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280AI

Pyscodog

Gold $$ Contributor
I have a newly acquired 280AI. Hart barrel and McMillian stock. I was told it had a 9 twist but after checking it three times, I come up with it being a 10 twist. Never the less, I tried 120 Noslers and it didn't seem to care for them. The previous owner said he shot 168 Nosler Accu-bonds but they are just to hard to get and I really don't need that heavy of a bullet for the small deer in Oklahoma where I hunt. H4831SC seems to be powder of choice by most and with a 168 Berger VLD-H, I get decent groups but feel the rifle is capable of better. Any suggestions and maybe bullet/powder choices?

Thanks!
 
Pyscodog said:
I have a newly acquired 280AI. Hart barrel and McMillian stock. I was told it had a 9 twist but after checking it three times, I come up with it being a 10 twist. Never the less, I tried 120 Noslers and it didn't seem to care for them. The previous owner said he shot 168 Nosler Accu-bonds but they are just to hard to get and I really don't need that heavy of a bullet for the small deer in Oklahoma where I hunt. H4831SC seems to be powder of choice by most and with a 168 Berger VLD-H, I get decent groups but feel the rifle is capable of better. Any suggestions and maybe bullet/powder choices?

Thanks!
Click to expand...
RL23
 
I have 280AI that I just use for deer with H-4831sc,150gr Nolser BT and loads from Nosler manual. My other one mostly use for elk.
 
From a previous post.......

I played with my 280AI rifles over the summer and here is what I have for "pet" loads so far....154 grain Hornady Interlock bullets with a charge of 56.0 grains of IMR4831 just about put them in the same hole. 175 grain Nosler Partitions with a charge of 56.0 grains of Reloder 22 produced some of the best groups I have seen with any Partition in anything. Maybe it's just me or my rifles...but I find Partition bullets not very accurate in anything. The above load did shoot them in just about an inch + or -.
The most accurate load I have found for my 280AI's is a 140 grain Berger VLD Hunting bullet and 55.5 grains of N160. It puts them all in one not very ragged hole. I have to say that I was surprised the 280AI took a lot of doing to find these loads. I have two of them, one a Mountain Ascent and the other a custom pre-64.
I took it for granted that this round would be relatively easy to load for and be accurate like my 30-06AI, but again, it took quite a bit of testing a lot of different powder and bullet combo's to get to these loads. I tried every suitable Enduron powder made and had no luck with any of it. I used a Dave Manson SAAMI spec reamer and I will say that neither rifle likes to be seated out into or even near the lands. Best of luck.
 
Mine shoots Berger 140's with H4831sc better than anything, and i have experimented with a lot of bullet/powder combos. I have used it on elk out to 700 yds.
 
msinc said:
From a previous post.......

I played with my 280AI rifles over the summer and here is what I have for "pet" loads so far....154 grain Hornady Interlock bullets with a charge of 56.0 grains of IMR4831 just about put them in the same hole. 175 grain Nosler Partitions with a charge of 56.0 grains of Reloder 22 produced some of the best groups I have seen with any Partition in anything. Maybe it's just me or my rifles...but I find Partition bullets not very accurate in anything. The above load did shoot them in just about an inch + or -.
The most accurate load I have found for my 280AI's is a 140 grain Berger VLD Hunting bullet and 55.5 grains of N160. It puts them all in one not very ragged hole. I have to say that I was surprised the 280AI took a lot of doing to find these loads. I have two of them, one a Mountain Ascent and the other a custom pre-64.
I took it for granted that this round would be relatively easy to load for and be accurate like my 30-06AI, but again, it took quite a bit of testing a lot of different powder and bullet combo's to get to these loads. I tried every suitable Enduron powder made and had no luck with any of it. I used a Dave Manson SAAMI spec reamer and I will say that neither rifle likes to be seated out into or even near the lands. Best of luck.
Click to expand...

