I usually discover myself baffled by the abhorrence that grown adults can harbor for one thing as innocuous as a rifle cartridge. You know the cartridge I’m speaking about. To be truthful, I get that the annoyance is usually not with the cartridge itself, however with its reputation—notably the actual or perceived exaggerations of its efficiency traits. The vitriolic response to the mere point out of the phrase “Creedmoor,” and its means to rework readers into indignant, babbling cartridge philosophers is shocking. Equally shocking is the power of second-shift gun counter attendants to persuade any buyer {that a} 6.5 Creedmoor is all they might ever need. But we most likely shouldn’t be shocked by any of it. We’ve been right here earlier than.
Looking again in historical past offers perspective on many issues—and that features rifle cartridges. Times might have modified, however individuals haven’t. When I started peeling by means of the paragraphs of certainly one of Jack O’Connor’s capturing columns within the November, 1954 problem of Outdoor Life, it felt oddly acquainted. O’Connor wasn’t round for the web, however it appeared that right here was nonetheless no lack of controversy and opinion on the rifle cartridges he coated. Many who now herald the “old reliable” .270 Win. as we speak would doubtless scoff if I mentioned it was the 6.5 Creedmoor of its day. But studying by means of the blunter factors of O’Connor’s column, you can simply as simply substitute “6.5 CM” for .270, and the story can be simply as related as we speak because it was when printed, nearly 70 years in the past (observe that O’Connor wrote this column some 30 years after the cartridge had been launched).
With extra trendy parts, the .270 continues to be an extremely helpful and related cartridge. I gained’t argue that the 6.5 Creedmoor matches it in energy or trajectory, as a result of it doesn’t most often. However, there are metrics by which the Creedmoor, and a lot of the cartridges using Modern Cartridge Design ideas, are higher. It’s OK to acknowledge that progress with out taking offense. The 6.5 Creedmoor capturing a 143-grain ELDX bullet will lag barely behind the .270 capturing an identical 145-grain ELDX bullet at regular looking ranges, however not by a lot. The win for the Creedmoor, if you wish to name it that, is that it does it with round 30 % much less powder, and far much less recoil—each components that O’Connor would have appreciated.
One can beat the comb on ballistics and hand load combos to exhaustion, one thing O’Connor cherished to do. But the purpose right here is that even after many years of success, of us have been nonetheless arguing in regards to the effectiveness (or ineffectiveness) of the .270 Winchester. Perhaps hunters by no means got here to agree on the .270. Maybe they simply discovered newer cartridges to argue over.
The Controversial .270, by Jack O’Connor
The well-known .270 Winchester cartridge has been in use nearly 30 years, however rifle nuts are nonetheless pulling hair over it. There appears to be no impartial floor the place the .270 is worried. You both flip inexperienced with nausea on the very title, otherwise you apply it to every thing from mice to moose and from elk to elephants.
One citizen will testify that the .270 gained’t even kill a mule deer, the subsequent will apply it to grizzlies and knock them lifeless. One will swear that the .270 was by no means constructed that will shoot a 2-in. group at 100 yd., the man down the block will take a .270 to a bench-rest shoot and clear up all of the 200-yd. matches on a windy day. One aficionado considers it one of many most interesting cartridges ever designed, his neighbor will seize an ammunition handbook and try to show by the tables that the .270 is inferior to the little .300 Savage.
The .270 is especially on the son-of-a-gun checklist with those that love heavy bullets and are fascinated by giant holes within the ends of rifle barrels. They’ll inform you heart-rending tales of bull moose hit so usually with .270 bullets that hunks flew off the poor creatures like particles off of a battleship below bomb assault. Yet the moose went on chomping on willow leaves, apparently supposing that the rifle fireplace was thunder and that the bullets have been mosquitoes.
One anti-.270 man who does a spot of guiding wrote a narrative by which he informed of chasing a bull elk that “had been only wounded by a .270” throughout hell’s half acre. The inference was that if the dude had used a musket capturing a heftier bullet all would have been properly. At the tip of the story it got here out that the elk had a damaged entrance leg.
