I've been handloading rifle cartridges for about thirty years, but never loaded for .280 Remington before and I recently acquired a .280 Remington custom rifle with these specs:
- 24", 1-9" .280 Rem McGowen barrel with a fairly tight chamber and a long throat
- action & magazine handle up to 3.6" COAL
So far I've tested H4350 up to book max loads with various bullet weights to get a sense of the velocities & pressures. Accuracy seems promising, but velocities are on the low side and pressures seem VERY low.
I've heard that RL26 should work well with the heavier projectiles in .280 Rem, but the only official data I've found is for Berger 150s (61.0 gr max @ 2997 fps).
I haven't used RL26 before, so I ran the numbers for 168 grainers with Gordon's Reloading Tool and asked my buddy to do the same with QuickLoad - results look like this:
All firsthand information about loading .280 Remington using projectiles weighing 150 to 180 grains would be highly welcome and if you happen to load .280 Rem with RL26, I'd be very interested to hear about your experiences.
- 24", 1-9" .280 Rem McGowen barrel with a fairly tight chamber and a long throat
- action & magazine handle up to 3.6" COAL
So far I've tested H4350 up to book max loads with various bullet weights to get a sense of the velocities & pressures. Accuracy seems promising, but velocities are on the low side and pressures seem VERY low.
I've heard that RL26 should work well with the heavier projectiles in .280 Rem, but the only official data I've found is for Berger 150s (61.0 gr max @ 2997 fps).
I haven't used RL26 before, so I ran the numbers for 168 grainers with Gordon's Reloading Tool and asked my buddy to do the same with QuickLoad - results look like this:
All firsthand information about loading .280 Remington using projectiles weighing 150 to 180 grains would be highly welcome and if you happen to load .280 Rem with RL26, I'd be very interested to hear about your experiences.
