Jack O'Connors last rifle

[xl_target]

Growing up, I devoured old issues of hunting and outdoor magazines like Field and Stream and Outdoor Life. Jack O'Connor wrote an article every month for Outdoor Life and they were always interesting reading.
Jack O'Connor was famous for his enthusiasm for the .270 Winchester cartridge. He extolled it's virtues and trumpeted its advantages. However, the last rifle that was made for him was not in that caliber. Instead, it was a custom rifle in .280 Remington which competed almost directly with the .270 in the marketing wars of those days.

O’Connor is known for being a strong advocate for the .270 Winchester but the last custom rifle he owned was a .280 Remington Ruger M77

Through networking and some historical research, Turpin comes across a letter from the Al Biesen, the rifle maker, noting what work was done on the .280 custom rifle:

“Stock French walnut in a nice grained contrasty piece not so elaborate with Deluxe Fleur-de-lis checkering, ebony forend tip, skeleton grip cap and skeleton butt plate. Old Win. Style swivel studs. Metal work Barrel was recontoured to light weight dimensions. Trigger guard hand made Blackburn style one piece model etc. Bolt handle knob hand checkered in four panel design, trimmed for style and shape. Trigger reworked and tightened with a nice let off. Action trued and hand polished, hand finished inside and polished for smooth working etc. Bolt jeweled. Special scope rings and mounts hand made to lighten them. Leupold 4 power scope. All metal parts blued with a Black Velvet non glare finish. Front swivel stud on barrel. Safety reworked and a Silver letter “S” ahead of safety showing safe position. Al Biesen Gunmaker Spokane Wn And Rem. 280 in Silver on the barrel.” [Sic]

It’s an interesting story of a gun writer and his relationship with a gunsmith and the masterpiece rifles they envisioned and created.

The image is rather large and will not fit in this format but you can Click HERE for the full size image

Story and image is HERE.

[Pritu79]

Beautiful rifle... i guess this caliber was also known as the 7mm-06. I too have grown up reading Jack o'connors articles, my dad had subscribed to American rifleman and american hunter....i have a massive stack of these magazines probably since 72 or 73.... this really refreshed old memories.

[.338 lapua]

Sir a really beautiful rifle indeed,I was reading about this gentleman on http://www.fieldandstream.com/blogs/gun ... acks-rifle.

Regard's

[xl_target]

Beautiful rifle... i guess this caliber was also known as the 7mm-06. I too have grown up reading Jack o'connors articles, my dad had subscribed to American rifleman and american hunter....i have a massive stack of these magazines probably since 72 or 73.... this really refreshed old memories.

Pritu, the 7mm-06 and the .280 Remington are very similar. The .280 Remington uses the slightly longer .30-03 cartridge case with the shoulder moved up just a tad so it will not chamber in a .270 rifle. So your dad was an NRA member? Those magazines usually come with an NRA membership.

The Three Sisters
They are generally called the three sisters. The .270 Winchester, the .30-06 Springfield and the .280 Remington use the same parent cartridge; the .30-03.

The .30-06

The .30-03 was shortened slightly by 0.07 inches (1.8 mm) in the neck, the powder was reformulated to burn cooler, and the bullet was changed to a 150 grain (9.7 g) spitzer bullet, creating the .30-06 cartridge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.30-03

The .270 Winchester

The .270 Winchester cartridge was based on reducing the neck diameter of a .30-03 cartridge case to retain a similar bullet-holding length with the same shoulder.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.30-03

The .280 Remington

The commercial .280 Remington (or 7mm Express Remington) is very similar, but uses the slightly longer 65 mm .30-03 case with the shoulder headspace extended slightly more than one millimeter (.05 inch) to prevent chambering in .270 Winchester rifles

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.30-06_Spr ... Cartridges


Bullet Diameter:
.30-06 Springfield = .308 inch
.280 Remington= .284 inch
.270 Winchester= .277 inch

If you compare the ballistics, there isn't much difference between the .270 and the .280 with the .280 generating slightly higher velocities (than the .270) for a given bullet weight. With heavier bullets, the .284 diameter bullets have a slightly better a ballistic coefficient over the .277 diameter (.270 ) bullets. Comparing it with a .30-06, they are very similar but with lighter bullets, the .280 (.284 inch or 7mm) produces a flatter trajectory and more retained energy downrange vs the .30-06 (.308 inch). This is because the .284 diameter bullets have a slightly better ballistic coefficient.
The advantage that the .30-06 has over both the .270 and the .280 is that you can load much heavier bullets (up to 220 grain bullets are commonly loaded commercially) in the cartridge if you want to tackle larger game. The .30-06 produces more energy with bullets over 180 grains than the .280. Don't get me wrong, these three cartridges have very similar performance. The .280, I feel, is not loaded to its full potential (commercially) as there are a lot of pumps and auto-loaders out there that are still chambered for it.

When reloading, the game changes for the better as one can load the .280 to velocities approaching 7mm Mag with lighter bullets. I use my .280 with 139 grain Hornady Interlock BTSP bullets for deer sized game. It is sufficiently flat shooting that If I zero it at 250 yards (or sometimes 200 yds), I can center on the body of a Whitetail deer (with a target area of about 12 inches in the vital area) up to 350 yards and it won't rise more than 2.9 inches or drop more than 8.5 inches below my point of aim. So I can dispense with having to know the range to my target exactly (at least within 400 yards). I don't think I would take (or even get) a shot much further than that anyway. I haven't used it to hunt for a few years as I have to go to Northern Minnesota to use it. The area that I live in is shotgun only. Keep in mind that wind, altitude, humidity, temperature, mirage, etc can make a hash of your shot. The choice of .284 diameter bullets available is very wide but then so is the choice of .308 bullets.


Honrady Interlock BTSP (Boat Tail Spire Point)

I only load one load for my particular rifle as the only large animal that I hunt is Whitetail Deer. I'm happy with the performance of the bullet and a hit almost anywhere in the vital area will usually drop the animal.

This is the approximate performance that I look for.

Yds. M.V. M.E. drop (or rise in inches)
0.0 3000 2778 -1.5
50 2894 2585 1
100 2791 2404 2.5
150 2690 2233 2.9
200 2591 2073 2.1
250 2495 1921 0
300 2401 1779 -3.5
350 2308 1644 -8.5

Would I buy a .280 over a .270 or a .30-06 if I had to do it over? I'm not sure but I would be happy with any one of the three sisters.

[Corjack]

I have owned a couple 280 Remingtons, and got along well with them. A really nice round, and as you mentioned, nips at the heels of the 7mm Mag performance wise.

I read O'Conner a lot, when I was young. My dad had years of magazines stored in a shed behind our house. I read a lot of them cover to cover. A large part of my interest in firearms today, were because of writers of his era.

[xl_target]

Same here Corjack. I used to buy old copies of Field and Stream and Outdoor Life from second hand book stores as we couldn't get subscriptions when I was a kid.
I also read a lot of Jim Carmichael (Outdoor Life) and he liked the .280 and talked about that occasionally.

Here is my Ruger M77 in .280 Remington.
Unlike Jack O'Connor's M77, it doesn't have the fancy French walnut stock but it works just fine for me.

[Pritu79]

Thankyou xl_target for the detailed info. I had read about the .280 long back and all i could remember is it had impressive performance and remengtons anwser to the .270win......which you nicely refreshed by your detailed info. I dont remember the novels i have read (though i am not a novel kind of a person) but i distinctly remember reading about hunting magazines and rifle magazines.
my dad was a member and i had stuck those NRA stickers all over the place. but later on content of the magazines had become more of commercial than informative, hence stopped subscription in 2000.