one rifle for all non-dangerous NA game, would circle right back to where my head was as a kid, and when I bought my first rifle in college - a 270. The 270 was so popular then I had to 'settle' for a 7mag b/c it's all I could find in a used rifle at a decent price at a gunshow. It was heavy, and kicked, so off it went. Owned a few 270s since, no doubt ammo is possibly only hard to find in some countries outside the USA, though I bet you can find them in Africa. 280, I wonder.

Now someone will tell me how the '06 is universally found, and I would add, the metric 6.5x55 and 7x57, and prob the 9.3x62 are as well....

Pick your poison, use proper bullets, and STV - Shoot Thru Vitals.

65 -

I read UR first sentence. This thread ain't about 6.5s.

Somehow I doubt JOC would be interested in pedantic velocities.

I've noticed through the years that gunwriters like to push the .280 Rem. Especially Carmichael. If any of them would have really used the round exclusively and wrote about it's performance in their adventures, they may have been able to sell a bunch of .280's the way that JOC sold .270's.

When Carmichaels' name comes up I'm more inclined to think of the .458 Win mag than the .280 Rem. The .280 just needed someone to proselytize it.

With the .280 it's about less pressure in factory loads than the.270
Where the .280 shines is because of the tighter twist to accommodate the heaviest (longer) bullets available.

This brings to mind the 6.5'06 and .25'06 comparison, where twist limits the .25'06 .

The same can be said for the 9.3x62 and .35 Whelen

The metric calibers win out because of the established standard quicker twists, that the new sleek bullets require.

Some of them were desperately hoping to be known about the .280 the same way JOC was known for his .270 stuff. Carmichael was pretty open about it, as was Jon Sundra, both of whom wrote nicely about it. So did Bob Milek, for that matter.

But in the end, it's just another way to mess around with a .30/06 case to do exactly the same thing that the all the other cartridges based on '06 cases do, kill the hell out of animals.

If you want a 280 that is available outside the US, get its ballistic twin, the 7x64. Widely used in many African and European countries from what i can tell. Or you could just get a .270, which is also used in many of those same places plus the US.

I've seen .270 Winchester ammo all over Europe and Africa. In fact it's very popular on both continents.

The problem that Carmichael and Sundra had was they were never the wordsmiths that JOC was its that simple. Hawking 280's would not have mattered, because it pretty much did what the 270 did and if you wanted more that that then there were the 7mm RM or the 270 or 7mm Roy's. I just didn't light enough fires. I was stupid once and had a Dakota Number 10 chambered for 280, no matter what I did that rifle never shot well enough for what I paid for that one. I would have been happy with 1.5 to 2 inch groups but it shot 3 to 4 inches no matter what I tried for loads. When back to Dakota twice, I sold the rifle at a good price and a Blaser R-93 followed me home. I still have that Dakota if I just chambered it to 270 but for some odd reason I decided I needed a 280. Live and learn.

Not that Australia is a hunting mecca, but neither 280 nor 7x64 are widely available here. You would probably luck into some 280 brass in the average gun shop (I suspect the average gunshop here pales compared to the average in the US) but just as likely not. 7x64 - forget it.

But 270 Win ammo and components are even more popular than 30-06 here. No doubt 243 Win, 308 Win and 223 Rem outstrip the 270 Win but I suspect the 270 is probably in the top 5. 30-30 probably pips it too.

During the past week or so, I have been casually keeping track of the available CF rifle ammo that has been available in the small, rural, KS/MO/NE stores that I've stopped into for gas/pop/pi$$call and have noted that the most common ammo has been 243, 270, 30-30, 308, 30-06, and 35 Rem. I was surprised to see so the 35 Rem, but no 223 and only a couple of boxes of 22-250, 25-06, and 7mm Rem Mag. This is, mostly, coyote and whitetail country.

Jwall - I realized that.

As to JOC and Carmichael, seems in his later years Carmichael touted his new creation, cough cough (260), the 6.5 Bobcat and Panther.

Point is, He went from a 280 man, to talking 6.5s/260 and even loves his 250-3000 built on a shortened Mauser. Less recoil, yet solid deer killing performance. I believe JOC may well have gravitated towards lesser recoiling modest 6.5s if alive today.

