This story was originally published in the April 1989 issue of Outdoor Life.
Jack O’Connor didn’t invent the .270 Winchester, but he might as well have done so, because for more than 30 years he carried on a one-man campaign that transformed the .270 into one of the most popular sporting cartridges of the 20th century.
In the pages of Outdoor Life, O’Connor preached the virtues of the .270 so forcefully that his name became so entwined with the .270 that even today, we can scarcely speak of one without the other.
It is common for those who write about shooting and hunting to espouse a favorite cartridge, a weakness that is generally forgiven. O’Connor’s love affair with the .270, however, was not moderate. In time, it led to criticism because he seemed to be ignoring other worthy cartridges.
Many readers and critics failed to recognize that Jack O’Connor had embarked on a far more important program than simply establishing the supremacy of a single cartridge. That O’Connor was a gifted writer cannot be disputed, but by inclination and training, he was also a teacher. Before becoming the Shooting Editor of Outdoor Life, he had been a college professor. It was only natural for him to follow his teaching instincts, and his goal seems to have been to educate all shooters and hunters. It was to be his grandest achievement.
The Great Communicator
Had O’Connor arrived on the scene 50 years earlier or 50 years later, his mission would have been hopeless or pointless. As it was, he was perfectly timed between the old and the new. His stage was the shaky and somewhat lonely bridge between the two great eras of American cartridge design.
When O’Connor was a youngster, the classic American hunting rifle was lever-operated and lobbed portly projectiles at stately velocities. According to both tradition and logic, one used big bullets for big game, and it mattered little that the rifles kicked like thunder, were heavy to carry and almost worthless at ranges beyond 200 yards. The big, slow-moving bullets with their dromedary trajectories made long-range shooting a guessing game at best. In Europe, however, gunmakers had already recognized bolt-action rifles as the force of the future and cartridges were being compared on the basis of velocity rather than size.
A lightweight rifle, firing light, high-velocity bullets was a difficult proposition for American hunters to comprehend, but O’Connor saw the advantages and set about reeducating the public. He was a son of the West and as such had virtually unlimited opportunities to hunt deer and antelope plus his beloved sheep. While he was still a young man and just beginning his writing career, he had already accumulated what many others would consider a lifetime of hunting experience. Among the lessons he had learned were that precise bullet placement is the most efficient way to kill big game. Anything that interfered with a well-aimed shotexcess recoil, an inaccurate rifle or a rainbow—shaped bullet path-was counterproductive to good hunting. He believed that a worthwhile hunting rifle had to be light enough to carry up a mountain without getting a rupture—he coined the term “mountain rifle,” flat-shooting enough to take most of the guesswork out of distant targets, mild of recoil so as to avoid such acquired sins as flinching and trigger jerking, and accurate enough to ensure hitting a small target at goodly distances.
His very first column as Shooting Editor of Outdoor Life appeared in November 1939, and from the beginning he left no doubt as to where he stood. “My contention is that the .30/06 is simply too much gun for the average hunter, who fires only three or four boxes of high-power ammunition a year.”
He then went on to sing the praises of not the .270, but another favorite, the 7×57 Mauser. It was during the years following World War II that O’Connor zeroed in on his readership. Returning G.I.s wanted to buy guns and go hunting, and Jack was their guru. He was in full strut then and his thinking about hunting rifles scored a solid hit with thousands of shooters.
Four Debuts
By 1957, the .270 had become so entrenched in the minds and hearts of hunters that it seemed almost un-American to introduce a new but similar cartridge. That’s the year —— 1957 —— that the .280 made the first of its four debuts. And an inauspicious beginning it was. If ever a cartridge could have died aborning, this was it. Even the gun writers, who normally stirred up a tidal wave in a tin cup when announcing a new cartridge, had a hard time exciting themselves about the Remington .280.
