Why would one choose 280 rem over 30-06?

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98s1lightning

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Why would one choose a 280 over a 30 06?

I have a fascination with this caliber for some reason, even though I've never fired one or known any buddies to have one.

My 06 is a great gun, it was a can't go wrong caliber and price.

Lately this question won't leave my head!
 
Better ballistics, and if you don't need the heavy for caliber bullets in the 30-06 for the game you are going to take, the 280 makes a lot of sense for less wind drift and drop at distance. I will own a bolt in .280 someday.
 
.280 will get you a superior ballistic coefficient, weight for weight. Or a lighter bullet for a smidgen less recoil.
Col Townsend Whelen did an article, 'Just a Little Bit Better', concluding that if you had a satisfactory .270 or .30-06, there was little reason to trade, but if you were starting from scratch, the 7mm offered some advantages.
 
its just better lol. the 280 rem is fantastic it has had many things over the years trying to kill it like jack o'conner and even remington them self keeping the max psi under the 06 and 270. it is just at the over bore limit to were barrel life is good, when the 280 is loaded to its potential in a bolt action it will surpass the 270 win at the muzzle and show off down range.
 
You can shoot the same BC bullets in a 30-06 as a 280. You just have to shoot a heavier bullet. Instead of shooting 170-180 gr 7mm bullets you have to go up to 210-215 gr 30 caliber bullets. With the best loads the down range numbers are almost identical.

Why would one choose a 280 over a 30 06?

To be different from the masses.

The 280, 270, and 30-06 in 2018 are ballistic triplets. Anything you can do with one, you can do with the others. In 1925 the 270 was much different, but advancements in bullets and better loads have made them virtually the same. On paper the 280 can show an ever so slight advantage, but not enough to make any realistic difference.

I've had a couple of 280's over the years and do like the round. If I were having a custom rifle built and wanted to have something different from the crowd a 280 is the one I'd pick. But I started with 30-06 and after trying 280 for a while decided the 2 were simply too close in performance to justify having both. I had 30-06 rifles with too much history to part with so the 280's were sent on down the road.
 
Why would one choose a 280 over a 30 06?

An irrational dislike for the venerable Aught Six?

A completely reasonable hatred of twenty four hundredths of an inch?

A person with a lisp, like my sister, wouldn't have to say six?

:D

More likely, the rifle they wanted was chambered in it. :)

If you like it, get it! Be different, LIVE!
 
I bought this Ruger 77 Hawkeye .280 a few years ago. I could have bought the same thing in 06 for the same money but I've owned so many 06s in my life I guess I was just tired of them. My friend and neighbor reloaded a lifetime supply of ammo for it for me, I just love the rifle

IMG-0590.jpg
 
my 280 is a Remington 725 well used ,but taken care of. 140 gr bullets at 3000 fps is deadly on deer.
 

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I also seem to have fallen for the 280. It will give you slightly flatter shooting than the 30-06, and if you go with the AI version you get within 50-100 fps of the 7mm mag without using so much powder or magnum primers. It is a very efficient cartridge, very much like it's little brother the 7mm-08.

I use my 30-06 for throwing heavy projectiles, and I plan on a 280AI for lighter weight ones at long range. Just gotta find the right rifle....
 
280, 7-08, 6.5 creedmoor now that the 6.5 bullet selection is much improved, pretty hard to show much difference on game. 284 could also be added to thst list. Same can be said goe 308, ‘06, or 300 savage for that matter unless you want the faster twist of an ‘06 for bullets over 180.
 
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A completely reasonable hatred of twenty four hundredths of an inch?

An equally reasonable hatred of twenty four thousandths of an inch?

I want to pick up a 7mm sometime to play with some of the slicker, high SD bullets. The .280 would give decent velocities with the heavier bullets, the AI'd version even more so without getting over the top, so that's probably the most interesting option to me. It seems to be easier to find a .280 AI or 7-08 with a nice fast twist in factory rifles than a regular .280.
 
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An interesting European ancestor and the .280 Remington's equivalent is the 7x64 Brenneke. Though neither cartridge has much of a practical advantage over the .270 Winchester, they are intriguing alternatives (though I doubt you'll ever see either on a Wal Mart shelf).
 
Yes, as @adcoch1 mentioned if one is considering the .280, one shouldn't stop there and have it chambered or reamed for .280 AI, it gives a significant boost in performance to the .280 IMHO.
Or, you could just get a factory .284. But if you wanted to AI the .284, just get a 7 mm Rem Mag. Unless you wanna AI that, then just get a Weatherby. Then there’s the STW.

You’ll find out that there is virtually no practicle gap anywhere in cartridge performance. Somebody somewhere has already made it. If you have a burning desire for something that floats your particular boat, have at it. It in real world hunting real critters, it’s gonna make no difference.

I have a 7 Rem Mag. I can’t think of anything antelope size or bigger that I would ever hunt that I couldn’t do well with that caliber. But if it were a .280, it wouldn’t make diddly squat of difference

I found a screaming deal on a higher end, exceptionally accurate rifle, bought a really nice scope, and got rid of every other hunting rifle. I want one really, really nice and accurate rifle with a really nice scope instead of half a dozen crap or marginal guns.
 
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Because the Remington 7400 I found for $275 happened to be chambered in .280......and he also had a 7600 chambered in .280......for $250. Now, I'm a fan of the .280.

I know nothing about the cartridge really. I just bought a bunch Federal Premium 150gr Nosler Partitions on close out from Midway. Enough ammo for a decade or more.
 
