.280 vs. 7x57

[roper]

I dont quite agree. I hear all the time that my 308 is just as good as your 06 or my o6 is just as good as your 300 mag or my 300 win mag will do anything a 300 wby will. If this is the case then the 308 should do anything a 300 wby does. IF both are handloaded up to there potential a 280 is going to be a harder hitting more powerful gun period. Personaly i dont have alot of experience with the 757 but shoot many deer each year and sure notice that my 7 mag dumps them faster then my 280 and my o6 dumps them faster then my 308 and my 300mag dumps them faster then any of them. Problem with these kinds of discusions on the internet is what you get is a guy who maybe shot 5 deer with the 757 and it killed each one so he thinks hes an expert on its killing power. After you shoot maybe 30 deer with each caliber you get a much better idea of what the true effectiveness is of each caliber. Another thing is the advice your getting may be from a guy who never shoots past a 100 yards. At that range even a 3030 dumps deer. Put them deer out past 300 yards and the effectivenes of differnt caliber guns really shows up. Out there a properly loaded 280 will leave the 757 in its dust and the 7mag will do the same thing to a 280. then another big factor is bullet selection. A 757 loaded with 140 ballistic tips will drop deer better then a 280 loaded with some of the so called premium bullets that dont give near as violent of expansion. thers alot to all of this but its silly to think that a bullet going 200 fps slower is going to be just as powerful as the exact same bullet going 200 fps faster. No granted bullet placement is the most important factor in quick kills and out to 300 yards a couple hundred feet per second of velocity isnt going to make a bullet bounce off of an animal or mean the differnce between a kill and a wounded animal. What im talking here is more the ability to drop an animal quickly and the ability to shoot flat enough that holdover isnt even a variable. I get told all the time that 2 or 3 inches of bullet drop doesnt mean squat but ive found that not to be true. It makes the differnce in whether your range estimation was exact or off 50 yards and few of us can dope range exactly. Even after shooting truck loads of deer at long range i still can  be off 50 yards eaisly on a 400 yard shot.   
 

I don't disagree with you since most all my experience is hunting deer here in Co which I'm limited to one buck tag and I could get a doe tag both are draw tags so I may or may not get a tag  each year.
 
I think most hunters and I say most hunters have a different view as how they take their aniimals and rifle performance vs your type experience shooting of deer.
 
 

[Lloyd Smale]

I guess i dont understand that. I think most hunters look for a gun that puts the animal there shooting down and down quickly. I dont know of any hunter that looks forward to tracking wounded animals. Crop damage shooting isnt hunting but you still are shooting deer at ranges from a 100 yards to 500 yards and a bullet that perfoms well doing that will perform well in any hunting situation. A load that kills at 400 yards is surely going to kill at 50 but a load that works at 50 may fail miserably at 400.

[mannyrock]

 
 Lloyd,
 
   I understand your point.  But, if you do shoot at ranges that vary from 50 yards to 400 yards, then why don't you just use a 7 Mag and be done with it?  Why fool around with any of the "lesser sevens" at all? 
 
   
Mannyrock
 

[Lloyd Smale]

Manny i enjoy trying differnt guns and loads. thats the biggest reason i love the opertunity to do this crop damage shooting. About the smallest 7mm i will use doing crop damage shooting is one of my 280s. With 120-140s they will get it done out to longer ranges but with not quite the athourity a 7mag does. Ive got two 7 mags and they are a couple of my favorite rifles for that work. The ruger 264 i have is probably my favorite right now. With 120 bts it absolutely decks deer. A few more i use often are the 300 win and weatherby mags. My 300 win mag has been nicknamed thumper by the guys i hunt with as I dont think a deer has ever took more then one step after being hit by it. Others i use are the 2506 and 257 wby and the good old 06 and occasionaly but not to often the 308 the non mags like the 2506 and 06 and 280 will do double duty come regular hunting  season but most times during regular season you will find me with a 250 sav or 257 roberts or a 308. Shots then dont usually run more then a 100 yards and never more then 200 and those rounds are plenty powerful for that. Now im not saying a guy couldnt get by with something like an 06 for everything and if it were my only gun id surely not stop doing it but where it really helps me using mags is I may grab a differnt gun each night and with the big guns i dont have to worry about trajectory out to 400 yards. Sighted in 2.5 inches high you can about hold dead on with most of them. They also seem to do much better in the wind and in those fields wind is a big factor. Like i said previously the biggest advantage is they tend to put deer down right now! We dont want them running out into the crops where wed do damage getting them out and my back is toast after 5 operations chasing around looking for a deer that ran off or dragging them back out of the woods is not something i look forward to anymore. An example would be last night. I shot a small doe at 425 yards accross the field. it was on the edge of the field eating potatoes. I was using my 264 with 120 bts and hit it right behind the shoulder  in the lungs. It never hit any bone and the deer still dropped in its tracks. If i would have been using something like an 757 i probably would have passed on the shot. No doubt i probably would have been able to hit it although it would have taken a bit more thinking to dope range and wind but id bet a dime to a dollar hit in the same place that deer woudnt have dropped in its tracks. It woudnt have gone far but it would have at least made the woods. Now after that i shot another that was at about 200 yards and no doubt the 757 would have made quick work of that. Ive got absolutely no disrespect for the 757 as a matter of fact if i wasnt so broke id love to find a ruger #1 int in 757 as it would made about the ultimate deer rifle for regular season but if i could only keep one rifle in my safe it would be either my 264 or one of my 7mags. I could get by just fine with any of those. If a guy is worried about meat damage its easy to download one to 757 levels but you sure cant load that 757 to run with a 7mag. Now i dont know if you can make any sense out of these ramblings but it all comes down to the fact i dont want one gun!! To me it would be about like having just a cresent wrench instead of a set of good wrenchs. I can use the proper tool for the job i working on at the time.