One of the problems was bad timing. The 1950s were boom years for the gun industry. The industry took advantage of profitable times by introducing a flock of new guns and calibers. Thus, the .280 got lost among a dozen or so new rounds introduced during the late 1950s. Among the new cartridges were such seductive numbers as the .243 Winchester and the .338 Winchester Magnum. By comparison, the .280 didn’t offer much. On paper, it looked like a cross between a .270 and a .30/06, and it didn’t even dare to look different. After all, it was nothing more than a .30/06 case necked down to hold a .284-diameter bullet. Or was it just a .270 case necked up to .284? Actually, the .280 was so similar to the .270, both in shape and name, that it had been purposely designed with a slightly longer shoulder so that it couldn’t be accidentally chambered and fired in .270 rifles.
Most damaging of all, perhaps, was the pathetic fact that the .280 couldn’t compete on even terms. The .270 had earned its stripes in accurate bolt-action rifles, the .280’s initial companion piece was Remington’s Model 742 Autoloader. From the marketing standpoint, this combination may have made some sense, but predicting what hunters will buy is at best a guess, and Remington nearly crapped out on the first pass. Later, the .280 was united with Remington’s Model 760 pump-action rifle but, again, the combination didn’t catch fire. Word got around that the .280 was “loaded down” so as to be less stressful to pumpaction and autoloading rifles. Potential buyers kept a disdainful distance.
A Remington executive, who was involved with the .280 project, later told me that chamber pressures were in the 47,000 pounds per square inch (psi) range. The .270 was loaded to the 51,000 psi level, thus making the .280’s performance all the more impressive. In spite of comparatively low pressure, the new round performed well.
He also told me that the .280 was one of the least temperamental cartridges to produce that he had ever worked with. Insiders at Remington were soon to realize that the .280 was a superbly balanced cartridge, but such fine points of interior ballistics tend to be unappreciated by the shooting public.
Those who bothered to take a peek at the ballistic tables discovered that even when not boiling up a full head of steam, the .280 launched a 150-grain bullet at 2,900 fps, which was a full 100 fps faster than the velocity listed for the .270 with a bullet of the same weight.
Early on, the .280 was offered with a choice of four bullet weights: a 165-grain number at 2,820 fps, 150 grains going 2,900 fps, another weighing 125 grains traveling at 3,190 fps, and a stubby slug of 100 grains that left the muzzle at a very quick 3,570 fps. I’m told by an old-time Remington insider that a gun writer of that era persuaded the powers that were that the .280 might have a future as a varmint cartridge. Hence the lightweight bullet. But varmint hunters don’t like to be seen in public with autoloading rifles, so the light bullet was doomed from the start and was discontinued after a few years.
Eventually, a dim light came on for Remington’s decision-making team, and someone reckoned that maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad idea to offer the company’s boltaction rifle, which was then the Model 721, in .280 chambering. Actually, it was a wonderful idea, but alas, once again, the timing was all wrong. By then the reputation of the .280 had sunk to such a sorry state that even when it was united with a bolt rifle, gun buyers yawned and looked the other way. Actually, I’m not being fair by saying that the .280 had a bad reputation. It’s more accurate to say that the poor cartridge had no reputation at all. As was the case with Cinderella, no one even bothered to take a second look.
During the early 1960s, the Model 721 was phased out and replaced with Remington’s Model 725 bolt rifle. During its brief tenure, which lasted from 1958-61 or thereabouts, the Model 725 was cataloged as available in .280, but so few were sold in this caliber that the rifles are now collector’s items. The Model 725 gave way to the Model 700, which was initially offered in .280 caliber, but after a while Remington gave up, and the .280 was seemingly as dead as last week’s fish. By 1978, the only choice from Remington in .280 rifle was once again the Model 742 autoloader. Two years later even that option was gone.
After nearly a quarter of a century of almost total failure, most arms makers would have given up on any cartridge. But the cartridge had fans within the company who knew that it was too good to be forgotten. They were also getting some positive feedback from hunters who encouraged them to hang onto the .280, even if their grip was getting weaker.
