A family member was asking me about the .270 Winchester cartridge. While I have no personal experience with the cartridge, except for three shots I fired with a Howaa 1500 back in 2009, I do know folks who use it and do well with it.
I do know that the .270 Win was much beloved by Jack O'Connor and thousands of folks who read his work. It's a serious game caliber, and nothing to sneeze at with good bullets and loads. It seems to be inherently accurate.
Both my brother-in-law and my son-in-law shoot the .270 and have no trouble keeping venison in the freezer. BIL tailors handloads using Reloder 22 powder and Nosler BT bullets. He makes neck shots on deer because he doesn't like tracking, and his kills are usually a bang-flop. He tells me that with a full case of RL22, he gets a little better than 3000 fps from his barrel, and low pressures. Alliant powder lists 58 grain of RL22 as the max load with a 130 grain bullet at 2947 fps.
With a good rifle and decent glass, that would let you sight in 1.6" high at 100 yards, be dead-on at 200 yards and down just 6.6" at 300. That means a fellow could hold on hair all the way out to 300 yards and hit one of our smallish whitetail deer with no problem. That's about as far away as I'd want to send a bullet at a game animal. Your mileage might vary. There are lots of fine long-range shooters out there, but I'm not one of them.
A fellow could do a lot worse than the .270 Winchester for most North American game. It's not the newest or the flashiest, but it gets the job done.
3 comments:
Better yet, follow O'Connor's Rule of Three...3" high at 100, 3" high at 200, and 3" low at 300. I've set up my deer rifles like this for decades.
hth, sv
Well, I have to first apologize to all the fans of the cartridge. I am not that much of a fan. All said above is true and has the added benefit of being found nearly everywhere, like the 30.06 Springfield Govt.
My complaint - meat damage. Excessive speed causes a lot of blood shot meat and I believe the .270, 7mm Magnum and 300 Magnum cause quite a bit of venison to be thrown out because of it. So if its the meat that is important, focus at aiming at anatomy where only limited damage occurs. Neck shots for example.
Just my .02 - I'm probably in the minority. It is a flat shooting cartridge, it and the .25-06 have a flat trajectory.
I have a Model 70 Sporter in .270 Win and a Model 70 Stealth in .270 WSM. Something about being able to reliably put a 130 grn game king where I want at 300 or 600 yards makes me happy.
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