[mannyrock]

 
Lloyd,
 
  Great answer!
 
 
Manny

[gunnut69]

Gentlemen- I've read this thread with great interest and finally have to say there are some interesting points.. Most medium caliber centerfires of high intencity will kill deer with some authority but there are too many variables to say a vertain caliber is better than another. The impact area on the animal, the velocity at impact, the bullet type, the angle of travel inside the body of the animal, etc. etc.....  I would venture that any rifle capable of placing it's bullets well and throwing 10-180 grain bullets at 2800+ fps will kill deer if the hits are well placed. If stopping them in place is the goal I wish you well.. Lung shots in my experience almost never drop the dear in it's tracks.. The best shot for this is a high cervical spine shot, high usually misses and low will still take out the front of the lungs..and very low will most often damage the lungs.. This leaves out the 30-30 as while it kills just fine it is more limited in range.. Just my experience and I don't shoot control but have killed a lot of deer.. with many different calibers. and there is precious little difference in most of them and their performance on deer..

[Brithunter]

Ahhh since this old thread has been brought back to life, since my previous post in it I have actually built a .280 AI chambered rifle, the reason was two fold:-


1) I always wanted a .280 Ross but cannot find a good one that I can afford.


2) Acquired a .270 with a well worn bore for very cheap although it still shot quite well it was an ideal candidate for a new barrel so being a BSA Monarch a new BSA barrel in 7x64 was obtained and then machined to fit the Monarch action (thread was the same diameter but tennon was different length as new barrel was for the CF2 model) the chamber was them reamed out to .280 AI specs.


So I should be able to equal the .280 Ross performance in a modern package  .

[Lloyd Smale]

your absolutely right, theres no gurantees even with something like the 300 wby but in my experience your about twice as likely to dump one in its tracks with a lung shot using a mag then your are using something like a 708 or 308. Now remember im talking shots out past 200 yards and when they do run its usally a shorter distance. now like you said theres no gurantee and bullet placement has alot more to do with it then anything but then again a flatter shooting gun allows a guy to make more percise hits on deer way out there. Now again a guy who uses only one gun, say an 06, and knows his gun and load intimately can overcome a bit of trajectory. But in my experience those types of hunters are real rare. Personaly i shoot as much or more then anyone but i use differnt guns all the time and wont proclaim that i can grab any of them and know exactly where there going to hit at say 330 yards. the differnce in a 7mag and an 06 at that range makes it unnessisary.. Spine shots work well but damage the back straps which is a crime and shoulder shots work almost as well but then you usually loose most of the front shoulde meat. If im taking a shot that i absoultely need a deer to be put down in its tracks i usually go with a shoulder shot but by using enough gun ive found that a behind the shoulder shot will usually put them down within 50 feet. Another big downfall to spine shots is at 3-400 yards very few of us are precise enough to insure a hit there. Your talking a 3 inch target and youd have to have a moa gun minimum and a perfect rest and no wind to guarantee a shot like that. thats kind of my point with this whole discussion. Ranges past 300 yards call for a bit differnt thinking and there are just better tools for getting the job done. Back to the origins of this post thats what seperates the 757 form the 280. The 280 loaded right is on the bottom of the list of calibers that can do it but its on the list. The 757 is out of its league at those ranges. The 757 no matter how its loaded isnt going to do what the 280 can loaded to the same pressures. Its a great gun for the whitetail woods but if long shots are in the realm of possibilty the 280 is a much better choise.  Britthunter your 280ai would make a excellent long range gun. Its basicaly a 7mag in differnt clothes. One of the 280s i used to own was a #1b with a 26 inch barrel and it would push speer 145s to withing 50 fps of factory 7mag ammo. Blown out improved it would have probably beat factory 7mag ballistics.