How far off the lands with the 140 VLD's were you when you started seeing acceptable accuracy? I traded in to this rifle and was told it had less than 100 rounds fired. I haven't put 100 through it yet myself so its relatively new. The previous owner shot 168 grain Accu-bonds about .070 off the lands and said he was getting 1/2 inch groups. I really didn't feel the need for that heavy of a bullet for the deer I usually end up with where I hunt so I have been trying lighter weight bullets with not much success. I had some 168 VLD-H bullets and tried them. Its doing pretty good but I think it should do better.
 
Pyscodog said:
How far off the lands with the 140 VLD's were you when you started seeing acceptable accuracy? I traded in to this rifle and was told it had less than 100 rounds fired. I haven't put 100 through it yet myself so its relatively new. The previous owner shot 168 grain Accu-bonds about .070 off the lands and said he was getting 1/2 inch groups. I really didn't feel the need for that heavy of a bullet for the deer I usually end up with where I hunt so I have been trying lighter weight bullets with not much success. I had some 168 VLD-H bullets and tried them. Its doing pretty good but I think it should do better.
Click to expand...

I did like the Berger instructions say, I just loaded like 5 rounds each starting with touching, back .010, .020, etc. I found that my rifle shot best with them .030" back from the lands. There are a ka-jillion ways to "find" lands...I mark a loaded round with a Sharpy and keep seating a few thousandths deeper until there are just barely no more marks from the rifling on the bullet.
This is what I call "just off the lands" That is my zero. I am sure there are other ways to do it and some one will be along shortly to tell us all how that is the wrong way and you cant do it like that. .030" back from there did it for me. Not going to say all rifles like it there, but I have seen three so far that also liked .030" off the lands.
Once I got that down I started playing with powder charges. I will say that this method works pretty good for other bullets as well...not just the VLD Hunting Bergers. I will add also that those 168 grain Accu-Bond Long Range bullets can be a little picky and some rifles seem like they just wont shoot them too well.
 
I have found my lands using your method and right now, my bullets are "just off" the lands. meaning i stopped seating them deeper when I got a bullet with just a faint, almost no mark at all. No one seems to have the Accu-bonds in stock and the Bergers are actually cheaper to shoot. That and I've always had good luck with the Bergers too.
 
Pyscodog said:
I have found my lands using your method and right now, my bullets are "just off" the lands. meaning i stopped seating them deeper when I got a bullet with just a faint, almost no mark at all. No one seems to have the Accu-Bonds in stock and the Berger's are actually cheaper to shoot. That and I've always had good luck with the Berger's too.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't know what is up with bullets these days, but all the old standby bullets I used to shoot seem like they are just not accurate any more. I thought it was me, until I tried Berger's and shot some good one hole groups again.
One thing I had to do with the ABLR's was order a "vld" seater stem for my L.E. Wilson straight line seater. The forward part of the jacket is thin and soft and it will very easily distort and get a bad mark on it from a standard type seater stem assembly. They make them thin so the bullet will reliably expand at very long range when the velocity has dropped down. The problem is that you can distort the entire forward part of the bullet if you are not careful.
I know the Berger's perform well on medium game, like deer or black bear, I cannot say about the ABLR's.
I had very good accuracy and I know the Hornady 154 grain inter-bond bullets work good on game too. I ended up seating them the same as the Berger's {same ogive length} and got some very good groups. I should also say that this was not just "one gun luck"....I now have three different 280AI rifles. One is a Kimber Mountain Ascent and the other two are pre-64 70's. The three loads I quoted shot equally well in all three rifles.
I intend to soon start testing Reloder 26, but initial testing this past spring seemed to show that this is a powder best used with the heaviest bullets. It worked okay with medium weight bullets, but there was no real gain.
 
H4350 provides excellent accuracy with lighter (and heavier bullets). 180gr pills top out around 2800-2830fps depending on barrel length. RL23 as Alex said is another good option. I've got the 180's moving at a comfortable 2950fps in my F-open rig.
 
Agree about the H4350. This drives 150 LRABs at 3130 through my custom pre-64 into about 0.65" 5-shots. No pressure signs, primer pockets aren't opening up which is easy to do on those soft Nosler cases. Definitely a step up on my 7-08..
 
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