I recently bought a Remington 700 Moutain rifle in .280 Rem. I Am struggling to get a good load dialed in for it. I would ideally like to figure out a 160 grain load for all around use. Anybody out there have any insight on what they’ve had luck with?

I have had the best luck with 140 grain factory Corelokts out of my Rem 700 with a 24" barrel. Ive tried 140 grain Nosler BT, Hornady 150 ELDX, and another 140 I cant recall currently but the CL grouped the best and had the closest velocity, 40 FPD from the slowest to the fastest.

I've gotten good results with both the 162 Interlock and 160 Partitions in mine with RL19 and H4831.

re-26

What kind of results are you getting vs. what do you expect?

I shoot a 150 NBT over RL23 and 210M which is very accurate in my 700 MR. May have a load for 140 TTSX just need to do a little more shooting to verify. I know you asked bout 160 gr bullets and thought I would through these out.

Im partial to IMR-7828 and 154 gr SST's in my 280. Pic below is what I shot yesterday.

May have to try several powders. Guessing you’ve ran the checklist - mounts, scope, crown, etc..
How’s she shoot with other weight bullets?

Knowing that it is a light 22” mountain rifle, I’m not expecting 1/4 MOA groups like in other rifles of mine. I started with IMR4831 (being my go to powder for many rifles) and loaded that behind 160gr Nosler PT’s and also 140gr Barnes TTSX, 139gr Interlocks, and 140gr Sierra #1912 HPBT. Had a little promise with the TTSX on the load ladder, still working on that one. Also loaded RL22 behind the 160 PT. No luck on that one, but I will admit I didn’t do a proper ladder on that one. I had the best luck so far today with IMR 4350 behind a 160 PT. Started at 48.5grains and worked up to 50.5. My best three round group yet was at 49.5gr. Just wondering what has worked for everybody else. This is my first go round with the .280. Heard a lot of good things about 7828 and Hunter as well

Forgot to mention that the 49.5gr of 4350 put me about 1 MOA with a 3 round group at 100 today with 2 being almost on top each other. The 140gr TTSX I just shot one 3 round group to see if it like the bullet with IMR 4831, that one was roughly a 2 MOA group. I am fairly new to the reloading world so am looking for advice from others. Try different bullets or start with different powders and ladders?

I'm using Big Game and 215M under 140TTSX.

Mine likes H-4350 and Nosler 140 Accubonds.

CCI 200 primers.

I’ve read that a lot of guys are using magnum primers. Are you running the same grains of powder with the magnum primers? I’ve been using 210’s. Any issues with pressures on equal loads switching to a magnum primer?

I usually use magnum primers with ball powders. Stick powder I usually use standard primers. If you want to try magnum primer to be safe you can back off the powder charge a little and work back up..

RL 19 and 160 accubonds here.

55gr of RL19 and 140 Accubonds. RL19 also did well with 160’s for me but I don’t recall the charge.

I have been shooting a load right out of the Nosler manual #4

160g partition
58.5g of IMR 7828
Fed 210 primer
2940 fps
26" barrel- 9T Lilja barrel

Winchester brass.

Other primers jacked pressure way up and accuracy lost.

WORK UP TO THIS LOAD IN YOUR RIFLE!!!

I worked up to the max load with IMR7827SC and the 160 gr. Speer Grand Slam. Velocity was good but accuracy just so so. Tried working up a load with the long discontinued Winchester WMR and 2900 FPS and change and .60" groups on average. Never figured out why Winchester dropped that one. Works great in the .270, .280 Rem. and .300 Win. Mag. but sucks big time in the 30-06 even with the heaviest bullets.
Paul B.

I have a load I worked up with the Hornady ELD-X 150 gr. .284 bullet, which has a high BC for a hunting projectile. With Hornady brass, 60.1 gr. of RL26, CCI 200 primers, MV is a chrono'ed 3050 fps, and sub-MOA accuracy.
Attached is a ballistics chart for this load, along with a side by side comparison with the much-vaunted 6.5 CM and a Hornady 143 gr. ELD-X bullet. As you can see, the 150 gr. ELD-X out of the .280 Rem. is superior to the CM in drop, wind drift, energy, and velocity, out to 600 yards, which is why I chose to work up this load. It is a superb long-range choice for game up to and including elk.