Gentlemen- I've read this thread with great interest and finally have to say there are some interesting points.. Most medium caliber centerfires of high intencity will kill deer with some authority but there are too many variables to say a vertain caliber is better than another. The impact area on the animal, the velocity at impact, the bullet type, the angle of travel inside the body of the animal, etc. etc.....  I would venture that any rifle capable of placing it's bullets well and throwing 10-180 grain bullets at 2800+ fps will kill deer if the hits are well placed. If stopping them in place is the goal I wish you well.. Lung shots in my experience almost never drop the dear in it's tracks.. The best shot for this is a high cervical spine shot, high usually misses and low will still take out the front of the lungs..and very low will most often damage the lungs.. This leaves out the 30-30 as while it kills just fine it is more limited in range.. Just my experience and I don't shoot control but have killed a lot of deer.. with many different calibers. and there is precious little difference in most of them and their performance on deer..

[Qaz]

 I am getting right at 4,000fps with a 90gr bullet in a 221FB, using 53gr of 4150 compressed in the case using my 10 ton press and a nylon rod. I used the round to take costal brown bear during my trip to Alaska last winter. I sat on a hill and shot 3 browns @1,000yds, they dropped like flys, the fourth got away by grabbing the legs of a passing sea gull and flying away.
 This all sounds about as possible as some of this stuff posted in the above thread. Please!!

[Lloyd Smale]

id kind of like to know which posts your refering to. I didnt see anything in any post that refered to anything your talking about. If its my post you can believe one thing. My opinions come from shooting deer not from paper ballistics or from someone elses experiences or from garbage posted on the internet by guys who maybe have shot 3 deer in there lifetimes. Ive killed probably 300 whitetails in my life and thats a conservitive estimate truth be told that number may be doubled. I know that in two consecutive years that the two of us shot over a 100 combined. This year is about done and ive shot 17 and its the handsdown worse year weve had.  Thats what my opinion comes from, how about you. If your going to slam other posters how about posting your experinces to show what youve learned to compare to the rest rather then comming up with a sarcastic post like that.

I am getting right at 4,000fps with a 90gr bullet in a 221FB, using 53gr of 4150 compressed in the case using my 10 ton press and a nylon rod. I used the round to take costal brown bear during my trip to Alaska last winter. I sat on a hill and shot 3 browns @1,000yds, they dropped like flys, the fourth got away by grabbing the legs of a passing sea gull and flying away.
 This all sounds about as possible as some of this stuff posted in the above thread. Please!!

[pastorp]

Qaz,

If fish & game ever catches up with you you'll be in deep trouble     You better go take your meds now & go back to bed..

Regards,

[Drilling Man]

  At least he's shooting bears!  All Lloyd ever shoots is those puny little deer!
 
  DM

[Qaz]

My post was sarcastic because of the general direction of the thread. People taking one cartridge and trying to make it into something it is not!
 
Lloyd-This is what I know: The 308 is not equal to the 06, if for no other reason than it will not shoot heavy bullets as well.
Sammi sets pressure limits for safety reasons,
 A 280 is a fine round but will not equal a 7mm mag if loaded to sammi limits-it will not with a 100gr bullet and it will not with a 175gr bullet,
 When reloading-when you see signs of pressure, you have already exceeded the safe limits.
I know that kids read this internet stuff and take it as being true, even if it is not and may attempt it.
But most of all, I know when I am reading a load of crap.

[roper]

My post was sarcastic because of the general direction of the thread. People taking one cartridge and trying to make it into something it is not!
 
Lloyd-This is what I know: The 308 is not equal to the 06, if for no other reason than it will not shoot heavy bullets as well.
Sammi sets pressure limits for safety reasons,
 A 280 is a fine round but will not equal a 7mm mag if loaded to sammi limits-it will not with a 100gr bullet and it will not with a 175gr bullet,
 When reloading-when you see signs of pressure, you have already exceeded the safe limits.
I know that kids read this internet stuff and take it as being true, even if it is not and may attempt it.
But most of all, I know when I am reading a load of crap.

 
 
 
What bothers me about this post it's turned into a bragging post on how many deer one can kill.  I think it's gives a bad imagine of what a hunter is and how they take game.  I sure wish they band talking about crop damage killing.  We have a band here talking about Ackley loads.

[Graybeard]

We have a ban here talking about Ackley loads.

No we don't not really. I just don't want folks posting wild blue pill proof load data here. Ya can talk about them all ya want. When you start listing specific load data that is totally ridiculous then yeah I step in if I see it.

The .30-30 AI is the one I've stepped in on most often. I have personal experience with it in a couple of barrels and have measured the before and after case capacity increase and am here to tell you that you can't get the velocity increases folks are claiming for it at sane pressure levels. Same for most of the AIs. There is just no pressure tesed data out there for them other than the .280 AI and .257 AI.

[Brithunter]

My post was sarcastic because of the general direction of the thread. People taking one cartridge and trying to make it into something it is not!
 
