.280 Remington

[xl_target]

You have a .280 Rem ?
VERY under-rated cartridge and one I`ve never shot because it is a rare chambering here.
How about starting a new thread giving your impressions of the cartridge from a user perspective.

You're trying to get me to do something that sounds like work?
You want me to get out the chrono and load up a bunch of cartridges and actually write a report?
Oh! The effrontery!

Well, I had planned to do a post on the rifle someday and I was going to say something about the cartridge at the time.
Just haven't got around to it. I'll get to it ..sometime, I guess.

In the meantime; a few comments:
Pros:
1. Uses 7mm bullets; of which there are a very wide variety available.
2. 7mm bullets are also more aerodynamically efficient than .30 cal bullets of the same weight and shape.
3. In a good bolt action rifle, this cartridge can be loaded up, close to 7mm Mag specs.
2. The casings can be made out of .30-06 brass (in a pinch.. not that I would want to.)
3. SAAMI max pressure is 60,000 psi
4. It can be loaded with lighter bullets than a .30-06 (without a sabot) and with heavier bullets than a .270. This is one of its niches.
5. It shoots flat, flat, flat with lighter bullets.

Cons:
1. You need a long action rifle to accommodate this cartridge.
2. Over the counter ammo is not as readily available as .30-06 or .270

My favorite load is a Hornady Interlock 139 gr. BTSP making 3000 fps at the muzzle. A light recoil, flat trajectory and that bullet is lethal on Whitetail (approx 2800 ft. lbs at the muzzle and 1500 ft. lbs at 400 yds).
Range estimation? Who cares?
Sighted in to zero at 200 yards, you can hold on the top third of a deer's silhouette out to just shy of 400 yards.
With this zero setting, the bullet never rises more than 1.5 inches above the line of sight.
Any further than 400 yards (or even less today, as I get older) and I will probably have a hard time telling if its a deer or a cow.
I've shot up to 165 grain bullets in it but there are heavier bullets available.


Hornady Interlock 139 gr. BTSP

Reloading for the .280
I actually find this a very forgiving cartridge to load for. I have been reloading for this rifle with a Lee Loader kit. The kit does well enough that I never bothered to get regular dies for it when I did get a press.
Hey, this is just one of my hobbies. Besides that, at my age, hunting has lost a lot of its charm, especially during a Northern Minnesota November. Here it is Shotgun only for deer.

Using the Lee Loader.
It is possible to make very accurate ammo, even out in the field, with this simple kit.
I was a poor college kid when I started reloading for this rifle. I couldn't afford a press back then. In fact, during my last semester in College, I was so broke that I sent my guns home with my then girlfriend so I wouldn't be tempted to sell them.
I bought this simple kit in 1984. This ingenious kit allows you to use a hammer (Yes, it can safely be used with a nylon faced hammer!) and the "Lee Loader" die to deprime, resize the case, re-prime, seat the bullet and finally crimp the bullet in place after adding the powder with the dipper. With a little practice, It is possible to throw a very consistent charge with the dipper. Unfortunately, it is no longer made in .280.

When I first got the rifle, I assembled a longer than normal cartridge and blackened the bullet with a marker. I then closed the bolt on it. After pulling it out, I used the die to set the bullet a little deeper in the case. I kept doing this till the rifling no longer marked my bullet. This gave me a final length that set the bullet very close to the rifling without touching it. The die has fine threads and can be adjusted with a great deal of precision. I do not use the dipper anymore. An electric scale allows me to experiment with a wider variety of charges than the dipper allows. This kit is meant for a bolt action rifle as it neck sizes only.

Measuring the powder is what takes the longest time. If you use the dipper, you can whack out (pun intended) the cartridges quite fast.


A Lee Loader kit in .30-06
Lee Loader instruction sheet

The rifle is an old Ruger M77 with the tang safety. Back then Ruger rifles came with a fully adjustable trigger.
This particular rifle has a 24" heavy Varmint contour barrel which is unusual for this caliber.
It took months of scrimping and saving to purchase it, used, for the princely sum of $250 (in 1984).
The scope is just a cheap Simmons 3 x 9. It was all I could afford back then.
However, every time I test it, I find that it hasn't shifted zero since it was first set up all those years ago. Why change something that works?

From a handloading user perspective, .280 Remington, .284 WCF, 7x64, .270 WCF...four peas in a pod.

Yes sir, the .270 and the .280 are close, performancewise.
You don't want to say that out loud though, in some parts of this country you could get scalped for that kind of blasphemy.
Each cartridge has its adherents and their faith in the efficacy of their chosen cartridge rises to the level of religious fervor.