Using a 150 gr TTSX over 53gr of IMR4350 in my mountain rifle (3.250 OAL). It’s an MOA load, and occasionally three will touch at 100 yds. The rifle can be frustrating to shoot since it heats up so easily, and with it being the dead of summer, extra cooling time may help a little with load development. Once I burn through my current stash, I’ll likely experiment with the 150gr ELD-X like Bighorn.

What’s the twist rate on your barrel? If new production, no worries, but wondering if old twist rates are quick enough for a 160 gr bullet.

I like to send those skinny barrels off to "300 Below" for cryo treatment. Stops them from walking off, ha. $100 stops alot of hair pulling! I used R22/150 NBT in a 280 MR I had reamed to the Ackley Imp (only gained 50fps, but it was fun playing with it!) I also had good results with IMR 7828/160 Hot Cor. But really....as far as I am concerned, my experience with ANY skinny barrel is "you just have to find what it likes", ha. Good luck to you Pard!

My 280 likes this combination

Frustrating is right! I’ve been turning the AC on high in my car and storing it in there after each 3 round group while I shoot another gun waiting for it to cool! I’m really glad you mentioned the twist rate, I had been wondering that as well. It is a 1977 if I dated the barrel correctly. Just went out today with another load ladder with 160gr Sierra 1920 and worked from 52gr-54gr of RL 19. Results were the same as every other powder I tried with any 160gr bullet. So far I’ve had the best groups with 140’s. Only have used IMR 4831 with them and the results were much better. Wondering if I should go lighter?

I'd give the 120 TTSX a whirl!

If it's a 1977 it's not a Mountain Rifle, they were introduced in 1986.

I use a product called "barrel cool" and a thin damp terry cloth towel over the barrel to help cool it down quicker. There is another product by Magneto Speed that is used to help cool the barrel down on rifles also.

Found an old thread that maybe points toward a 1 in 10 twist:

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/1926195

Only way to know for sure is to measure

My M70 fwt in .280 will shoot bug holes at 200 with Federal blue box 150gr. Try that. I can't duplicate the accuracy of the load so I'm not even going to try.

How repeatable is that?

Plus one on the 150 eldx. I use this bullet in all our 7mm-08s, at 2790 fps. My nephew used this load to kill a 5x6 bull a couple of years ago, 409 yards.





P

Failry when I do my part.

140, 139, 120...normal groups. 150's are ridiculous in this thing.

One of those shi'tty BACO M70 fwts.

Excellent results with H4831SC, CCI 200 and R-P brass.

140g TTSX
140g AccuBond

I picked up some Nosler 150gr NBT's yesterday. We'll see how they work.

Great shooting tz! Keep me in mind when you sell that one

Well I guess - hot dang! Nice shootin'.

Yeah it does! lol

Thanks. The problem is with the anemic factory ammo.

I did pick up some 150 NBT and yesterday some 140gr NAB to try. I may be pissin in the wind at this point though. lol

In a standard .280, for deer and hogs, I used 55gr/IMR 4831/Hornady 139gr IL. I was a good killer on both!

I measured the twist, and it is a 1/10. Lightened up the bullets to 140 grains. Tried one ladder with IMR4350 and 140 grain Nosler Accubonds, had two loads on the ladder that had 2 touching but one the 2nd round was 1.5 MOA off and the other the first two touched and the third was 1.5 MOA off again even after letting the barrel cool completely between the first two rounds and the third. Going to try out some 140 TTSX and 150 NBST loads and see what she does. Just wondering to myself if it is the powders now or the bullets. On the plus side, I got one hell of a node out of my 7mm Rem Mag today!

I’ve been looking to try RL23 but I’ve never used it and can’t find much on it for charge weights. How many grain charge are you running?

It would be interesting to pull down one of those loads and try to identify the powder and weigh the charge. I have a box I was just going to run through my 280 ai shooting rabbits or something to see hiw fed brass forms to AI. I'll have to dig the bullet puller out and at least see if it's extruded or ball,

I've always had good luck with 7828 in 280s with 150 or 160g bullets. I loaded a bunch years ago for a friend with 150 partitions over 7828. He wasn't interested in long range and said he'd never shoot past 500 he just just wanted a bullet that he could trust to work on anything.

Years later I ran into him and he said his teenage son is now using that rifle with my old hanldoads and killing everything from pronghorn to bear to elk and moose and never needed more than 1 shot. He asked me if I'd load another 100 to get his family through the next decade. I told him to come by the house and I'd let him use my reloading room to do it himself. These days I'm more into teaching a man to fish than giving him fish.

Bb