Why eat the strip loin when you can have the tenderloin. The 280AI is a wonderful cartridge, I had one, shot very well in a Cooper rifle, killed a couple big bucks with it, no complaints. However, it is out-matched by the 7mm Remington Magnum. According to the bible, Nosler Manual, (blasphemy not intended) the 7mm outperforms the 280AI by 200 FPS. Note in the Nosler manual that a 26" barrel is used for the 280AI and a 24" for the 7mm R.M., still the 7mm R.M. is faster.
There is not comparision with these two cartridges, one has more merit than the other, in more ways than one.
Not true ..
I have a 24 in on my 280ai and will get avg 2980 with 160 factory nosler partition .. My 24 in sauer in 7rm will not keep up . So each rifle is different and making a general sweeping comaprison is maybe not fair