It's a combination of things. I've been interested in the .280 rem for a while, but those silly things can be hard to find. There seem to be a lot of 22" sporters around, Remington Mountain rifles, Win mod 70s, x-bolts, but I want one with a 24" or 26", just for the extra velocity. My wife and I both have .270s, her's a LH 700 and mine T3X. I handload for both, they're both accurate, but her extra barrel length always results in 70-100 more fps. Not a big deal, but still... And don't get me wrong, I really like what that Tikka will do.
So a while back, I also had an opportunity to buy a used X-Bolt in .280 Rem that had a 26" barrel. Nice, unique rifle, and the price was only $500. I dithered around too long and missed out. So I'm still kicking myself over that, yeah it was dumb not to have grabbed that. Anyway, always had a casual interest in doing my own build but didn't really know what I'd want to do, so that's when I got to looking at costs and parts that are available, and comparing that to .280's I can find with longer barrels, and started thinking, hey why not?
In a nutshell, that's the personal journey that has led me to posting this thread.