.280 Ross

The .280 Ross, also known as the .280 Nitro, .280 Rimless Nitro Express Ross (CIP) and .280 Rimless cartridge, is an approximately 7mm bullet diameter rifle round developed in Canada by F.W. Jones as a consultant to Sir Charles Ross Bart and his Ross Rifle Company of Quebec, Canada for use as a Canadian military cartridge as a replacement for the .303 British, and in a civilianised and sporterised version of his controversial Mark II and Mk III Ross rifle, and first commercially produced by Eley Brothers of London, England, in late 1907.

History
The .280 Ross was the first practical cartridge to reach the edge of 3,000 ft/sec (914.4 m/s). Sir Ross did many attemps while in the process of creating the "perfect cartridge", one of them leading to the creation of the .28-1906 in November 1906.

Ross also tried to convince the British War Department to adopt the .280 Ross (and his rifle) as the new service cartridge, but World War I came along and broke his hope. (Note that the British Government settled his choice on the .276 Enfield (and the P14 Enfield Rifle), which is almost a duplicate of the .280 Ross).

The .280 also paved the way for Sir Ross' newly designed bullets such "Full Metal Patch" and "Metal Covered Hollow Point". The Ross Mk III rifle was especially developed to handle the .280. The .280 (and the Ross Rifle) won the famous Bisley international matches in 1908, 1912 and 1913 (King's Prize) plus many other prizes in different competitions on both sides of the Atlantic.

Performance
Firing a 140-grain bullet at a muzzle velocity of 2,900 fps, the new cartridge qualified for the contemporary designation "magnum". It was popular as a military sniper's cartridge, in addition to achieving some celebrity as an African plains game cartridge in the years immediately following the First World War. However the large capacity case was capable of moving the bullets available at that time faster than would be desirable for reliable expansion, causing them to fragment rather than penetrate properly.

Ballistically, the .280 Ross cartridge's performance was broadly comparable to that of the more modern .280 Remington / 7mm Express Remington. It also works well on most North American game when used with an appropriate bullet.

As a commercially manufactured item this cartridge has been obsolete for some years, because of the inappropriate bullets often used in it originally, as well as problems associated with the Ross rifle that it was normally chambered in. Handloaders continue to load successfully for it, using swaged and necked-down .300 Remington SA Ultra Mag cases and bullets more suitable for it's high velocity. The German round .280 Halger Magnum is based on the .280 Ross case.