The ''.280 Remington'', also known as the 7mm-06 Remington and 7mm Express Remington, was introduced in 1957 for the Remington model

740 __NOTOC__ Year 740 ( DCCXL) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar, the 740th year of the Common Era (CE) and ''Anno Domini'' (AD) designations, the 740th year of the 1st millennium, th ...

760 __NOTOC__ Year 760 ( DCCLX) was a leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 760 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era b ...

721 __NOTOC__ Year 721 (Roman numerals, DCCXXI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 721 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno ...

, and

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rifles.

History

Having been released 32 years after the

.270 Winchester The .270 Winchester is a rifle cartridge developed by Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1923 and unveiled in 1925 as a chambering for their bolt-action Model 54The Complete Reloading Manual for the .270 Winchester, Loadbooks USA, Inc., 2004 ...

, it had somewhat unspectacular sales. Remington renamed the cartridge in late 1978 to 7mm-06 Remington. but just before the end of the year, they renamed it again, calling it the 7 mm Express in an attempt to increase sales. This resulted in people confusing it with the

7 mm Remington Magnum The 7mm Remington Magnum rifle cartridge was introduced as a commercially available round in 1962, along with the new Remington Model 700 bolt-action rifle. It is a member of the belted magnum family that is directly derived from the venerable . ...

, and Remington changed the name back to .280 in 1981.The Versatile 280 at Outdoor Life
By Jim Carmichel, September 18, 2007

Specifications

The .280 is based on the .30-06 necked down to accept 7 mm (.284 in) bullets, with the neck moved forward .050 in (1.27mm). The neck was deliberately moved forward to prevent chambering in a

rifle, as firing a .280 round in a .270 rifle could cause the projectile to get stuck in the barrel or rupture the barrel due to excessive pressure.

.280 Remington vs .270 Winchester

The .280 Remington is capable of generating slightly higher velocities in heavier bullet weights (150 grains and above) than the .270 Winchester due to a marginally greater case capacity. However, the ballistic coefficient of equal-weight bullets favors .270 caliber bullets over 7mm (.284) bullets of similar design. In the heavier bullets (150 grains and above) of similar design, the .280 Remington has a slight edge in muzzle energy. With equal-weight bullets of similar design, the .270 Winchester surpasses the .280 Remington's long-range velocity and energy due to the 270's higher ballistic coefficient according to Federal's ammunition catalog. There are also many more factory loads available for the .270 Winchester over the .280 Remington at a lower price point due to the .270's much greater popularity.

.280 vs .30-06

The .280 Remington is capable of developing energy nearly equal to the

.30-06 Springfield The .30-06 Springfield cartridge (pronounced "thirty- aught-six" ), 7.62×63mm in metric notation, and called the .30 Gov't '06 by Winchester, was introduced to the United States Army in 1906 and later standardized; it remained in military use ...

, but with lighter bullets having a better

ballistic coefficient In ballistics, the ballistic coefficient (BC, ''C'') of a body is a measure of its ability to overcome air resistance in flight. It is inversely proportional to the negative acceleration: a high number indicates a low negative acceleration—the d ...

. The .30-06 produces more energy than the .280 with bullets heavier than 180 grains, though .284" 175-grain bullets have a high

sectional density Sectional density (often abbreviated SD) is the ratio of an object's mass to its cross sectional area with respect to a given axis. It conveys how well an object's mass is distributed (by its shape) to overcome resistance along that axis. Sectio ...

of .310, compared to the 30-06 180-grain bullet with a moderate sectional density of .271. The .280 is suitable for hunting any game in North America with good shot placement.

SAAMI The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute (SAAMI, pronounced "Sammy") is an association of American manufacturers of firearms, ammunition, and components. SAAMI is an accredited standards developer that publishes several Americ ...

pressure limit for the .280 Remington is set at 60,000

PSI Psi, PSI or Ψ may refer to: Alphabetic letters * Psi (Greek) (Ψ, ψ), the 23rd letter of the Greek alphabet * Psi (Cyrillic) (Ѱ, ѱ), letter of the early Cyrillic alphabet, adopted from Greek Arts and entertainment * "Psi" as an abbreviatio ...

, 50,000

CUP A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, clay, ...

. Most American rifle and ammunition manufacturers catalogue the .280 Remington. The .30-06 is substantially more popular and manufacturers thus offer a much greater selection of loads at a substantially lower price point. While it is true that a .280 Remington case can be formed from a

case, the case length of a .30-06 is while the case length of a .280 is , the same as a .30-03 Springfield. However, "The slight difference in length of reformed cases doesn't make any practical difference." Speer Reloading Manual Number Ten (1979), p. 182

.280 Remington vs 7x64 Brenneke

In Europe the .280 Remington is not popular in bolt-action rifles since it competes directly with the

7×64mm The 7×64mm (also unofficially known as the 7×64mm Brenneke, though its designer's name was never officially added as a part of the cartridge name) is a rimless bottlenecked centerfire cartridge developed for hunting. As is customary in Europe ...

, which is of the almost exact same size as the .280 Remington but has slightly more power, because of having a slightly higher maximum allowed chamber pressure and a slightly higher case capacity. The twist rate for the 7x64 is 1 in 8.66 inch against 1 in 10 inch for the 280 Remington. Nearly every European rifle producer offers the 7x64 as a standard caliber. The .280 Remington does, however, have a larger than expected number of European users in imported self-loading rifles such as those by Remington.

.280 Ackley Improved

One of P.O. Ackley's earliest wildcats was the 7mm-06 Improved, which was made by necking down the .30-06 Springfield case and fire-forming it to have less body taper and a 40-degree shoulder angle. Soon after the .280 Remington came out,

Fred Huntington Fred Huntington (December 12, 1912 – August 10, 1998) was an entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is ...

reformed its case to an improved configuration with minimum body taper, a 35-degree shoulder angle, and called it the .280 RCBS. Since cases for the .280 RCBS could be formed by firing .280 Remington ammo in a rifle chambered for the former, Ackley abandoned the 7mm-06 Improved and started chambering rifles for the .280 RCBS. He then changed the 35-degree shoulder to 40-degrees and the .280 Ackley Improved was born. If barrel length and chamber pressure are equal, the .280 Ackley Improved is about 100 fps faster with all bullet weights than the standard .280 Remington. In 2007, ammunition manufacturer

Nosler Nosler, Inc. is an American manufacturing company based in Bend, Oregon, known for producing ammunition and handloading components and specializing in high performance hollow point and soft point hunting bullets. The current companies also incl ...

registered the .280 Ackley Improved with

and began providing factory loaded ammunition and rifles for it.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:280 Remington Pistol and rifle cartridges Remington Arms cartridges