Now, in my day I’ve shot a number of head of recreation and I’ve seen different residents knock over a number of with assorted calibers. Maybe I’ve related to the improper individuals and used the improper rifles, however I’ve but to see any cartridge that will constantly knock over recreation by breaking a leg.
But controversy or not, the fast-stepping cartridge has gained a giant share of the American marketplace for high-powered rifles and has change into a world cartridge just like the 7 x 57 mm., the 8 x 57, the .30/06, and the .300 and .375 Magnums. In the United States, Winchester has manufactured the Model 54 and Model 70 in .270. Remington has made the bolt-action Models 720 and 721 and the slide-action Model 760 for it. Sears, Roebuck & Co.’s Model 50 J. C. Higgins rifle is offered in .270.
Rifles for the cartridge are inbuilt Sweden by Husqvarna, in Austria by Steyr (Mannlicher-Schoenauer) and in Belgium by the Fabrique Nationale. Various British gun makers have constructed rifles for the .270 cartridge on Mauser and Model 1917 Enfield actions—and have even turned out a number of double rifles for the cartridge.
At the time it was launched in 1925, the .270 was the flattest-shooting customary big-game cartridge on the earth. With the 130-gr. bullet, which has killed very lifeless all kinds of enormous and ponderous animals, it nonetheless is. With the 100- gr. bullet within the manufacturing unit loading, which is designed for varmints·, the .270 has a trajectory nearly as flat as that of the .220 Swift.
Because of this flat trajectory, excessive velocity, good accuracy, and gentle recoil, the .270 is the best customary cartridge to make well-placed hits on recreation with, at lengthy and unsure ranges, that I’ve ever used. For mountain looking my observe has been to sight in a .270 utilizing 130-gr. manufacturing unit hundreds to place the bullet 3 in. above line of scope sight at 100 yd. The bullet then lands 4 in. excessive at 200 yd. and on the button at someplace between 275 and 300 yd., relying on the form of the purpose.
In spite of rumors on the contrary, 300 yd. is a proper fur piece. Let us say that we’re on at 275 yd. and solely 2 in. low at 300. Then we have now a point-blank vary of about 325 yd., because the bullet won’t rise or fall greater than 4 in. from line of purpose as much as that distance.
Beyond that, if our hunter holds on the spine he’ll make successful within the lungs on a big animal like a moose or an elk to properly over 400 yd. The drop between 275 and 400 yd. with manufacturing unit loaded bullets just like the 130-gr. Silvertip and the 130-gr. pointed soft-point CoreLokt is about 15 in. With some bullets and with particular handloads it’s a whole lot much less.
Those who need to disparage the .270 by means of ballistics figures at all times seize on the 150-gr. round-nose manufacturing unit bullet having a muzzle velocity of two,770 foot seconds. They say that this load proves the .270 inferior to the .30/06, because the figures present {that a} 150-gr. bullet within the .30/06 leaves the muzzle at 2,980 foot seconds. They additionally level to the place it says within the booklet that the retained velocity of the 150-gr. .300 Savage bullet at 300 yd. is 1,800, whereas that of the 150-gr. round-nose .270 bullet is 1,750. Bingo! This proves, they are saying, that the .300 Savage is superior to the .270 as a long-range cartridge.
In popping out with such arguments, the boys neglect a superb many issues.
The most evident is that the manufacturing unit 150-gr. .270 load is a special-purpose load to be used on deer in brush and timber. The round-nose bullet shouldn’t be designed to retain velocity properly however as an alternative to get by means of brush with a minimal of deflection. Velocity is held down to offer much less tissue destruction at brief ranges than is the case with the quick stepping 130-gr. bullet. As we will see, a 150-gr. bullet might be pushed alongside in a .270 a superb deal sooner than 2,770.
