Well, I bought the 280 Remington. With a 22" mtn contour bbl it handles pretty good. Does anyone have a 280 Remington Mtn rifle and what does it like for loads? Thanks

I don't have a Mountain Rifle but I do have a Remington 725 .280 Rem., that I bought new in 1960. Also a custom rifle in .280 Remington that I had Frank Pachmayr build for me in the late 1970s.

My loads that are very accurate and very effective for Mule, Whitetail, Blacktail deer, and antelope are using IMR 4350 and either the Hornady 139 grains Interlock PSP, or the Nosler 140 grains Partition. 56.0 grains of powder.

For elk and Black bear, it's 54.0 grains IMR 4350 and the 160 grains Nosler Partition bullet.

I've killed a lot of animals with those loads and they work very, very well in my two .280 Remington rifles.

Of course, all rifles are different, so you'll have to experiment to find the combo that is just right for your rifle.

Good luck.

L.W.

i have a .280 mountain rifle that likes:
56.5 RE-19
either 139 interbonds or 140 accubonds
only 2900 fps but extremely accurate and effective

b h

All rifles are diff. but my .280 lives the slwer powders w/ all bullet weights from 140-175gr. H4831sc & IMR4831 for 140-145gr. IMR7828 for 160gr-175gr. Most accurate factory rounds I have shot were the discontinued SPeer Nitrex.

Westernmassman, I got my 280 M700 in the early 1990s when the stainless M700 was first introduced. It has a composite stock, the mountain rifle bbl contour, and a blind magazine. I have no idea if my loads will benefit you because, (1) all rifles are a rule unto themselves, (2) I am uninterested in maxing out any of the cartridges I reload for, and (3) I only hunt whitetails so standard bullets do it quite well for me. As a matter of fact, the first load I ever tried in this rifle was the only load it ever fired until this past Fall when I finally ran out of the original stash of bullets.

The primary load is 150 gr. R-P Corelocks over 56 gr. of AA3100 powder. This load is a couple of grains or so below max in the Accurate manual. It has slain a few truckloads of whitetails quite well since the first one taken on Jan. 8, 1993. I never recovered a single bullet from this rifle/load on any deer I shot. However, a buddy borrowed it once and shot a running deer and got an instant kill. When we butchered the deer, we found that the bullet had centered the hip joint, penetrated about 1.5 – 2.0 inches, hit the ball joint and stopped. The ball joint was cracked and the bullet was perfectly mushroomed. According to the friend (I wasn’t there) the little buck went straight down and never kicked once it hit the ground. If anyone can explain that bullet performance and hit reaction, I’d love to hear it.

Finding myself short of loads and not enough of the R-P bullets remaining this past Fall, I used the same powder charge under some 160 grain Sierras or Speers (can’t remember at the moment). I didn’t take a deer with this load/rifle this year but it shot just as well as with the previous load.

If you hunt medium game only, these loads or something similar will do it well. If you’re after elk or similar sized critters, you might want to look at premium bullets. Good luck with your new rifle.