Shodd: How do you know the 6.5 will show a substantial improvement in lethal effect over a 270 at (say) 500 or 600 yards?
The numbers?
I'm curious what the velocity differences at 600 yards would be between that 143 ELD X,and a 150 gr ABLR from a 270 started at 2900 fps?
I could look it up but I am lazy....
Rhetorical question: If the 6.5 is anticipated to be so much better why would anyone use the 270 on an elk?
BobinNH,
I've got three 270s and being interested in stretching the distance a little more I tried some higher BC bullets in the two that shoot the best. While I do understand that 2 is a small sample it was enouph to steer me in a different direction.
This is what I encountered.
I loaded both the accubond LR 150 and The berger 150 to try in both rifles both of which have factory 10 twist barrels. Over the years of reloading I have noted that excellent accuracy usually coincided with matching twist rates with BCs and proper propellant's etc. In any rate what I encountered is though my rifles did stabilize both these bullets accuracy suffered in both instances. While I may have been wrong I attributed the lack in accuracy to twist rates that were less than optimum. There are other High BC bullets that I could have chosen I pretty much figured I'd be pissing into the wind as a 10 twist barrel will not stabilize some of the higher BC bullets. My options were at that point to build me a 270 with a 8 twist barrel or go with something all together different.
With so many 8 twist factory 6.5s to choose from and so many choices in projectiles it for me was the logical step to take.
My conclusion in my findings was my best shooting 270 with a 10 twist barrel was averaging around 9" groups at 600 yds while every once in a while for some reason would shoot around 15". Those kind of groups are unacceptable in my book to start poking that far at game.
So I tried a slightly different route. I bought an 8 twist 6.5 swede Tikka T3. My very first load of 48.5 grains of H4831SC pushed the 143 ELD X at 2790 and proved capable of 4.5" groups at 600. My groups have been more vertical than horizontal so I figure I can probably get a touch more out of it with some minor tweaking.
My 270 T3 is a shooter and it will put 150 partitions into 3" at 500 pretty regular. I've not tried it much but I've had more bad experiences than not trying to push a high BC bullet out of marginal twist barrels. At this point I just stick with what I know has been working for me.
I'm not sure if you noticed in my post I'm not real keen on customs. Probably mostly because I've tried it a couple times now and it never worked out for me. It's not easy finding a gunsmith one can count on it seems and it's a lot of money to spend to get back something that a factory Tikka will shoot circles around. JMO
Shod