Another little element is {that a} 150-gr. .30 caliber bullet and a 150-gr. .270 are by no means comparable. A bullet with a diameter of .277 in. and a weight of 150 gr. has a sectional density of .278, or about that of a .308 bullet weighing 190 gr. To examine the 150-gr. .30 caliber bullet with a .270, the .270 bullet ought to weigh round 120 gr. While we’re at it, the 130-gr. .270 bullet has a sectional density of .241 or within the neighborhood of a 160-gr. bullet in .30 caliber.
Still one other little element is that handbook figures on velocity should every so often be taken with a grain of salt. I’ve but to see any .30/06 manufacturing unit load with the 150-gr. bullet which might flip up in my very own .30/06 rifles fairly as a lot velocity as it’s speculated to, when examined on the Potter chronograph to which I’ve entry. Factory load A in my very own pet .30/06 gave with the 150-gr. bullet a median muzzle velocity of two,870 foot seconds-about 100 lower than printed dope. Factory load B gave 2,915.
On the opposite hand, the .270 stuff I’ve chronographed is outwardly loaded to full marketed velocity. Three manufacturers of manufacturing unit ammunition with 130-gr. bullets chronographed as follows in a .270 with a 22-in. barrel: A, 3,127 foot seconds; B, 3,132; C, 3,185.
An experimenter I do know determined some years in the past to develop the best flat-shooting cartridge for mountain recreation. After a few years of necking down and reshaping this case and that he concluded he had discovered no mixture of case, bullet. and powder cost that will beat the usual .270 sufficient to trigger any nice rejoicing.
There are wildcats which give ballistics considerably superior to the .270, however often at appreciable price. The varied large blown-out .300 Magnums are the best long-range cartridges in existence for the shooter who can deal with their very husky recoil. It is one factor to shoot precisely with a .270 having 15 foot kilos of free recoil, and fairly one other to shoot precisely with a light-weight Magnum rifle that kicks nearly twice that a lot. No matter how flat the trajectory is, it does no good if a rifle recoils so severely that the person behind it can not shoot it precisely. Not many can deal with extra recoil than is given by rifles of the .30/06-.270 class.
The wildcat .270 and 7mm. Magnums give considerably extra velocity than customary .270 manufacturing unit hundreds; however utilizing handloads with sure slow-burning powders and heavy bullets the usual .270 does about in addition to any of the Magnums. A gun-nut buddy of mine had a wildcat .270 based mostly on the necked down .30 Newton case. Long experimenting with a chronograph confirmed him that he might get simply as a lot velocity at apparently the identical stress out of the usual .270 as he might together with his large-capacity wildcat. This settled, he quietly offered the superduper to a personality who was bemused by the wicked-looking cartridge case.
Not too way back I acquired my mitts on a wildcat 7mm. According to the tales, it shot so flat that you simply held proper on ’em to 500 yd., and it went so quick that you simply virtually didn’t have to guide a operating antelope at 300 yd. Must be the marvel gun! But the outdated pickle-puss chronograph informed one other story. With the 140-gr. bullet and a proper husky cost of slow-burning powder. this fancy cartridge turned up a velocity of two,925 foot seconds, and its efficiency with the 156-gr. bullet was nearly similar. With this explicit wildcat the proprietor knocks himself out making particular instances after which has a cartridge truly inferior to the .270.
With one other wildcat within the .270-7mm. Magnum class I can, through the use of about 10 to fifteen gr. extra powder, get solely barely greater velocity than I can get within the .270.
I’ve a low-down sneaking suspicion that the .270 case will maintain nearly all of the powder that can burn effectively behind a .277 bullet. Use a bigger case and extra powder, and also you get extra recoil, extra muzzle blast, extra stress, shorter barrel life—however darned little extra velocity. The notion held by beginner ballisticians that each one one has to do to step up velocity is to place extra powder behind the bullet is exceedingly naive. With any caliber, past a sure level, the addition of extra powder merely will increase stress and has little impact on velocity.