One anecdote tells about how even the Elk know that it's useless to resist when faced with a .280.
It's about this Elk Hunter who, every year, just goes to the foot of the mountain and yells at the the top of his voice that he has his .280 with him.
In a little while, some packages come rolling down the mountain, already quartered and packed....
He pats his rifle, picks up his meat and goes home.


More info:
http://www.gunsandammo.com/2012/05/22/r ... remington/

[Grumpy]

Well, a little effrontery would seem to have worked very well.
Thanks for spending the time .... and doing just a little bit of work.
It`s always good to learn more about cartridges that one is unfamiliar with ..... and there are a good few 7mm fans around.

[timmy]

Good writeup, XL, and a nice old Ruger!

From a handloading user perspective, .280 Remington, .284 WCF, 7x64, .270 WCF...four peas in a pod.

Yes sir, the .270 and the .280 are close, performancewise.
You don't want to say that out loud though, in some parts of this country you could get scalped for that kind of blasphemy.
Each cartridge has its adherents and their faith in the efficacy of their chosen cartridge rises to the level of religious fervor.

Goodness sakes, yes! Most rational people have to wonder how much difference 0.007" can make. (270 bullet = 0.277" diameter; 7mm bullet = 0.284" diameter.) But of course, to the old stove society, such things are the difference between astounding success and abject failure in every part of life. For the rest of us, I find it amazing how versatile that venerable old case is.

[xl_target]

Grumpy and Tim,
I apparently touched on the subject in an old post a while back.
See here: Jack O'Connor's last rifle

[timmy]

You know, XL, when I grew up, my Dad got Field & Stream and Outdoor Life, but sad to say, I didn't read them. I would look through his issues of American Rifleman, though.

My affinity for the .270 wasn't shaped by O'Connor and his writings too much because of this. By the time I was old enough to start buying guns and thinking about which one to get next, I was living in Montana, in a town that had a very old library. The shelves were stocked with many old, venerable books, and the fellow I fell under the spell of was Philip Sharpe, who a few folks today know of as the person behind the 7x61mm Sharpe & Hart round, and the Schultz & Larsen rifle he worked with that firm to introduce to America with that cartridge. He also had a hand in the development of the .357 Magnum.

Sharpe wrote extensive books on rifles and hand loading, long before hand loading was an accepted thing among mainstream shooters. He also served as a Captain in the US Army's Ordnance department during WW2. He isn't very well-known today, I think, because he was more of a technical gun person than an outdoorsman, like Elmer Keith or Jack O'Connor.

Sharpe was also a great friend of Harry Pope, a famous American barrel maker from the black powder and schutzen days.

After reading a lot of Sharpe, I came across one of O'Connor's books on rifles, and in reading it, found that Old Jack had some pretty nasty things to say about Phil Sharpe and his 7x61 Magnum, making Sharpe out to be some sort of snake oil salesman. This did nothing to endear O'Connor to me, and it was not until many years later that I found O'Connor was thought of as a unpersonable, arrogant man, given to keeping very close company to the bottle. This certainly matched the picture I had gotten of him after his unfortunate characterization of Sharpe.

I found that I liked the .270 for its ballistic performance, for its historical significance, and because I am generally opposed to any belted magnums (excepting the old .300 and .375 H&H Magnums, where the belt has a purpose!).

Speaking of that, I would like to have another .300 H&H.

However, I have digressed from your .280 Remington topic, sorry!

[TwoRivers]

Well, when I was in training at APG (Aberdeen Proving Ground) I met two crusty old sergeants who had worked with Sharpe during development of the 7.62x51mm. (They also had bought the Winchester M70 Featherweights in the experimental .270 caliber (.270/.308) when they were auctioned off after the trials, and adoption of the 7.62mm.) Anyhow, what they had to say about Sharpe would get me banned from this forum if I repeated it here. As to the 7x61, it is essentially an old French experimental cartridge from the early 1900s,that Sharpe had picked up in France, transposed into a shortened H&H magnum case.

[timmy]

The guy may not have had the hunting experiences of the "outdoorsy" writers, but he was quite technical. I marveled to see the pictures of him shooting with his chronograph, a huge thing with old painted black electronic chassis and vacuum tubes. He certainly had the backup of documented results. He went into detail of his adaptation of the development of 7x61 from the French round he had found, while he was serving as a captain during WW2, and, as you note, using the belted case.

It could not surprise me terribly to discover that crusty sergeants had an earthy vocabulary, nor that they would resent a civilian who had been commissioned for WW2 service. If their complaint had merit because it called into question Sharpe's capabilities or knowledge, that would be another matter. Sharpe was a writer for the National Rifle Association and wrote two extensive books, "The Rifle in America" and "Complete Guide to Handloading," which was, for those days, one of the few books on the subject. It's my understanding that Smith & Wesson presented him with the second 357 Magnum they made.