Lloyd-This is what I know: The 308 is not equal to the 06, if for no other reason than it will not shoot heavy bullets as well.
Sammi sets pressure limits for safety reasons,
 A 280 is a fine round but will not equal a 7mm mag if loaded to sammi limits-it will not with a 100gr bullet and it will not with a 175gr bullet,
 When reloading-when you see signs of pressure, you have already exceeded the safe limits.
I know that kids read this internet stuff and take it as being true, even if it is not and may attempt it.
But most of all, I know when I am reading a load of crap.

Please remember that not all of us are handicapped by SAMMI and their dreamt up limits. Some of us live under the CIP system hence we can buy ammunition loaded to the designers ideas and not what SAMMI thinks they should be.


As for my .280 AI well SAMMI really messed it up once again instead of using Ackleys design which let's face it has been about for many decades nope they had to redesign the 280 AI and actually make things dangerous. I had a heck of a problem finding out what reamer to use and what brass/dies would fit as SAMMI's will not interchange with Ackleys it appears    and SAMMI claim they are making things safe  ................................ sheesh.


So far I have only fire-formed a bit of brass and the load development stage has not begun. Once I get the firearms licensing issue sorted out here I'll, hopefully  , get back to it. Once I get the loads performing on target and with a suitable velocity then I'll send a batch to the proof house for pressure testing and get a report of what my loads are actually producing. This is not exactly cheap to do but I feel it will be worth it.


I have no qualms about the rifle action as after all the BSA Majestic/Monarch is a very well made action    and I chose the CF2 barrel as it has a larger profile over the chamber as you can see here:-






In the white before final polishing and blacking. The action and barrel were blacked separately.


This is the normal Majestic/Monarch barrel profile:-







Not the donor but the donor was the same model/year just much more worn and that too was also a .270 Win rifle.



Before fire forming (factory ammo) and a formed case from my rifle.


The aim as I said before it to produce similar velocities/performance to the old .280 Ross cartridge so 3050-3100 fps with a 140 grain bullet or close to it is the goal. The Hornady 7th edition lists loads giving 3000fps with their 139 grain bullet in the .280 Remington with a couple of powders so it should not be impossible to achieve    and of course this is 100 fps behind their top loads for the 7mm Rem Mag. I for one never claimed or said that my .280 AI will equal the 7mm Rem Mag if i wanted one I happen to know where there is a new actually unfinished BSA CF2 in such a chambering.


If we can find good precision in tight grouping at the same time would be very nice. I'll accept 1-1 1/2 MOA  from field shooting positions.

[Lloyd Smale]

why would you want to ban talking about crop damage killing. Its a nessiary thing around here as if we didnt do it the farmers wouldnt make a profit and youd be paying much more for potatoes. Why to would you want to ban it. I have an oppertunity to shoot many deer with many guns and differnt loads and pass the knowlege i obtain on to other people. Ill give you an example. Ive been trying out tsx barnes bullets this year. Up until last night i had 3 out of 3 shots with them turn into what i call bullet failure. I recovered all three deer but one bullet didnt penetrate and two just pensiled through the deer. I figured id give them one last attempt last night. I shot a good sized doe at 200 yards. the rest was dead steady and at that range have no doubts on shot placement. the gun was a 2506 with a 80 grain tsx. I heard the bullet hit the deer and though it was down. We went over to where i had shot and searched for 2 hours and never found a drop of blood. It was the first deer i lost this year. I wouldnt hunt squirrels with a tsx after this years experience! They have got to be the most overhyped bullet out there. Now if you listen to the internet experts God himself would use them. But id bet most of there real life experience comes from a keyboard not from actually killing things. One more thing on crop damage shooting. About half the meat we take gets donated to the food bank localy. We even butcher the meat for them. So now tell me why you would ban posting about it here. Next youll want enclosure hunting talk banned and then hunting with a bow banned. Are you a better man then me because you kill two deer every year instead of 50? 

My post was sarcastic because of the general direction of the thread. People taking one cartridge and trying to make it into something it is not!
 
Lloyd-This is what I know: The 308 is not equal to the 06, if for no other reason than it will not shoot heavy bullets as well.
Sammi sets pressure limits for safety reasons,
 A 280 is a fine round but will not equal a 7mm mag if loaded to sammi limits-it will not with a 100gr bullet and it will not with a 175gr bullet,
 When reloading-when you see signs of pressure, you have already exceeded the safe limits.
I know that kids read this internet stuff and take it as being true, even if it is not and may attempt it.
But most of all, I know when I am reading a load of crap.

 
 
 
What bothers me about this post it's turned into a bragging post on how many deer one can kill.  I think it's gives a bad imagine of what a hunter is and how they take game.  I sure wish they band talking about crop damage killing.  We have a band here talking about Ackley loads.

