Recipe Type: Rifle . Typically, a rifle magazine that can hold 4-5 .270 or .280 cartridges will only be able to hold 3 7mm Remington Magnum cartridges. Handloading the 280 AI is straightforward and easy with a wide variety of medium- to slow-burning powders, but this isnt a handloading-only cartridge these days. However, the management at Remington gave the .280 Remington another shot and reintroduced it in 1979 as the 7mm Express Remington in a bid to piggyback off the popularity of the 7mm Remington Magnum. The .280 AI also has a less tapered case than the .280 Remington and the .270 Winchester. Maximum pressure obtained from SAAMI (p23 and 28). Rifle calibers are kind of like craft beer (hear me out). Saami spec on the 280ai is 3.330 coal. Naturally, many whitetail deer hunters choose this iconic Western big game animal for an out-of-state hunt. 10mm Firepower: Springfield XD-M Elite 3.8 Compact Pistol Review, SIG Sauer P365 Pistol Now Offered in .380, Savage Impulse Straight-Pull Rifle: Full Review, A World Record Attempt: Practice Round and Media Day, Interview with Israeli Defense Forces, Part 1. Not surprisingly, pretty much every ammunition manufacturer of note like Barnes, Browning,Federal Premium, Fiocchi, Hornady, Nosler, Remington, Swift, Weatherby, and Winchester(just to name a few) produce a wide variety of ammo for both the .270 Win and the 7mm Rem Mag. Lighter and tougher and more precise than ever, it's the perfect back country hunting rifle. Savage 110 Hunter .280 Ackley Improved Bolt Action. Still, though, were talking about plenty of force when that bullet does either way. Indeed, the .280 Ackley Improved (280 AI) is one of the newest SAAMI standardized rifle cartridges on the block. That might not seem like much, but the .280 Ackley Improved (also known as the 280 AI, 280 Remington Ackley Improved, or 280 Rem. However, it is much more significant when the two expand. From $ 142.99. Even finding a rifle may prove to be somewhat difficult. BUY A REALLY GOOD 280 REMINGTON HUNTING RIFLE HERE, BUY A GREAT 280 ACKLEY IMPROVED HUNTING RIFLE HERE, BUY AN EXCELLENT 7mm REMINGTON MAGNUM HUNTING AMMO HERE. Savage 110 Hunter .280 Ackley Improved Bolt Action Rifle 22" Barrel 4 Rounds Syn. In the U.S. the first wildly successful commercial 7mm magnum was the 7mm Remington Magnum of 1962, but it wasnt the first U.S. 7mm. Improved Military Rifle IMR 4350. Its followed closely by the .280 Ackley Improved and there is a slightly larger gap between the .280 AI and the .280 Remington. Of the two, the .280 Ackley Improved has a little less recoil, but ammo is easier to find for the 7mm Mag. He's even used it on African plains game. Remington made an attempt at knocking the .270 Winchester off its perch when they rolled out the .280 Remington cartridge in 1957. All will certainly work to one degree or another. When you push past this performance level with a 7 mm cartridge, you do so with diminishing returns as far as velocity goes. Well, for starters, if youre not a handloader, I dont know that I would. Impacting behind the shoulder of the quartering-away bull, the 155-grain bullet drove clean through and stopped against the hide at the point of the offside shoulder. and a 175g round about 2,700 fps (just 100 fps shy of the 7mm Weatherby Mag.). The .270 Winchester uses .277 bullets while the .280 Remington, .280 Ackley Improved, and 7mm Remington Magnum all use slightly larger .284 bullets. The Ballistics of the .280 Ackley Improved, Lets say that elk is out to 300 yards away, though. Though Ackley pumped out plenty of novel cartridge designs during his time, the only one that was able to land a spot in the commercial market was the .280 Ackley Improved. Ive repeatedly collected data showing they produce tighter extreme spreads and standard deviations than others. I have a custom .280 Remington. While the .280AI is an efficient cartridge; however, its not magic. For practical purposes, the .280 Ackley Improved is similar to the .270 Winchester, 30-06 Springfield and .280 Remingon. Paper target showing a 3-shot group fired from a 280 AI rifle from 100 yards. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Youll see similar results when comparing the .280 Ackley Improved with a .270, as the AI will shoot somewhere around 300 fps faster than the .270. See also [ edit] 7mm Weatherby Magnum You need to carefully analyze your potential needs and choose the one(270 vs 280 Remington vs 280 Ackley Improved vs 7mm Rem Mag) that you think will fit them best. Ive been a user of this cartridge, in both its wildcat and later in its ballistically identical standardized formats, for just under 15 years. While on the subject of velocity, allow me to point out that the .280 AI really deserves a 24-inch barrel. Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates. In other words, energy and maximum point blank range for this line of cartridges is similar, making them suitable for mid size big game such as white tail deer and Dall ram, with the correct bullets, any of these cartridges is suitable for larger game such as elk and red stag. Currently, I cant find the ammunition anywhere online. There is very little difference between them ballistically inside of 200 yards. However, while those two rounds are very popular for a reason, they are far from the only high quality choices in that size range. Handloaders will find this cartridge to be pretty forgiving and simple to load. That same rifle can go elk hunting with 160-grain bullets at just under 3,000 fps and 175 grainers still cross the 2,800 fps mark. The elks out to 500 yards on a distant hillside? However, there are some important differences that set them apart from each other. At this point, only Federal, Nosler, and Hornady make .280 Ackley Improved factory ammo. The cartridge uses the same case as the venerable old .308 Win., but necks it up to accept a .338-caliber projectile. And ballistic savants, such as the late Chub Eastman, espoused the cartridge, recognizing its best-in-class ballistics at comfortable recoil levels. Joseph Von Benedikt shows his custom 500 and how well it shoots. For example, when using the same weight bullet, .280 Ackley Improved factory ammunition typically shoots 50-150 (usually around 100 fps faster) than most .280 Remington factory ammo. With equal barrel lengths, the Ackley Improved version gets you about 100 additional fps of velocity with a 140-grain bullet and a 24-inch barrel. The .280 AI is similar, with 140 grain, 150 grain, and 162 grain bullets being the basically only choices at this time in factory ammo for the cartridge. The .280 gets significantly more passthroughs than the .270 and it just seems to kill better. is the clear choice. Savage 110 High Country 280 AI Bolt-Action Rifle with Camo Stock. 280 Ackley Improved 280 Ackley Improved Modified Case $ 10.00. That the .280 AI can be built on a standard long action with a 30-06/.270 bolt face and magazine box is an added bonus. Federal Classic Hunter Berger Hybrid Rifle Ammunition.280 Ackley Improved 168 gr BTHP 2800 fps 20/ct. Reader K. Akins recently wrote to ask which cartridge I thought would benefit the most from conversion to Ackley Improved:the 260 Remington, 270 Winchester, or 7mm-08 Remington. Ackley. Before there were scopes or red dots there were iron sights. You present facts and options. A technician friend at Barnes used this bullet right after it was introduced for a once-in-a-lifetime free-range bison hunt in Utah and shot a large, old bull right at 600 yards with his .280 AI rifle. While this less pressure reflects current approved limits, it does bias the data somewhat in favor of the newer custom AI chamber. Who knew wild turkey's were so stupid!? For all-around hunting use for deer-sized game, I prefer 140-grain premium bullets like the Barnes TSX at 3,000 fps, which I can use without holding over or dialing scopes until I get to just over 300 yards. 280 Remington chambers can be easily converted to 280 AI. Ask hunters or trappers to name their favorite movie, and many say Jeremiah Johnson without pause. Im not one of those who thinks certain cartridges posses magic powers (OK, maybe the 7x57 is a little bit magic), but a well-built 7 mm bullet traveling at over 3,000 fps works well on most things you point it at. MidwayUSA offers the Nosler M21, but youll find that there truly isnt as large of an offering available in rifles chambered in .280 Ackley Improved as youll find in other common calibers. They eventually got around to offering it in their legendary Model 700 bolt-action, but dropped it after a couple of years before finally reintroducing it in the Model 700 in 1979. I hit the Cape buffalo squarely in the chest with a .375 Holland & Holland, a cartridge the size of a banana. Most hunters and shooters in North America are probably familiar with the venerable .270 Winchester and 7mm Remington Magnum cartridges. Those differences in the external dimensions of the .270 Winchester, .280 Remington, .280 Ackley Improved, and 7mm Remington Magnum do translate into differences in ballistic performance, though probably not quite as much as youd initially expect. Ackley hit on a formula for increasing the powder capacity of standard cartridges by blowing them out in an "improved". Cases obtained by firing--and thus fireforming--standard cartridges through Ackley's improved chamber could be handloaded to give improved performance. Brand: Savage. That reason was heavier bullets. Ive probably taken more big-game animals with this cartridge than any other, mainly because for years my .280 AI was one of the few hunting rifles that I owned. In fact, the bull trotted off with his buddies. Berger VLD Hunting 2,950 fps, CCCC 140-gr. | Once again, thats not a gigantic difference, but