I think it's fair to say that he had a number of accomplishments. O'Connor, on the other hand, was a writer, hunter, and English professor. I have never seen anything to indicate that he had anything to do with firearms development, although he did promote the developments of others. That he would question someone like Sharpe's veracity in the way that he did, considering that he was only a layman on the technical side of gun development, while Sharpe was an acknowledged authority (with the experience and appointments that go with such expertise) did not set well with me.

[Grumpy]

I can`t say I cared for Sharpe very much .... Could be something to do with me being European and him having the opinion that all European military rifles were `junk`. He seems to have upset a lot of people as his death was reported as `mysterious` and that he was an alcoholic who committed suicide. He actually had a heart attack. If Jack `O`Connor went public in saying nasty things about Sharpe then I`d like to know why because that was not O`Connors style ....... Even during the many years of the `feud` with Elmer Keith he actually said very little that was unpleasant about Elmer. Keith, on the other hand, had plenty of negatives to say about O`Connor ..... My opinion is that Elmer was jealous of Jack`s literary ability - and the the money that Jack earned. Elmer was notoriously crusty - and salty - at times.
Jack O`Connor stands right at the top of American hunting and guns writing - in my opinion ( and that of many others ) - and was reckoned by just about everyone to be a true gentleman.
As an aside, just as Jack used his beloved .270 Win for so many years - changing to a .280 not long before his death - Eleanor was a long time devotee of the 7x57 but, if I remember correctly, also changed her rifle/calibre to another around the time that Jack changed his. Does anyone have any knowledge of this ? I can`t find any reference to the matter and it`s niggling me somewhat.

[Vikram]

"Complete Guide to Handloading," which was, for those days, one of the few books on the subject.

I was googling the both books and found this one.Can be downloaded from this link.

http://photos.imageevent.com/badgerdog/ ... 201937.pdf

I read sometime back about the 7X61 Sharpe cartridge and the Schultz & Larsen rifle he used.


Best-
Vikram

[timmy]

Elmer was certainly a character. He wasn't the sort to take a back seat to anyone. I knew people who visited with him, as he was right over the mountains in Salmon, Idaho. One fellow that I knew went to see him -- this guy was an insurance man. But, he was a true gun person and did absolutely lovely work on 1911s, of which he was an aficionado. He had all of the jigs and what-have-you to do the work right. Anyway, he went over to see Elmer, and to ask him about the 1911. Evidently, Elmer was about the house that day with a revolver on his belt (he was pretty old by then) and, when asked about the 1911, he reached back and pulled the revolver out, opened the cylinder, and snapping it shut, drawled, "Well, I prefer wheel-guns, myself."

Keith was always the type to espouse large caliber, slower moving bullets, while O'Connor was a proponent of high velocity. My own view was that, at the time, there was something to what both had to say. Undoubtedly, there is more energy in high velocity, and such bullets shoot flatter. However, there were not nearly as many reliable bullets in those days, as there are today. Other than Winchester, Remington, and Federal, firms like Speer, Hornady, and Nosler were smaller operations. I would have to say that, with the exception of Nosler, American bullet designs were not as advanced as those from Germany. But, that too is an "apples to oranges" comparison. The American shooting scene was more of a hobby/tinkerer sort of thing (although advanced in its own right -- I'm not aware of too many books like Sharpe's from the pre-WW2 era that discussed reloading and such from Europe), while European hunting was more of an upper crust thing. The majority of American shooters 40 years ago tended to avoid expensive bullets, like the Nosler, while Europeans, who tended to be well-heeled types, sought out the best stuff, like Brenneke.

This was even true in the military sector, where Europeans had developed very advanced bullets, similar to hunting bullets, for anti-tank rifles. (It is sometimes forgotten that pre and early WW2 tanks had armor that could be penetrated with shoulder weapons, like the British Boys rifle.)

O'Connor was a good writer and a professor, and he didn't bother too much with Keith. Keith, on the other hand, was a product of his environment and grew up in a ramshackle mining town (Helena, Montana), which also happened to be the state capital. Keith writes of shooting coyotes around the capitol building as a youngster! We may judge Keith's style as abrasive and less "gentlemanly" (a somewhat ambiguous term), but that's pretty much the environment he grew up in. Vestiges of it still remain, even today, out West.