[parkergunshop]

Lloyd,
Most of the posters on this thread have never tried to make a living as a farmer, now a days you have to have close to 1 million dollars in capital investment in farm equipment and then they are at the mercy of the weather, drought, heat, storms, frost, disease, and not the least animal crop damage.   
We seldom saw any deer here 50 years ago and how they have become a nuisance becoming over populated, if disease doesn't get to them we will be forced to crop shoot deer as you have been doing, some farmers are already doing it.
Most of the posters on this thread are dedicated handloaders, I push the  limit to find maximum safe loads for myself, but never load them for someone else unless I have their rifle to test the loads.
I posted 7x57 velocity loads earlier for my rifle with a 26 inch douglas barrel that are at .280 Remington levels with a 22 or 24 inch barrel, but it is achievable and safe in my rifle.   Probably most handloaders unless you shoot as much as Lloyd would come out cheaper by just purchasing factory ammo, but some of us like the challenge of doing it ourselves to find the most accurate and efficient load for a specific gun.   No two guns are exactly alike making this a challenge that must be repeated over and over if you load for multiple guns.  Even though I work loads up to the maximum level, I normally select the most accurate load for my use even if it is two or three grains of powder below max.   Most of us take accuracy over maximum velocity for 50 feet per second makes no difference on game.
 

[Drilling Man]

  I guess that explains why i have friends who drive up to the UP to hunt, and find the deer populations down so much...
 
  I don't think you are doing one thing for the potato prices any place other than in the UP, as there are LOT'S of potatoes grown all over Mi.
 
  DM

[pastorp]

I'm sure other states grow potatoes as well.  I even grew some here in Alaska one year. 

When we moved to New Mexico (me & 2 of my friends) we hunted jackrabbits extensively. They were all over the place. We had the ranchers blessing too. But you know you can hardly find a rabbit in that county anymore. Ranchers & farmers want every blade of grass & every sq inch of ground for their own interests. Lloyd, sorry but your just trying to sound righous when in reality all hunters will pay in the future for the farmers greed. JMO 

Regards,

[Lloyd Smale]

there is a major differnce in deer populations in the wild areas of the up then there is in the farm areas. there is definately no shortage of deer on this farm. You can drive by in the middle of the day and see 50 deer in a field. As to growing them in other places and states you will find just like here the up that about every farm does crop damage shooting. the differnce is in most states you have to leave the deer lay where its shot. In mich. they allow us to haverst the deer and use the meat. If youve ever seen the damage a few deer do to a potatoe field youd understand much more. As to the farmers being the bad guys here. Best look where your last potatoes or any other crop type food came from. Without them 90 percent of the country and a good portion of the world would be awful hungry. Kind of commical too that guys that complain shooting that many deer is a bad thing but dont think twice about comming home with there limit of birds or fish which are in a bigger decline up here then deer are by far. The dnr is in control of how many deer we shoot. They come and look at the damage and the strenght of the deer heard many times during the year and base the number of tags on that. Drilling man id about bet your buddys come up here and shoot two bucks if they can and fill doe tags too. We shoot NO bucks and even during regular rifle season i buy only one tag and will only shoot a buck 8 point or bigger. Why? because i think the buck to doe ration is way out of wack in the UP and think its crazy to let people shoot more then one buck. Id bet i see 40 does to one buck around our camp. Personaly i also think its nuts that they allow out of state hunters to even participate in our season. they park there campers all around like its some trailer trash park and leave messes and shoot even more bucks. All in the name of the almighty dollar. the dnr makes money off the liceneces and the bars and stores make money from sales and our buck to doe ration continues to get worse. As far as im conserned your buddys should stay below the bridge. If you think im being rightious so be it but what im doing is legal and needed and to be honest i could care less if any poster on here doesnt like it. Must not be everyone because the farmer has a list of about 50 guys that want to get in on it if one of us ever quits. Ban posting about crop damage! I think a better ban would be post conserning personal ethics. Especially ones that come from a lack of education on the subject. I dont pass judgement on anyone that is haversting game legally.

[Drilling Man]

there is a major differnce in deer populations in the wild areas of the up then there is in the farm areas. there is definately no shortage of deer on this farm. You can drive by in the middle of the day and see 50 deer in a field. As to growing them in other places and states you will find just like here the up that about every farm does crop damage shooting. the differnce is in most states you have to leave the deer lay where its shot. In mich. they allow us to haverst the deer and use the meat. If youve ever seen the damage a few deer do to a potatoe field youd understand much more. As to the farmers being the bad guys here. Best look where your last potatoes or any other crop type food came from. Without them 90 percent of the country and a good portion of the world would be awful hungry. Kind of commical too that guys that complain shooting that many deer is a bad thing but dont think twice about comming home with there limit of birds or fish which are in a bigger decline up here then deer are by far. The dnr is in control of how many deer we shoot. They come and look at the damage and the strenght of the deer heard many times during the year and base the number of tags on that. Drilling man id about bet your buddys come up here and shoot two bucks if they can and fill doe tags too. We shoot NO bucks and even during regular rifle season i buy only one tag and will only shoot a buck 8 point or bigger. Why? because i think the buck to doe ration is way out of wack in the UP and think its crazy to let people shoot more then one buck. Id bet i see 40 does to one buck around our camp. Personaly i also think its nuts that they allow out of state hunters to even participate in our season. they park there campers all around like its some trailer trash park and leave messes and shoot even more bucks. All in the name of the almighty dollar. the dnr makes money off the liceneces and the bars and stores make money from sales and our buck to doe ration continues to get worse. As far as im conserned your buddys should stay below the bridge. If you think im being rightious so be it but what im doing is legal and needed and to be honest i could care less if any poster on here doesnt like it. Must not be everyone because the farmer has a list of about 50 guys that want to get in on it if one of us ever quits. Ban posting about crop damage! I think a better ban would be post conserning personal ethics. Especially ones that come from a lack of education on the subject. I dont pass judgement on anyone that is haversting game legally.