One thing they decided was that the name might be wrong. They had good luck when they changed the name of the ill-fated .244 Remington to the 6mm Remington, and made a few technical changes. Perhaps a change of name might be all that was needed to give the .280 a new start. Thus was born the 7mm Remington Express.
I thought it was a pretty good name and told the folks at Remington that they might, at last, have a winner. They were so overjoyed at the prospect that in 1981, when they launched their new Model Four autoloading rifle, they made it available in the “new” chambering. Back in 1979, when they introduced the 7mm Express, they sweetened the kitty by offering a 150-grain bullet loaded to 2,870 fps. At last, the .280 (7mm Express) was being factory-loaded to its potential and easily outrunning the .270 Winchester in identical bullet weights. By that time, I’d been hunting and target shooting with a variety of .280 rifles. Every time I ran into someone wearing a Remington badge, I lobbied for a bolt rifle.
By then, other gunmakers had recognized a good thing and were offering good bolt rifles with .280 markings. I was told that a Remington-made bolt rifle was to be forthcoming, but at the eleventh hour, a minor disaster struck.
It seems that the 7mm Remington Express and the 7mm Remington Magnum tended to confuse some people. A hunter would ask for a box of 7mm Express Ammo but he sometimes got 7mm Magnums instead, or vice versa. Apparently, this occurred in big retail chain stores, where clerks tend to know little about guns and care even less. There’s no way to chamber a 7mm Magnum cartridge in a 7mm Express rifle, but you can load the 7mm Express (.280) round in a 7mm Magnum rifle. If all of the fates are against you it might even fire, with very unpleasant results. This is the sort of thing that gunmakers don’t want to happen, so by 1983, the 7mm Express was history.
Read Next: The .270 Winchester: How Does this 100-Year-Old Cartridge Hold Up Today?
That meant that it was time for yet another name change. But could any cartridge survive three debuts? The folks at Remington had had good luck with the .22/250 and .25/06, which were simply named after their wildcat ancestors, so why not try something like 7mm/06? This made sense, because, after all, the .280 Remington or 7mm Express was nothing other than the .30/06 necked down to 7mm. And so the 7mm/06 Remington came into being, but not for long.
I’m told that some handloaders, who tried making 7mm/06 ammo out of .30/06 brass got themselves into headspace problems, so Remington deemed it prudent to remove some of the temptation by dropping the name. Actually, it is easy to convert .30/06 brass to .280, provided you know what you’re doing. At this point, the namegivers at Remington ran out of ideas and reverted to .280 Remington, which has been used ever since. There’s justice in this because the .280 was a great cartridge all along, but greater than the .270?
Handloading the .280
I came by my first .280 back about 1971. I was having a custom hunting rifle built by Clayton Nelson. Because this was to be my first rifle by a big-name stockmaker, I wanted everything to be the best. Especially so, because I planned to use the rifle for a lot of hunting. Back then, at least half of all custom rifles were chambered for the .270, but I wasn’t convinced. Even at that tender age, I had owned a number of rifles in .270 and had used them with great success on a number of big-game hunts. But I’d studied the .280 ballistics, and from every way I looked at it except one, the . 280 made more sense than the . 270. The lone exception was the paltry selection of bullet weights in factory-loaded ammo that was available at the time. Back then, however, I handloaded every round of ammo I fired at game, and from the reloading standpoint, the .280 offered some distinct advantages. Not only could it be loaded to its full potential, but there was a great number of different 7mm bullets, ranging in weight from 100 grains to 175 grains, with lots of variety in between. This offered more flexibility than was possible with a .270. This also meant that the .280 could do everything the .270 could do, plus some things it couldn’t do.