its a slight advantage in favor of the .284/7mm cartridges. Ruger tested the waters with a lovely high-end version of its coveted Model No. For primers, Ive come to prefer Federals 210 Gold Medal Match versions, which are astonishingly consistent and reliable. Finally, bullet size is other big distinguishing factor between them. Compare that to a 175-grain 7mm bullet fired at 2,850 fps from the .280 AI, which generates less than 26 ft-lbs. As the mathematicians among us know, when you increase diameter, frontal surface area increases exponentially. As sometimes happens in the world of rifle cartridges, the 280 AI (Ackley Improved) is becoming more popular than its parent, the excellent 280 Remington. Since it uses a much larger case diameter, most rifle magazines will hold more .270 Winchester, .280 Remington, or .280 AI cartridges than 7mm Remington Magnum cartridges. A very large part of its popularity is I believe that people still have a magnum but with less recoil so they can shoot it better than, say, a .300Win mag. Among other things, hes particularly well known for his series of Ackley Improved cartridges. of Israeli Defense Forces, joins David Fortier for an exclusive interview for Shotgun News. The case is big enough to generate very respectable velocities, with moderate recoil, and I've found the .280 AI to be very accurate. It looks like a .30-caliber projectile stuffed into a .223 Rem. Ackley Improved 40 degrees) hit something of a sweet spot between the .280 Remington and the 7mm Remington Magnum. Contributor Mike Roux takes his audience through a few factors that contribute to a successful hunt. 1/6/2023 Stephen. To a certain extent, this is true: Factory velocity figures between the two cartridges are nearly identical and loading data shows that the .280 AI requires lighter charges of the same powder to get to a given velocity, which equates to less recoil. Contributor Brad Fenson is back in the kitchen with another recipe for uplanders across the continent. Can Coolers | An Official Journal Of The NRA, Find More Great NRA Publications Perfect For Every Interest, Discover Everything That The NRA Has To Offer. Improved Military Rifle IMR 4007 SSC. Youre talking about a cartridge suitable for a wide variety of game without the recoil of a magnum round. . AccuBond Long Range 2,930 fps, Hornady Precision Hunter 162-gr. In stock. and uses 10 to 15 percent less powder to do so. Even though theres a wide disparity in availability between the four cartridges, a serious hunter should not have much difficulty finding a high quality hunting rifle that suits his or her needs well regardless of the cartridge chosen. Additionally, those smaller diameter .284 bullets used by the 7mm Rem Mag have a higher ballistic coefficient and more sectional density than .30 caliber bullets of the same weight used by the .30-06 Springfield. When you bump up to the magnum .30s, comparisons change. (Ret.) These modifications resulted in added capacity, which increased velocity, and less case stretch, which resulted in longer case life. What do the .280 Remington and .280 AI have to offer hunters, particularly compared to the .270 Winchester and 7mm Rem Mag? Interestingly enough,the .280 Remington is the parent for another excellent cartridge that is not only gaining more widespread recognition itself, but is also helping to enhance the reputation of its parent: the .280 Ackley Improved. Later, they also offered it in their Model 742 autoloader and Model 760 slide action before finally offering it in the Model 721 and 725 bolt-action rifles. Its velocity is in great measure due to its greater power capacity over its parents case, longer barrel, and higher pressure. The Ackley version is a fine old cartridge and, when loaded with the right bullet, is big enough medicine for game up to elk and moose. Best 270 Rifles For Hunting Ultimate Guide. In 7mm you can specify 1-8 or 1-9.5 twist rates. 2023 Outdoor Sportsman Group. Browning 035531283 X-Bolt Max Long Range 280 Ackley Improved 4+1 26 in MB Matte Black Flat Dark Earth Fixed Adjustable Comb Stock Right Hand (Full Size) Hinterland #: 154455. Ackley, was very well known for developing wildcat cartridges in the latter half of the 20th Century. Shellholders: Hornady #1. During the spring conservation order, you can hunt with outfitters from Arkansas to Saskatchewan. On the other hand, the .280 Remington is normally offered with 139 grain, 140 grain, or 150 grain bullets, but its possible to find a few loads with 156 grain, 160 grain, and 165 grain bullets as well. He didnt even flinch! Access the newest seasons of MeatEater, save content, and join in discussions with the Crew and others in the MeatEater community. Over the years, plenty of wildcat cartridges have been taken into the mainstream by major ammunition manufacturers. 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