  Lloyd,
 
  I hate shoot holes in your post, but i own/live on a farm, i live in a farming community, my friends are farmers.  I grow much of my own food, i don't need your potatoes.  lol
 
  I don't know any farmer around here who shoots deer because of crop damage.  I know i sure don't...  One farmer here grows potatoes... i don't believe he looses a lot of potatoes to deer damage...  I do know of a guy that owned orchards, he use to shoot a lot of deer, shine them or any way he could get them, and never got permits.  He used the ruse the deer were eating his apples, but he was a poacher long before he owned orchards...  Fortunately, he has sold out now and he's YOUR problem... as he moved to the UP.
 
  You'd also be wrong about my friends...  They do NOT shoot everything they see up there, and only kill a bigger buck, sometimes a legal doe for camp meat!  They say they just aren't seeing deer like they use to, one was born and grew up, up there.....blameing it on all kinds of things, but i bet they didn't think hundreds were being killed for crop damage...  I guess it never occured to you that some of us just like to hunt, like to camp and don't have to shoot everything that comes down the trail.
 
  You can paint everyone from the lower penn. with the same brush if you want to, but so can i.  AND the biggest poachers that ever lived around here, moved here from the UP.  So, lets not starting painting everyone with the same brush!
 
  DM

[parkergunshop]

Ok,
This started out as the FPS capabilities of the 7x57 vs the .280 Remington and got into the differences of both with the 7 M/M Remington Mag.   It also got into a peeing contest over crop damage shooting of deer, much ado over nothing.
I have loaded for all these round and my loads are in agreement with P. O. Ackley's loads in his Book.   Rifles 1908 Mauser 26 inch Shaw barrel, 700 Remington and 110 Savage with factory 24 inch barrels with no pressure signs noted.

                                        Velocities
                                     140 Grain          154 grain
7x57                             2971FPS        2923FPS
280 Remington            3125FPS        3000FPS
7 M/M Rem Mag        3265FPS         3100FPS
 
Actually P. O. Ackley's book shows 3030FPS with a maximum load in the 7x57 with the 140 grain bullet and 4350 powder this is only 95 FPS behind the 4350 load for the .280 Remington. I did not attempt to match this and stopped at 2971FPS.

The advantage is in the range of 100 FPS for the .280 Remington over the 7M/M and 100 FPS for the 7 Mag over the .280 Remington.
This assumes that the old weaker 7X57 Actions, 93&95 Mausers, Rem Rolling Block etc are not in the picture using comparative more modern actions types 98 Mauser, Remington and Savage etc.

[Lloyd Smale]

I probably wasnt right sterotyping your buddys but i just have seen so much crap over the years from down state hunters that i dont have paitients for them. Like i said it can look like a mobile home park in some areas. We even had them set up camp on our land and get snotty when nicely asked to leave. Ive ran accross more then one gut shot deer on our property and have even found blood trails and recovered two deer that were shot and followed the blood trail back and found the hunter never took a step toward finding either of those deer.  A guy could probably buy a new gun with the beer cans left in the woods by them. Last year a few times sitting in my blind i thought i was a 100 yards from a rock consert. Music blairing during prime hunting time. No its not wrong to throw you all in the same bad apple barrel but ive found so many bad apples amonst them that its hard to justify digging into the barrerl to find a good one. These feelings arent just mine youll find there about universal to the man up here. We to in our camp area have had a decline in deer too. Its a natural cyle up here and a bit has to do with predetation. Lots of deer around here have been killed by wolves lately. The area we crop damage shoot is just as different from our camp area as it is to go out west. Its nothing to see 50 to a 100 deer in a field in the middle of a summer day. those deer arent the deer your buddys are hunting. We talked to the dnr about it one day when they stopped by and they said deer in these farm areas rarely go outside of a 40 acre area in there entire lives. they have no need to. By the way this farmer has at least 20 hunters that he allows to hunt during regular season too and if i didnt have a camp with my dad i would be there myself as rarely does anyone go home there without a nice buck. He also allows disabled hunters access to his land for hunting small game and deer. hes not an evil sob that wants to slaughter every deer. Hes just a farmer trying to feed his family and his 3 boys familys. Its like any other occupation. Profit margins can be slim and it doesnt take much to tip the scales. He has a ton of money invested and has to make payments just like everyone else. If you even had the chance to see how many deer are in that area youd know that the 50-100 we take out of there every year isnt much. Its also true the we chase more deer off then we actually shoot. Hunt a field two nights and shoot deer and the deer vanish for a week. Come back next week and they will be back. By rotateing fields we keep the deer out of the crops without having to shoot them all. I cant see anyting wrong with what we do. We dont screw up anybodys hunting season as we dont shoot a single buck. We donate lots of food to the hungry and help this farmer to make a profit. Wheres the evil in that?