You really don't need a reason unless you just want to rationalize the decision. Liking the 280 and the rifle that is changed in it is enough. I have enough similar examples (but not in 280) in my safe to understand the truth of this.
 
I have one and I love it. I'll qualify the following with the fact that every deer, of many, that it has killed would be just as dead with a 30-06. Any elk I might hunt would also be just as dead with a 30-06. If I get the opportunity to hunt moose, I will use my 30-06.

I fell in love with the ballistics charts before some of the .30 cal bullet improvements came along. When your premium bullet selection was basically the Nosler Partition or Speer Grand Slam, the .280 had an advantage at longer ranges, especially loaded in a Mauser 98 or other strong modern action. It was really a bit of a pipe dream for me, until I lucked onto a gunsmith special in this caliber. It was a K98 action rebarreled some time ago with a nice Shilen tube. The price was right, a semi-inletted walnut thumbhole, buehler safety, some decent glass, and I've been a believer in the round ever since.

Although any ballistic advantage is largely theoretical for my particular purposes, it's fun to be a bit of an oddball. It does throw a lot of penetrating, game stopping power downrange with manageable recoil. As others have eluded to above, I can fire high SD bullets at a useful speed without kicking my own butt. Other than that, I guess it's just fun to be different. Hopefully it doesn't get too popular, or I'll have to shop a .284 Win or build a 7x7.5Swiss or 7x54R improved in order to not fit in. That would be a whole lot of fun!

Bottom line, if you want an interesting caliber that does 30-06 type jobs better than the .270, and .270 type jobs better than the '06, the .280 is for you!

So long as we're sharing some pictures, here's mine, "The Death Ray" in it's natural habitat on Buck Hill 12191817_1062094987158331_1897349490047909214_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-2.jpg
 
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The reason I built a .280 in the 70's, and I do still have it, is It's better than a 270 on bigger big game, yet with the same SD bullets as the 30-06, it has a little less recoil.

Less recoil was/is important to me, because I wanted a light mountain rifle and the .280 was the best choice of the three...

It has worked out very well...

DM
 
I have one and I love it. I'll qualify the following with the fact that every deer, of many, that it has killed would be just as dead with a 30-06. Any elk I might hunt would also be just as dead with a 30-06. If I get the opportunity to hunt moose, I will use my 30-06.

I fell in love with the ballistics charts before some of the .30 cal bullet improvements came along. When your premium bullet selection was basically the Nosler Partition or Speer Grand Slam, the .280 had an advantage at longer ranges, especially loaded in a Mauser 98 or other strong modern action. It was really a bit of a pipe dream for me, until I lucked onto a gunsmith special in this caliber. It was a K98 action rebarreled some time ago with a nice Shilen tube. The price was right, a semi-inletted walnut thumbhole, buehler safety, some decent glass, and I've been a believer in the round ever since.

Although any ballistic advantage is largely theoretical for my particular purposes, it's fun to be a bit of an oddball. It does throw a lot of penetrating, game stopping power downrange with manageable recoil. As others have eluded to above, I can fire high SD bullets at a useful speed without kicking my own butt. Other than that, I guess it's just fun to be different. Hopefully it doesn't get too popular, or I'll have to shop a .284 Win or build a 7x7.5Swiss or 7x54R improved in order to not fit in. That would be a whole lot of fun!

Bottom line, if you want an interesting caliber that does 30-06 type jobs better than the .270, and .270 type jobs better than the '06, the .280 is for you!

So long as we're sharing some pictures, here's mine, "The Death Ray" in it's natural habitat on Buck Hill View attachment 814869
that's a pretty rifle... I personally love the 30-06 based cartridge family, and I like long action bolt rifles, and I REALLY like the great 7mm bullets available, so 280 makes sense to me. And, for some unreasonable reason, I can't stand 270, so if 280 does its job better, I just want one even more!
 
Well from a practical standpoint, a more efficient use of powder capacity, a more reasonable trade in recoil=performance, and the desire to keep a cartridge alive just a Lil bit longer. I ran a .300 win mag for over a decade, dominantly with 180 gr btsps of one kind or another, it got traded off finally. The current longest distance big game thumper in the stable starts with a 7 and ends in westerner. Running full cases topped with 162 gr bullets, it out distances my .300, gets out to elr turf in a timely manner, and generates about the same recoil as my .300 180s, I gained plenty of performance without increasing recoil, and if I decide to load civil hunting loads for some poor prairie pronghorn, 120s will do the job just fine with no more bruising than a rough .308 if I choose. The next addition shall be a 6.5 of the prc, saum, leopard variety because it fits my tendencies quite well, but I've long seen the .284 winchester as one of the most efficient designs to date, naturally I have a love affair for the 6 and 6.5 spawn, and disdain the component issue. However to get .284 performance the two easy choices are .280 and 7-08, with my disdain for anything stuck in the -06 case (except the .338 and .35) I lean towards the more efficient-08. However if we are to stay with an 06 case, we quickly decide we can do better than 30, the 6 burns barrels too quickly to be popular (and .243 duh) the 6.5 is intriguing enough but again we have soooooooo many 6.5s why bother? So we arrive at .270, .280, and .280 ai. .277 bullets have not yet seen the rise that the metrics have and so for many, is ruled out. Need 7mmremmag performance? get the ai, if not, then we know why you need a .280. You're welcome, now go get one!
 
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