I have a couple of each.
The 7mm-08's are my deer rifles, 280's are Black Bear and moose rifles.
The 7mm-08 with 139/140gr bullets and the 280 with 160gr bullets have very similar flight paths so when I switch from 1 to the other I don't have to remember 2 separate sets of trajectories.
I think for deer the 7mm-08 is just about perfect. Falls right in between 2 of the greatest deer cartridges of all time (308Win and 270Win) and does so with about 15% less recoil.
The 280 rem is another great cartridge and if I could only have 1 gun it would likely be chambered in a 280 but you have about 25% more recoil than with the 7mm-08 with factory ammo. If you reload it doesn't matter as you can load the 280 down to 7mm-08 ballistics with about the same recoil.
Not as wide of selection for the 280 in factory chamberings but I see that Browning is listing it in all 4 of their new X-bolt's.
You won't go wrong either way but for a pure deer rifle the 7mm-08 is hard to beat.
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