I've related this story before, so please bear with me. When I was hunting with my 270, I noticed that the bullets almost never exited. I had exactly 2 exits on probably 50 kills with the 270. The animals died because I shot them in the ribcage and my bullets went to pieces inside the chest causing total destruction of the lungs and major arteries. When I cut the diaphram everything just poured out. Incidentally, of those 50 or so animals I killed with my 270, exactly one fell dead at the shot. The others ran anywhere from 20 to 200 yards or so. I started with 130gr Sierras because they were very accurate in my M70 featherweight (5/8" groups). I also tried Speer Hot Cors and Nosler ballistic tips, the early ones with the thin jackets. I killed many head of game in those days. Then one day I stalked within about 75 yards of a buck in a heavy snow storm. I shot the buck square on the shoulder with a 130gr Sierra and he fell on the spot. Then he squirmed and wiggled his way to his feet and ran off. I figured he went a little ways and fell dead, but I was wrong. I searched that entire woodlot until I jumped the buck 4 hours later. He ran with his front leg limp and I knocked him down with a running shot to the neck. Post mortem examination showed that the first shot hit squarely on the shoulder and almost blew the leg completely off, but did not penetrate into the vitals. I'm just glad I finally caught up to the buck and killed him so he did not go to waste.
Does all this mean that the 270 is no good? Of course not! It means that I asked a bullet to perform outside of its design parameters. The failure was mine, not the caliber, or even the bullet. Now, if I had been using a 6.5x55 with 140gr bullet at 2600 fps, or a 30-06 with a 180gr bullet, or 7x57 with 175gr bullet, I believe that buck's feet would not have left the prints they were standing in at the shot. That would probably also be the result had I been using a .277" bullet constructed to withstand the high velocity of the 270 cartridge and penetrate muscle and bone reliably without blowing to little copper and lead shreads.
Big Redhead, my experience had been the opposite. In all my years and deer with the 270, I've (and two other family members) have yet to catch a bullet. All have been various cup and core's that were mostly broadside or slightly quartering shots, all exiting. We've had good results with Sierra's and years my brother and I used a load with the 130 Pro Hunters before I got a chrony. According to the Sierra manual they should've been going around 2950 or so fps. We killed a lot of deer and when I did finally get a chrony, found they were going around 2700-2750, but the funny thing is they worked great at that velocity which solidified to me not to run bullets outside their design and generally they will do the job.
