Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 270 vs. 6.5x55

Gemayel pretty much nailed it with this post. For years my long time hunting buddy has used a 6.5x55 while I used a 257 Roberts or a 270. To be frank on the deer sized game we shot any other 3 were more than adequate. I finally bought a 6.5x55 but sold it relatively quickly to Jwall as I quickly realized it didn't fill a nich I didn't already have covered. I will say in my limited time with it or in talking to my buddy we never quite got the speeds I see mentioned so often on the Internet but I can say the same about most chamberings such as the 7x57 just too conservative with the powder scoop I guess. But in my case since I already had a 270 with some history and i have come to appreciate the convenience of being able to buy a box of federal ammo for around $15 I decided I'm a 270 fan.

You must have one of the limited edition Lilly Pultizer commemoratives 270s . Cool.

Probably me I haven't weighed mine but I have a vanguard w wood stock and a 3-9x40 Leupold which probably is awfully close to that weight. It dawned on me a couple of years ago that in the past 20 years I haven't hunted anything but a series of small farms of 200 acres or less and thus haven't been over probably 3/4 of a mile from the truck or the house at any given time usually less. In those conditions rifle weight isn't really a big issue.

bangeye: Well....there is that.

I just haven't had one that heavy in over 30 years .

Yeah I guess it's just old age but my loonyism is quickly waning. As I have been thinning the herd some I have done some thinking about my actual hunting conditions as I seek to decide what to keep. For example do I really need a featherweight 20 ga upland gun and a target gun for the 2-3 rounds of clays o shoot a year or will my 28" 12 ga o/u do both pretty well. Sure it's a bit heavy but surely I can carry it the length of a silage field and then sit there on my dove bucket waiting for the flight to start. I have to face it I live in the east and really I am a creature of hunting the confines of small parcels.

A. WHY dredge up from 2012? New products improve BOTH cartridges and does NOT reverse the outcome.

B. WHY should a 270 weigh 8.5 lbs??

C. My Swede (Win 70 FTWT) weighs MORE than my 270 -Tikka T 3

You can STACK the deck anyway you want to prove anything you want.

I've already chewed my CUD, I still have a Swede but I'll
ALWAYS have a 270.
130--3100/3200 fps>>Swede can NOT touch.


IF my Swede was NOT a 70 FTWT--it would have LEFT 2 yrs ago. It does NOTHING better than a 270....


Jerry

Hard to beat a 270....

Bangeye, it's refreshing to hear you say that. Here on the campfire there are any number of fads, lightweight rifles being one of them. While no rifle needs any justification, I've always scratched my head at the value of sitting in a treestand on an eastern woodlot with a lightweight rifle designed for mountain hunting.

That's a lightweight in my stable....

Pat, while I view a lightweight as under 7lbs scoped, with sling and rounds, there are a lot of guys here that think a lightweight is as easy to shoot LR as a mid or heavyweight rifle.

I just scratch my head over the group-think on this forum...

It's hard climbing those ladders.

Agreed.....kinda like the midwest whitetail hunter guys driving their badboy buggies to access their tree stands. It can't be that far, or difficult of a walk.

Like said make mine a 270 I'll hunt anything

Agreed. The weight of a hunting rifle has never been a concern of mine, whether I'm hunting at high altitudes in the mountains or in the swamps down home. I've never weighed a rifle yet, but I doubt that I have one over 9 pounds, I'm sure a few of my iron sighted lever guns are under 7...who cares. Yeah, it matters, I guess, to the guy who goes off into the mountains for a week or ten days on foot, carrying everything he needs on his back...you know, the way most of us hunt on an annual basis, right? I would much rather have a rifle with enough mass that it's easy for me to shoot pretty well than some super lightweight that is really finicky about how and where I hold it and how careful I am with trigger pull... group-think here???? Hell, we're all rugged individualists, that's why we think alike so much.

Geez....what's a guy supposed to do? Have a heavy rifle for eastern stands and Alberta cut lines....then go get a light one for Wyoming and the west?


I just use the same one everywhere.....












It works in Maine from stands:










And in Wyoming. It'll kill a mule deer, too.

The 270 is more powerful, 6.5X55 is more pleasant to shoot. Each kills things that are supposed to be too large for the caliber. A late acquaintance of mine shot three bull bison with a 6.5X55 surplus Swedish Mauser (the local reservation wanted the biggest one's head in a meeting hall and the additional two smaller ones for a banquet)in about 2 hours. All were shot between the eye and ear with surplus ball ammunition. All dropped in their tracks.
Long range advantage goes to the 270, accuracy likely to the smaller round, somewhat due to the much lower recoil.

Brad I agree, that's one of the privileges of shooting/hunting/gun ownership in the USA. I'll not mention any rifle brands or cartridges that some people dote on and I personally can't see any use for TODAY. No justification needed.

As to lightweight rifles, regardless of where I am going to hunt---picking up and handling a petite light rifle simply brings a SMILE to my face.

Yrs. ago I was drooling to get a Rem 700 SS Laminate in 7 RM UNTIL.. I picked up ONE. I was so very disappointed in how HEAVY it was and put it down just as quickly as I picked it up.


Also I am hunting ONLY 70 acres so there is NO long walk to any place. BUT on any given day I may spend HOURS still hunting (not stalking but slowly, quietly moving) and I will not, AKA refuse to, carry a heavy rifle while staying inside of 70 acres.

I know that's diff from what you mentioned about stand sitting.

So I suppose this ALL boils down to the FREEDOM we have in the USA (for now) to own/shoot/carry whatever rifle, regardless of weight/length that we choose.

May God extend our right-freedom in the USA! !

Jerry

give the 270 Win any day over the 6.5x55

I have both plus a 6.5/06 for good measure!!

Rifle weigh is like politics, in that everyone has an opinion, largely based on what they want to do,and where.

For me, I might go from Wyoming in October,to Maine or Alberta in November,and (like last year) Kansas in December. Might be sitting cut lines, field edges,still hunting heavy cover anywhere,or stretching 400-500 yards across a canyon, or in a buck brush jungle on foot on the side of a mountain.

Conditions vary,often all in the same day and from hour to hour. The rifle has to work pretty well everywhere for me, no matter the chambering. Reason is I am 500 to 3000 miles from home and never know what I will bump into. I can only take "one".

I have found that something relatively light suits me better, in more circumstances, than something heavy.This has yet not to work.