Because the .270 has a big boiler room for the bore dimension, essentially the most environment friendly powders for it have at all times been pretty slow-burning. The cartridge was initially labored out with No. 15 1/2, which within the early 1920’s was the slowest- burning powder within the du Pont line. Not way back at the very least one manufacturing unit was reaching the usual muzzle velocity of three,140 foot seconds with the 130-gr. bullet with 57 gr. of No. 4350. Actually the .270 does higher with a powder that burns extra slowly nonetheless. In this case it’s No. 4831, a du Pont powder which, I perceive, was developed to load into 20 mm. plane cannon over the past struggle. B. E. Hodgdon of Meniam, Kans., purchased quite a lot of it and has been promoting it as “No. 4350 Data Powder,” so referred to as as a result of if loaded in accordance with information printed for No. 4350, it gained’t blow anyone up. In reality, it is going to give decrease velocity and fewer stress than with the identical quantity of No. 4350.
Just who first began experimenting with No. 4831 within the .270 I have no idea. I used to be most likely the primary to chronograph hundreds with that powder. With my pet .270 with a 23-in. barrel and a 1-10 twist. 60 gr. of No. 4831 provides the 130-gr. Speer bullet a muzzle velocity of a bit over 3,200 foot seconds. Vernon Speer’s .270, with its 24-in. barrel, produces barely greater velocity.
Here are the velocities recorded for 10 pictures within the two rifles, every with the 130-gr. bullet in entrance of 60 gr. of No. 4831. O’Connor’s rifle: 3,182, 3,190, 3,224, 3,210, 3,252; Speer’s rifle: 3,258, 3,203, 3,193, 3,211, 3,240.
In some rifles that load won’t produce greater than a median of three,140- 3,160, however in others it is going to produce extra. In Remington instances loaded with 130-gr. Speer bullets the 60-gr. load produces a imply stress of 51,000 lb. per sq. inch. More shocking are the outcomes with the 150-gr. Speer bullet and 59 gr. of No. 4831. Depending on the rifle, velocities run all the best way from 2,925 to three,010-and that, my pals. with a bullet having the sectional density of a .30 caliber bullet weighing nearly 200 gr., is one thing. Equally outstanding, pressures are considerably lower than 50,000 lb.—although imply pressures with .270 manufacturing unit hundreds run within the neighborhood of 53,500.
But maintain your hat. I labored up these hundreds. As I’m a conservative, I used to be glad. My amigos Kenny Wyatt and Ronnie King picked up the place I left off. King loaded 63 gr. of No. 4831 (a compressed load) to get 3,350 foot seconds with the 130-gr. bullet, and 61 gr. of No. 4831 to get 3,150 with the 150-gr. bullet, in a rifle with a 26-in. barrel. Velocities with Wyatt’s customary Model 70 Winchester are a bit decrease. What pressures are I wouldn’t know. I believe they’re fairly excessive, however I’d wager a cooky they’re no greater than they’re with sure .270 and seven mm. wildcat Magnums.
As far as hundreds with heavier bullets go, I can apparently use safely as a lot powder behind the fascinating M.G.S. 140-gr. 2-D bullet as I can behind the 130-gr. (2-D means two-diameter; ahead portion is bore diameter, rear portion is groove diameter.) In a .270 of mine with a 22-in. barrel and a 1-12 twist, 60 gr. of No. 4831 behind the 140-gr. 2-D provides a median muzzle velocity of three,080 foot seconds. Kind of a Magnum itself!
The .270 was designed to be a flat-shooting mountain cartridge and thatis the place it shines, but when anybody has a yen to shoot the 180-gr. Barnes bullet within the .270, he can get a velocity of two,600 and apparently regular pressures with 55 gr. of No. 4831. The flat-shooting M.G.S. 150-gr. 2-D bullet in entrance of 59 gr. of No. 4831 in an outdated .270 with a 23-in. barrel and a 1-10 twist provides a median muzzle velocity of three,128 foot seconds. That is a long-range load!