While I may have likes and dislikes about whatever the personalities involved may be, the bottom line is still the validity of their views and arguments, and Keith, like Sharpe, did a whole lot more to contribute to the advancement of firearms than O'Connor ever did. O'Connor could write fine yarns about hunting and was, by all accounts, an excellent hunter, however, the much-touted Model 70 Winchester he often carried was a gun to which Elmer Keith contributed to the development, when Winchester revamped the Springfield-descended Model 54 into the Model 70. Keith also had to do with the .357 Magnum (along with Sharpe), the 44 Magnum, and the 41 Magnum. For whatever his perceived faults and no matter how dislikable he may have been, Keith contributed far more to firearms than most, including O'Connor, who only wrote about things.

There certainly was a "Not Invented Here" attitude in the USA in Sharpe's day, something that persists to the present. It's hardly an attitude that is unique to Americans, and it has its good and bad points. People who resent and belittle the ways of others are often base and curmudgeonly, but sometimes they have that view when they are developing something better. For instance, Americans had a dim view of all things Japanese before and during WW2. Some of this was justified, and some was foolish and short sighted. Creative people who seek better ways can often be opinionated.

My understanding of O'Connor, who certainly could write well and who had a lot of successful hunting experiences, doesn't parallel yours in the personal realm, but my issue is that he criticized the technical accomplishments of one of his technical betters. His high velocity views, which seem to have been "radicalized" by others holding more extreme positions than O'Connor espoused, ultimately proved largely correct. That part, I don't quibble with. He must have known guns quite well, at least as they concern hunting, because he had to use them successfully. That should not be taken away from him. But Sharpe was on the theory and development end of firearms, which is a different area, and one that I don't think O'Connor had the background from which to cast aspersions.

[timmy]

"Complete Guide to Handloading," which was, for those days, one of the few books on the subject.

I was googling the both books and found this one.Can be downloaded from this link.

http://photos.imageevent.com/badgerdog/ ... 201937.pdf

I read sometime back about the 7X61 Sharpe cartridge and the Schultz & Larsen rifle he used.


Best-
Vikram

Vikram, thanks for posting that. I hope some of our IFG members will read it. There is so much information in that book that is still of interest and important for people who are interested in firearms to know. For instance, the section that talks about how cartridge cases are made is important. Discussions about powder and primers contain information that's still relevant. Coming out in 1937, this book put a lot of technical information into the hands of the layman in a way that a layman could understand.

[Grumpy]

I can`t say I`ve read too much personal criticism of others by Jack O`Connor .... whereas Elmer had plenty to say about everyone and everything. Elmer could be very entertaining though and his contribution to firearms/cartridge development is undeniable. Yes, Elmer was at Salmon and Jack was at Lewiston - about 170 mile away .... although double that by road. The Elmer Keith museum was at Salmon but was closed by 2005 when I went to check on it and didn`t look like it had been open for a while. I`m pretty sure that by summer 2006 the building ( only a little place ) had been emptied and the signs removed. I believe that the contents have been moved to Boise - hopefully they are on display again. At Lewiston there is the Jack O`Connor Hunting, Heritage and Education Centre which has a display showing his and Eleanor`s rifles, a collection of his books and articles and a large display of mounted heads that he took ..... and, of course, a whole lot more.
There are plenty of people in the Salmon area who remember Elmer ( isn`t his family still there ? ) and quite a lot of Elmer Keith `memorabilia` owned by them. Seems strange that it was thirty years ago that he died ..... and even longer for Jack who died in `76.
I wasn`t impressed by Sharpe`s ignorance of and bias against European military firearms so made a point of ignoring him thereafter figuring that if he was that unreliable he wasn`t worth reading.
Your interpretation of hunting in Europe is too much of a generalisation as the situation depends on the individual country. It`s a certainly the case that deer stalking in the UK was the preserve of the wealthy..... Now everything is open to anyone who can afford it.

[Grumpy]

It`s interesting how what we read when young can influence our choice of authors and literary matter. I used to love the writing of the guy that wrote the `Parting Shot` feature in Guns & Ammo back in the `70s for example and continued to read the mag even after he left ( damned if I can remember his name though ) out of sheer loyalty to the memory of his writing..... Until I figured that the reviews weren`t exactly reviews any more and the quality of writing generally wasn`t what it once was.

[timmy]

It`s interesting how what we read when young can influence our choice of authors and literary matter.

Ditto. I seldom read fiction and have always been that way, but for some reason, anything by James Clavell, written or on screen, I've always enjoyed very much. I think it comes from picking up my Brother's copy of King Rat when I was 13 or so.

[Grumpy]

LOL. I read a lot - mostly fiction but plenty else as well. Strangely, I downloaded a book to my Kindle called `Rat King` last night .... It wasn`t difficult to figure the inspiration for that title ........
The TV adaption of Shogun should have been a disaster - Richard Chamberlain`s English accent wasn`t amazing - but was, in fact, superb. One of the best TV dramatisations ever with a phenomenal performance by both Chamberlain and Toshiro Mifune.