there is a major differnce in deer populations in the wild areas of the up then there is in the farm areas. there is definately no shortage of deer on this farm. You can drive by in the middle of the day and see 50 deer in a field. As to growing them in other places and states you will find just like here the up that about every farm does crop damage shooting. the differnce is in most states you have to leave the deer lay where its shot. In mich. they allow us to haverst the deer and use the meat. If youve ever seen the damage a few deer do to a potatoe field youd understand much more. As to the farmers being the bad guys here. Best look where your last potatoes or any other crop type food came from. Without them 90 percent of the country and a good portion of the world would be awful hungry. Kind of commical too that guys that complain shooting that many deer is a bad thing but dont think twice about comming home with there limit of birds or fish which are in a bigger decline up here then deer are by far. The dnr is in control of how many deer we shoot. They come and look at the damage and the strenght of the deer heard many times during the year and base the number of tags on that. Drilling man id about bet your buddys come up here and shoot two bucks if they can and fill doe tags too. We shoot NO bucks and even during regular rifle season i buy only one tag and will only shoot a buck 8 point or bigger. Why? because i think the buck to doe ration is way out of wack in the UP and think its crazy to let people shoot more then one buck. Id bet i see 40 does to one buck around our camp. Personaly i also think its nuts that they allow out of state hunters to even participate in our season. they park there campers all around like its some trailer trash park and leave messes and shoot even more bucks. All in the name of the almighty dollar. the dnr makes money off the liceneces and the bars and stores make money from sales and our buck to doe ration continues to get worse. As far as im conserned your buddys should stay below the bridge. If you think im being rightious so be it but what im doing is legal and needed and to be honest i could care less if any poster on here doesnt like it. Must not be everyone because the farmer has a list of about 50 guys that want to get in on it if one of us ever quits. Ban posting about crop damage! I think a better ban would be post conserning personal ethics. Especially ones that come from a lack of education on the subject. I dont pass judgement on anyone that is haversting game legally.

  Lloyd,
 
  I hate shoot holes in your post, but i own/live on a farm, i live in a farming community, my friends are farmers.  I grow much of my own food, i don't need your potatoes.  lol
 
  I don't know any farmer around here who shoots deer because of crop damage.  I know i sure don't...  One farmer here grows potatoes... i don't believe he looses a lot of potatoes to deer damage...  I do know of a guy that owned orchards, he use to shoot a lot of deer, shine them or any way he could get them, and never got permits.  He used the ruse the deer were eating his apples, but he was a poacher long before he owned orchards...  Fortunately, he has sold out now and he's YOUR problem... as he moved to the UP.
 
  You'd also be wrong about my friends...  They do NOT shoot everything they see up there, and only kill a bigger buck, sometimes a legal doe for camp meat!  They say they just aren't seeing deer like they use to, one was born and grew up, up there.....blameing it on all kinds of things, but i bet they didn't think hundreds were being killed for crop damage...  I guess it never occured to you that some of us just like to hunt, like to camp and don't have to shoot everything that comes down the trail.
 
  You can paint everyone from the lower penn. with the same brush if you want to, but so can i.  AND the biggest poachers that ever lived around here, moved here from the UP.  So, lets not starting painting everyone with the same brush!
 
  DM

[pastorp]

Do you guys really think a couple hundred fps really kill faster. It makes hiting at longer range easier but I believe shot placement & matching the bullet to the velocity & game is more important than just a little faster round.  I believe a guy can get caught up in compareing rifles that really are not that different.  Maybe Swampy is right, just buy a 30/06 and shoot 180gr bullets. 

You guys are something....

