Hi remsonly,
I am not what one would call a "regular" poster here, but I am a regular "lurker"...in fact, that's me sitting in the front row now, pencil and paper in hand.
Anyway, I personally think you've made a good choice with the NEF .280
I have the same rifle you described in .280, albeit no medallion. I also own a couple other NEF's and they are quite possibly the best "bang" for your buck available.
My .280 is topped of with a Leupold 2x7 and is quite possibly the best long range rifle I have ever owned.
Less than 1" groups are quite common, and less than 4.5" groups at 300 yds.... if I flinch, or jerk the trigger just right, and that is darn hard to beat, no matter what you're shooting.
I have several bolt guns that will not shoot as good, not to say the don't shoot well at all, it's just the accuracy of this particular .280 is somewhat phenomenal, IMO.
Now the kicker to this little story is the fact that when I bought the rifle, I bought 5 boxes of FUSION 140gr bullets just to have the brass for reloading....in fact, this ammo was the only .280 the store had so I bought it all!
Now, in all honesty, two years later I am wondering if I will ever be able to load ammo as accurate as the FUSION for this rifle.
And, needless to say, I am quite stingy with what's left of my factory ammo, as my handloads are leaving a lot to be desired at this point.
I just wanted to pass this little story on to you so you will know that it's very possible that somewhere along the line, you are going to make a lot worse mistake than buying that NEF .280. Plus, it is quite possible that you may stumble across a factory load that will provide accuracy very hard to duplicate by handloading.
Russ...