The Clayton Nelson rifle arrived two days before I was to leave for my first African safari, so I loaded up a batch of ammo with 140-grain Nosier Partition bullets arid got the rig sighted in. With 57 grains of IMR 4350, the chronograph readings averaged 3,065 fps and group sizes, as I recall, were about 1 ½ inches for five shots at 100 yards. I could have increased the powder charge by a couple qf grains and still been within safe pressure limits, but I left a bit of slack in case the African climate heated my ammo and jumped pressures.
I took three rifles on that first trip to Africa. My plan was to use a .458 Magnum on the dangerous stuff, a 7mm Remington Magnum on the medium game and the .280 only on lighter antelope. I shot a lot of game on that month-long trip and quickly learned that there was no discernible difference between the .280 with 140-grain bullets and my 7mm Magnum with 160-grain bullets. One day, for instance, I shot a zebra with the 7mm Magnum, and it went down almost in its tracks. This made me happy because zebras are tough critters and can carry a lot of lead. The next day, I happened across another fine zebra, but all I had at hand was my .280. It killed the big stallion just as neatly as the 7mm Magnum. On another day, I took a tremendous sable bull with the .280, and a day or two later I used the same rifle on a nice kudu with fine results. These are muscular antelope about the size of a North American elk, but both went down with one shot. The kudu was running when I shot and I think that the .280 killed him in midbound. He was dead when he hit the ground. At the end of the safari, I gave the 7mm Magnum to my professional hunter along with a goodly supply of ammo that there’d been no use for. The .280 had done it all.
Another time, Fred Huntington and I hunted bongo in the Sudan. Bongo are thick-bodied antelope that are about the size of a yearling Angus steer. They are tough to hunt and live in the densest jungle. Our outfitter insisted that we bring nothing less than .375 H&H Magnums, but Fred and I took our .280s. We killed three trophy bongo with four shots, and the extra shot really wasn’t needed. Our bullets were 160-grain Speer Grand Slams.
During the mid-1970s, I did a lot of sheep hunting, in Asia as well as North America, and totaled some 15 head within a few years. All were shot with the same .280 and all but one with 140-grain bullets. The exception was a desert ram I took in Arizona with a 160-grain Nosier. The reason for using the heavier bullet was so that I could compare its performance with the lighter bullets I’d used on other sheep. I couldn’t detect any difference.
Another time, I used a 160-grain bullet when hunting elk in New Mexico. A nice six-point bull stepped into a clearing about 200 yards away and was dead before he could turn around. Despite these successes, I’ve settled on 140-grain bullets as the best all-around choice for the .280. Just as the .270 is at its best with 130-grain bullets, the .280 is best with the 140-grain bullet.
One of the reasons why the .280 performs so well with a 140-grain bullet is that the load is so shootable. Recoil is relatively mild, the trajectory is flat and impact energy remains high at long range. Because the cartridge is easy to shoot, bullet placement tends to be excellent and that, in the final analysis, is what kills big game. Using the 140-grain load helps you to be a better marksman.
One time when Fred Huntington and I were hunting sheep in Iran, a flock of crows settled in some trees about 250 yards from our camp. Having nothing better to do, I steadied my rifle over a boot and picked a crow off one of the top branches. The crows cawed a while and then settled down again, so I shot another. The Iranian guides and camp helpers had never seen such shooting and got so excited that they forgot to say their prayers. The cook was so impressed that he rewarded me by fixing the first eatable meal we’d had in two weeks.
It is in the area of accuracy that the .280 shines much brighter than the .270. Don’t get me wrong, the .270 is certainly accurate as a hunting cartridge, but in head-to-head accuracy comparisons it comes off in last place. That’s why the .270 has never been seriously considered as a target round for short, medium or long-range competition. Several years ago, Winchester tried to introduce the .270 to target shooters and offered its Model 70 heavy-barreled target rifle in .270 chambering. No one took the idea seriously, and so few rifles were sold that today they are among the rarest of all Model 70s and much sought after by collectors.