Regards,

[Lloyd Smale]

yes i do believe a couple hundred feet per second does help put down deer faster. As a matter of fact theres no doubt in my mind it does. Sure bullet placement is the #1 critieria but faster bullets mean more vilolent expansion and that usually means more bleading and a quicker kill. Ive shot deer with almost every caliber put in centerfire bolt rifles. No doubt your trusty 270 or o6 will get the job done. But a 7mag or 300 mag will do it better. I have to chuckle at the 180 grain o6 answers. Ive probably been involved in tracking more wounded deer using that combo then all the other combos combined. Sure part of that is up here its probably the most popular combo in the woods. But alot of it is because alot of the 180 grain .30 cal bullets are designed to hold up to 300 mag velocitys and just dont open up well at o6 velocitys when the range gets out to 200 plus yards. Ive seen many incidences of bullets blowing through whitetails with no evidence of expansion. I like the 06 dont get me wrong. But ive found the 165s and 150s do a much better job in it of putting down deer sized game. One of my favorite bullets in the 06 is the ancient old winchester power point 150. Its been accurate in most of my o6s it allways expands well and holds together for an exit wound. I bought a couple thousand of the about 10 years ago to burn up in my ar10 and when i found out how well they shot out of a few 06s and 308s bolt guns i figured id try them on deer and have yet to be let down by them. Ive taken deer out to 400 yards with them and even at those ranges they give decent expansion. Personaly i save the 180s for the 300 mags and even then only for game a bit larger then deer. I may be a bit differnt then some here. I look for a load that kills quickly not just kills. Nothing i hate more then putting a good hit on a deer and watching it run off. If it cost me 2 more pounds of hamburger meat so be it. Dont get me wrong im in no way saying a 270 or o6 or ever a 243 isnt enough for deer. With the right bullet and good bullet placement there devestating on deer out to 300 yards most of the time but the mags add a bit of range to that and do it about all the time. when i going out hunting in an area that may present a shot over 300 yards I will ALLWAYS grab a mag rilfe out of the safe.

[pastorp]

Lloyd,

This thread was origionally about the 7x57 vrs the 280, from which we have strayed a good bit.  I just threw in the 30/06, 180gr hoping to get Swampy involved. I agree the 180gr 06 bullet is too stout for deer.

You brought in the crop shooting bit. For nornmal woods hunting detween the 7x57 & the 280 what you think about bullets and performance.

 

[Lloyd Smale]

Thats a tough one. I guess alot of it evolves around how hot you intend to load the 757 but ill go this route figuring you intend to load it to its potential. there close. Personaly I load nothing but 140s in both so ill say that according to my experimenting the 280 is capable in the same barrel lenght of adding a 150fps. At woods ranges out to 200 yards youd never know which hit a deer but when shots get out to 300 the 280 is going to slap deer a bit better. Both definately will kill deer even out to 300 well with a well placed shot and id use the 280 out maybe 50 yards more but like i said in my post alot of my opinion comes from planting deer on the ground quickly and from what ive seen in the field when the range gets out past 200 the 280 just does it  better. Now to be honest ive only shot maybe 20 whitetail in my life with the 757 many more with the 280 but the reason for that is when i know the range will be out past 200 yards or its even a possibilty i will usually leave the 757 in the safe. Both though are excellent rifles for the way about 90 percent of hunters hunt at least around here anyway. To get a shot past 200 yards around here in whitetail season requires a hunter to about design his stand to get it. Id say 90 percent of the whitetails taken around here in deer season are shot at less then a 100 yards and at that range even a 3030 puts a big hurt on them. In my experience as a matter of fact the 3030 does better with corelocks then a 06 with 180s. Last thing is i want to appologize for getting this off topic. I have my opinions on what works and what doesnt and they come from my field experince. Granted others may see it differently but i tend to run off at the mouth (keyboard) at times. to many pain pills and no deer to cut up this morning. Got skunked last night. It doesnt happen often but its toward the end of crop damage shooting and i guess we have them thinned out a bit now. Leaves me with a bit to much time to think in the morning

[Lloyd Smale]

Ill add this for one more off topic post i just read in an old handloader an aritcle on the 280ai by barness (spelling) Now im not a big fan of his writting but this one caught my attention. He claims hes shot elk and moose and many deer with the AI using the 120 ballistic tip nos. He says it better constructed then most bts because nosler knew that silouette shooters need it to be. Now im giving serious thought to trying it in the 280 and even the 7mag next year. Now either the 280 or the 757 would no doubt step up in performance if it worked. It would easily put the 757 into the 300 yard catagory and close the gap of performance between the 757 using it and the 280 using 140s. Ive got a pile of them left from the 7 waters tc i sold so ill be testing next fall. If they do work out it will definately be my  bullet of choise for the 757 and even the 280. Again keep in mind that my needs from a load arent the same as most guys. But id bet that 120 would make the 757 into a killing machine.

[drdougrx]

Interesting thoughs LLoyd as always.  My 7x57 is a sporterized large ring mauser built for the venezualen military.  I'm not sure of the twist but it's whatever the military used at the time.  It shoots 160gr RN into 1.5" all day.  I do have some 140gr accubonds that I shot a deer with...should try them again.  I wonder if the twist would stabilize the 120gr BTs?