The OP mentioned hunting, but also gongs to 800 yds. ALOT of steel shooters use less recoiling 6.5mm rounds, the same that have killed mice to moose. Another option.

Bullet choice for handloaders and ammo availability for those who don't are the biggest differences. All work when used well.

Good points BR.

And, you'll notice that Carmichael did make an ostentatious "jump" over the .277 caliber...

And, Ole JOC's last Al Biesen commissioned rifle, completed after his death was, reportedly, a .280 and on a Ruger action.

Go figure...

DF

Well, yeah....all of the above is true; but we can't read too much into it...

Always fun to speculate what guys like JOC and Carmichael would do if they were around today but I doubt things would change much.
I like to look at these things from a reality prism.

As to Carmichael, he was a target man in addition to being an experienced BG hunter and gun writer (with the professional obligation to mess with a bunch of cartridges and calibers), so development of stuff like the 260 sort of falls in place since it makes more sense as a target round because it kicks a bit less and burns less powder.

But his Clayton Nelson 280 was built about the time he followed JOC as guns editor of Outdoor Life, a tough act to follow. I think he used a 280 as much to distinguish himself from JOC and the 270 to the greatest extent possible, as opposed to thinking it was an inherently superior cartridge. Carmichael was not above toying with readers now and then...but a lot of this zipped over their collective heads...

That 280 went on to kill hundreds of BG animals on several continents until it was retired. Mostly it was loaded for the purpose with a 140 gr Nosler Partition, a load considered today to be as gay as the 270 with the 130 Partition, and about as effective..... I bet he killed more game with that 280 than with his 338 and 458 combined.

When JOC latched onto the 270 he was nobody; the 7x64 Brenneke was available, as was the 256 Newton and 7x57.The 280 came along in 1956 IIRC and JOC was hunting actively...if he were inclined to scrap the 270 for the 280 he never showed any signs of it....I cant find a shred of evidence that he ever used the cartridge on a single head of BG, despite the fact that he thought highly of it. He thought the 264 WM needed a 26" barrel (which he hated) to make it perk, and if you shortened it to a handier 22" you had a 270 that was an ear splitter.

JOC had two 280's made up by Earl Milliron on Mauser actions....he never hunted with either one near as I can tell.

The Biesen 280 on a Ruger barreled action, finished posthumously, was a gift from his drinking buddy, Bill Ruger. He never got to hunt with that either....so much of JOC's 280 activity came after most of his hunting career was over with....his last Stone Sheep, killed when he was in his 70's was killed with his Biesen 270 #2.

(Actually, JOC,Bill Ruger, Len Brownell,and Bob Chatfield-Taylor were hunting and drinking buddies who hunted together on more than one occasion... I bet they drank together more times than they hunted

If JOC was going to become a 280 maven, he had ample opportunity but took a pass.... Actually, both Carmichael and JOC had ample opportunity to hunt with many BG cartridges but history tells us what they actually used during the bulk of their careers and with a host of other cartridges and calibers being commonly available. I can't see a single reason either would drop what they used for something else.

BobNH -

Yep, yep, yep, yep, etc. etc. etc.


Speculation is NOT reality.

Lemme see....

Ah, yes. This is now the longest thread going on Ask The Gunwriters, proving once again the Internat axiom that the most trivial questions create the longest threads.

For some reason many people fail to grasp the importance of this debate.

This past Saturday I decided to shoot my Steyr Classic in 280. It hasn't been fired in a couple of years so I fired at a baseball ball size spot on my steel deer target at 275 yards.

The 140 grain bullet hit dead center,and the recoil was negligible. I decided to put the rifle back up,it's good to go this fall.

Warren Page used to talk about this kind of shooting as a one shot group,where you periodically test your zero under different ambient conditions with a single shot.

You can do the same thing with a good 270 but you don't get as many points for style.

If you were shooting a rifle at a Big Game Animal that someone just handed you without telling you if it was a 270 or 280 , you would know the difference before or after the shot. The 270 and 280 is like comparing one brand of apples to another brand, basically the same .

Indeed, as I said way up above, both proven.

The .280 is way better.