Dogshooter,
I remembered the Arnold but didn't know about the Allen--though both kind of prove my point: Why would anybody bother? Plus, both were primarily designed as hunting cartridges, not target rounds.
I'm not defending the .270 caliber. I wouldn't buy one for real long-range shooting myself, again because there aren't any real long-range bullets. But the reason isn't because there's something inherently defective about .277. Instead it's all those 1-10 twists!
To a certain extent the same thing happened to the .35 caliber, though it was never meant to be a long-range or target round. The original 1-16 twist doesn't stabilize lead-cored spritzers over 250 grains, or monolithics over 225. As a result there are far more .338's and .375's, because they can handle heavier bullets. Yeah, there are .35 bullets heavier than 250, but not many, and not real spitzers, so the .33's and .375's are far more practical choices.
