Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Who invented the 270 Win?

I thought it was Al Gore.

For that comment Rev.... GO TO YOUR ROOM!!

Very amusing. I love the sense of "hummer"

But:

Calling the .270 Winchester an invention requires some clarification.

Short Answer:

The .270 Winchester was "developed" by Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1923 and introduced/unveiled in 1925.

I'll repeat that Ken Howell claims to know about 5,000 cartridges and postulates that there may be as many as 10,000. And coincidence to European metrics is just that.

The long answer:

The .270 Winchester is but one of numerous cases that have the same head dimensions, case dimensions near base and differ only in caliber and finished length and shoulder. These are offshoots of/from the old, venerable .30-06 Springfield developed for the US Army in 1906. The 30 designates caliber. The 06 the year of introduction 1906.

Just some, not all, cases that are formed from the Mother 30-06 are:

.22-250
.250-3000
.25-06
.270

And from there many more, including custom and wildcat in US measuring system as well as some in metrics that also "fit".

Your google skills are awesome!

Actually, I believe the 270 Win had the same parent case as the 30-06.
That would be the short lived 30-03.
Note that both have long necks.
The other '06 wildcats probably started with the '06 case.
jmho
Tim

Yes, the .270 eventually resulted from the .30-03, but there was a stop along the way. After the Springfield became the U.S. military rifle, Winchester could see the coming importance of the bolt action. They developed their own bolt rifle and planned to first introduce it in Europe, for some reason (they always did have something of a presence in Europe, partly die to John Browning).

The rifle was in the works around 1912, and very much resembled the eventual Model 54, with a European-style Schnabel-tipped stock. The cartridge was essentially the .30-03 necked to take a .288 (not .284) bullet.

But during the plans to start commercial production something eventually called World War One broke out, and the project was scrapped until after the war. Europe was so messed up by then that the rifle became the Model 54 Winchester and appeared here. The new cartridge's bore-size was changed to .277, reportedly to keep people from rechambering the many pre-'98 Mausers in 7x57 then becoming common in the U.S., due to so many coming across the Mexican border. Their actions weren't considered strong enough for the new Winchester cartridge.

Thank You Mule Deer.

I've always thought that they didn't want '98s to be re-chambered so they could sell Winchester rifles, but I'm a suspicious old man.

Whatever the reason, the happy result is the perfect bullet diameter, or it would be if the bullet folks would stop favoring those inferior diameters just above and below .277.

I'll just nip off to my bomb shelter now.

Any relation to Savage_99?

Got him on Ignore. His posts make my head hurt.

I'd rather read the Complete Annotated Posts of Boxer/Big Stick than wade through another of his.

AFAIK the 270 Win was developed by/for Winchester and that made it a proprietary cartridge. I certainly have read the details about it development but can't recall them.


There are certainly those here who can supply all the historical details.
_________________________


B R H -- Finally we get a 'definitive' 'historically correct' answer.

Thnx MD for the specifics.

Jerry

Nah, ingwe just perfected it.

The 270 Winchester was actually the result of an idea by freethinker and sometimes inventor, Benjamin K. Tibbey, from Kentucky. He called it, appropriately enough, the 'Tibbey Wetless Combuster'. It actually predated black powder cartridge rifles.



It was an enclosed breech system that used a .275 inch bullet, pushed by black powder. Everything was held in place with a copper cylinder. It was called 'wetless' because the combuster sat inside a sealed chamber, protected from inclement weather and rough handling. No more wet powder! It used a skinny, nail shaped flint for a firing pin which struck a metal mesh screen located at the base of a black powder filled, copper cylinder. That created the spark which ignited the powder.

At first blush, many 19th century shooters suggested that the Tibbey Wetless Combuster was a forerunner of the BP cartridge loading rifles.

Later BP cartridge guns shared one or two of the same characteristics as Tibbey’s Wetless Combuster. The trouble was, while Ben Tibbey was known as a sometimes inventor, he was also known locally as a ‘really bad’ sometimes inventor.

Here’s an example.

One of Ben’s bad inventions was the Tibbey Apple Corer. It was a simple machine - a spinning drill bit, mounted to a table. A foot pump caused the bit to rotate. While boring out the core was smart, the execution was poor. The operator had to hold the apple in the palm of her hand and push it onto the rotating bit.

Needless to say, most of the corers had accidents. All were women, and became known as Tibbey’s Maidens. No man wanted to marry a woman with only one good hand.

But I digress. Tibbey's Wetless Combuster was a very inefficient system that went the way of the Dodo. Still, one has to wonder...

Tibbey tried unsuccessfully to sue the manufacturers of several early bolt action rifles. His reputation as a really bad inventor preceeded him however, and that had a huge influence on the court's rulings.

He died at the age of 51, killed by a spinster who had worked for him years earlier, coring apples. He was stabbed in the heart with a rusty bit from a Tibbey Apple Corer. The fatal blow was delivered using the woman’s good hand.

Steve, you been sniffing Cordite again??

Whoever invented it, he or she was some kind of a genius!

Could have sworn it was Lee 24

That's Steve's High School yearbook photo. The 60's were really tough for some guys.

Yep...


nothing but a wannabe 30-06...

Too bad Dober doesn't post anymore. He called the .270 Winchester "the .30-06 Improved"....

Yeah! I miss Dober. He had a lot of knowledge and a great sense of humor.

Why did he stop posting?