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Townsend Whelen from the "The American Rifle" (1918)

"The factory cartridge is an excellent one ballistically, combining a
bullet with a very satisfactory coefficient, and a flat trajectory.
Twenty-eight caliber is theoretically the most effective caliber ballisti-
cally for a rifle, because a bullet with an extremely effective ballastic
coefficient can be used in this caliber without running the recoil up to
such an extent that it is not satisfactory for military purposes. But the
.280 Ross rifle does not seem to handle this cartridge very well. The
accuracy is not good. I have heard of a few rifles which would give 8-
inch groups with this cartridge at 200 yards, but I have personally
never seen one. Two. rifles of this caliber which I have owned would
give about 12-inch groups at 200 yards when shot from my concrete
base muzzle and elbow rest, or prone with either target sights or a
telescope sight. Also Dr. Mann obtained two selected .280 sporting
barrels for testing, and upon placing them on his " V " rest found
that the best groups that they would give average 7 inches at 100
yards. The trouble seems to be in the size of the neck of the cham-
ber and the groove diameter of the barrel. The bullet is .002 inches
smaller than the groove diameter of the barrel, and the chamber is
about .004-inch larger at the neck than the neck of the unfired car-
tridge. As will be seen in the chapter on Accuracy, good shooting can-
not be expected from such an arrangement. It seems a pity that a
more accurate barrel is not obtainable for this excellent cartridge."

(Further)

"Despite the discrepancy between the diameters of barrel and bullet,
and the large chamber, this cartridge (the .280 match cartridge)is very
accurate in Ross long-range match barrels. It seems to be a case where the inertia of the long,
heavy bullet seems to cause prompt upsetting of the bullet to fill the
bore without undue deformation of the bullet. The match barrels are
throated out a little more than the sporting barrels to receive this
cartridge, and this cartridge is so long that it cannot be worked
through the magazine, the match rifle being a single shot only, although
with practically the same action as the sporting rifle. Ross match rifles
for the .280 cartridge are very popular in England for long range
match shooting, and have won many matches with very high scores.
Wind probably has less effect on the flight of this bullet than is the case
with any other cartridge made."

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