Makers of bullets for reloading don’t even bother to make match-grade bullets for the .270. They make wonderful hunting bullets in .270 caliber, to be sure, but for razorsharp accuracy, the cartridge has never made the grade. The .280, by comparison, is splendidly accurate at ranges out to 1,000 yards and has an impressive list of victories on the target ranges to its credit. One of the reasons is that several bullet makers who are tuned in to the accuracy potential of the .280 and other 7mm cartridges make excellent tournament-grade bullets in this caliber.
The Clayton Nelson .280 is now retired after having accounted for some 200 head of big game. I missed some shots, of course, but I don’t recall a single animal that got away after being hit. I have used a halfdozen or so other rifles in .280 and all perform as well as the first. Probably the most accurate of the lot is a 5Y2-pound (with scope) rig made by the Ultra Light Arms Company. Actually, I don’t yet know just how accurate this rifle is, but the first three shots I fired with it hit in a half-inch circle at 100 yards.
It’s a good bet that the guys who know rifles best are those who buy expensive custom rigs. Contrary to what you might think, most customers for custom rifles aren’t rich guys tossing their bucks around, but hardworking people, who save their dimes and quarters so that they can buy the one rifle of their dreams. Naturally, they want the once-in-a-lifetime rifle to chamber the bestpossible cartridge. For several years, the .270 was the caliber of choice. In 1987, however, the last survey I’ve seen, the tables were turned and the .280 was the more popular caliber. I expect this trend to continue.
Factory Rifles And Ammo
Happily, you don’t have to shell out your beer money for a custom .280 because it has earned such popularity that just about everyone who makes rifles offers a choice or two in this caliber. Remington, for example, now offers no less than four rifles in .280 chambering. They are the trim Model 700 Mountain Rifle, another bolt rifle with synthetic stock, plus the Model 7400 autoloader and Model 7600 pumpaction. Remington’s Custom Shop also offers, on special order, fancy .280s with handmade stocks, and the tack-driving 40-X target model.
Ruger has long offered rifles in .280 and now offers the chambering in the Model 77 bolt rifle and the stylish Number One Single Shot. This year’s catalog from U. S. Repeating Arms lists no fewer than three different versions of the Model 70 bolt gun in .280. Likewise, Kimber was quick to offer its good-looking new Model 84 Big Game rifle in .280, and the very distinctive looking Dakota M-76 also comes in .280. The list goes on, and anyone who can’t find a rifle in a .280 that he likes is mighty hard to please.
The ammunition picture is about the same. For years, I begged Remington for a 140-grain bullet in the .280 and finally it has granted my wish. Remington offers four different bullet weights-120, 140, 150 and 165, and Federal loads a 150-grain Nosler Partition bullet in the Premium line. Federal also imports Swedish-made Norma ammo, which includes a .280 loaded with a 150-grain bullet. The guys at Winchester do not deny that they are thinking about loading the .280, probably in their new upscale Supreme line.
In last month’s column, “Birth of the .270,” when we discussed the mysterious circumstances that led to the development of the .270, we questioned why the folks at Winchester didn’t opt for a 7mm bullet ( .284 caliber) rather than the oddball .277 size it did select. Choosing a .284 bullet would have been a sensible selection, and would have been fully as successful as the .270, possibly even more so. Very possibly, they would have named the new cartridge the .284 Winchester, which is the bore diameter, and has a nice ring, or they might have rounded off the number and called it the .280 Winchester. Either way, the new 7mm cartridge would have been championed by Jack O’Connor, because it would have been his ideal cartridge. He told me so himself.
Back when I was having the Clayton Nelson rifle built, I told Jack what I had in mind, and of course, he wanted to know what caliber it was to be. I fibbed a bit and told him it would be a .270, figuring he would be pleased.
“Don’t do it,” he demanded. “Have it made a .280 Remington. It’s a better caliber.”
The post The .280 Remington Should Have Been a Success. Here’s Why It Wasn’t appeared first on Outdoor Life.
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