In a collection of drop exams, the late Al Barr sighted in an ordinary .270 at 200 yd. with the 140-gr. 2-D bullet in entrance of 57 gr. of No. 4350 powder. At 500 yd. the bullets dropped 42 in. In comparability a wildcat .270 Magnum, additionally zeroed for 200 yd. and having a cost of 10 gr. extra of the identical powder, gave a drop at 500 yd. of 40.75 in. when utilizing the 130-gr. M.&G. bullet and of 40.25 in. when utilizing the 140-gr. M.G.S.
For comparability I shot my load of 59 gr. of No. 4831 powder with the 150-gr. M.G.S. 2-D bullet and acquired a drop of 41 in. That load works out considerably flatter than the Western manufacturing unit load with the 130-gr. Silvertip, which gave me a drop of 47 in. in the identical set-up.
With the 140-gr. M.G.S. .270 bullet the drop between 200 and 400 yd., in accordance with Barr’s figures, was 20.35 in. With the Western 150-gr. manufacturing unit .30/06 load with the open-point bullet, drop was 26 in., with the 180-gr. Silvertip 25 in. With certainly one of my .270 rifles utilizing the Remington 130-gr. Bronze Point bullet in entrance of 60 gr. of No. 4831, I acquired a drop between 200 and 400 yd. of 17.5 in.
Point of all that is that the .270 is a kind of Magnum in its personal proper. The well-known .275 Holland & Holland Magnum case as manufactured in England is loaded, within the samples I’ve, with 52 gr. of German Rottweil flake powder. It holds 66 1/2 gr. of short-grained du Pont No. 4676 when stuffed to the mouth. A very good 7 mm. Magnum case designed by my pal Ross Leonard of Spokane holds 68 1/2 gr. I picked up an ordinary .270 Winchester case for comparability. It held 64 1/2 gr. of the identical powder. By all rhyme and cause we must always get a bit extra velocity out of the varied comparable Magnums, however I doubt if we get sufficient extra to make any substantial distinction in both velocity or killing energy.
I’ve used the .270 on and off since 1925—and that’s quite a lot of years. I’ve hunted with it in Mexico, western Canada, most Western states, and Africa. I’ve shot little Southwestern javelinas with it-and they weigh dressed round 35 lb. I’ve no superb notion of what number of white-tail and mule deer I’ve shot with it prior to now 29 years, however I’ve shot greater than a number of. I’ve knocked over a rating of bears with it, some moose, a number of elk, a substantial variety of caribou, fairly a number of antelope, all 4 kinds of North American wild sheep, a number of African antelope.
Like most hunters I’ve carried out some bum capturing with the .270 and a few good. I’ve but to discover a cartridge that will make up for my bum capturing, be it .270, .30/06, or .375 Magnum. With its comparatively gentle recoil, flat trajectory, and good accuracy, the .270 with appropriate bullets is an outstanding mountain cartridge. With appropriate bullets it may be utilized in brush, however different cartridges are extra almost supreme.
A really passable cartridge, the .270. In the arms of a superb shot it is going to deal with any North American large recreation, but it’s nice to shoot. One of the miserable info of life is that if a person isn’t a superb shot, there isn’t any cartridge which can flip him into one. Experience of hundreds of hunters throughout North America reveals that if positioned within the lung space the 130-gr. .270 bullet is sort of at all times immediate demise for an animal the dimensions of a mule deer or a bighorn ram on down, and fast demise for mountain caribou, elk, moose, and grizzly. With spitzer and spire-point 150-gr. bullets with their good weight and glorious sustained velocity out on the longer ranges, the .270 ought to be even higher.
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The .270 isn’t any rhino cartridge, most likely not a good selection to cease charging African lions or Alaska brown bears. But for a flat-shooting, light-kicking, hard-wounding cartridge for any soft-skinned recreation within the open, from an antelope 400 yd. away throughout the plains of Wyoming to a marmot-digging grizzly in a Yukon basin above timberline, the usual run-of-the-mill .270 is tough to beat. When anybody assures me that the .270 isn’t even a superb mule-deer rifle and that .270 bullets bounce off of elk. I can not assist marvel how a lot recreation he has shot with .270 rifles, what sort, and the place. —Jack O’Connor