Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters .270 Winchester: What is the best big game for this cartridge?

Would an aardvark be considered a big game animal?

Keith and Askins were always badmouthing the .270. Neither had any real world experience with the cartridge though. Kinda like my Dad. He liked to call the .270 a groundhog gun even though he never even fired one. When you actually use the .270 you realize just how smart O'Connor was!

Good one, Bob!

Would a cup and core bullet work or is a premium bullet needed for chupacabra? I've read they are expanding there range to where I live and I want to be prepared.

If you couldn't get something that had magnum on the end, a 270 would be the thing to buy.

I have lots and lots of coyotes on my property. There are few rifles better for coyotes than a 270, in my opinion.

After mowing my lawn a month ago, I was in eating lunch. I looked out the window -- a coyote was walking across my yard with a pheasant in his/her mouth. The best rifle that day would have been the one that was leaning beside the door. Now, I have a rifle leaning beside the door. I happens to be a 30-30 with cast bullets. It is my wife's. Next time...

When I go elk hunting, I usually carry a 300 Win Mag or a 338 Win Mag. This year for a cow it will be an 06.

A 270 would work too.

But when I'm calling in yotes: I'll have a 25-06 or a 270 in my hand.

Elmer Keith was right sometimes. He said a 270 is good for coyotes.

Not a writer, just a student of several things.

I have used a .270 off and on since 1960. The three bad experiences that I have had with it were one each bullet selection or failure. Whichever, 150 bronze points did not open up! Then there were two each instances when in heavy fog I ended up much closer to my quarry than I intended and misjudged the distance. I let the gun rag BS talk me out of this caliber for a long time.

Similar story on the ..30-30 not being enough gun. Then I investigated a double murder where the .30-30 was the assailant's choice. At some 50-60 yards, the damage that I observed at the autopsies said otherwise.

Back to the .270. A few years ago, I had a bit of disposable income. Good job and kids out of college made me think I was rich. I like take down guns. The Blaser attracted me. I picked the .270 as a general purpose tool with just enough reservations that I also got a 9.3x62 barrel for bigger stuff. A .223 setup would make all the rest of my battery redundant, but I already have three rifles in that caliber.

I have a pre-war M70 in .270, three .30-06s, a .308, and a .243 in bolt guns, so as you see, I'm open minded, or perhaps a loonie.

Bottom line is, that if I do my job, the .270 is plenty for the lower 48 and perhaps for Canada and Alaska. BTW, I sold my last belted magnum some four years ago.

Best wishes,

Jack

I must of miss-read. I thought the question was what is the best game for the 270, not the biggest game for the 270.
Other 'best' might include white-tail, antelope, mule deer. But I don't think best game for the 270 is all the animals in the lower 48. P

The 270 was designed as a flat shooting, mild recoiling big game cartridge. Not as a deer cartridge.

It's proven to be completely adequate in that role for several decades on most everything here and most stuff in Africa as well.

This Internet chatter about sticking it in niches for smaller stuff is silly.

In the United States, nilgai are probably the best fit for the cartridge--in India, apparently not so much.

To reiterate that, my first-time, hunting companion toted a 270 into the Wind River range on a wilderness elk hunt last fall. Our outfitter told him his 270 was too small but I had him out last summer shooting to four hundred yards and he was competent. I told him not to worry--he was just fine; to visualize the Bulls chest as a medicine ball and to think of it in three dimensions and to center it.

His chance came early in the morning on a broadside bull at two hundred yards and he put a Federal 150-gr Nos Part (we chrono'd at 2850 fps out of his Tikka) through the Bulls chest. It went twenty yards. It was the biggest 6x6 in camp.

The 270 is much more than a deer cartridge with the right bullet..

.270 threads seem to go on forever. You would think that after 4 years this subject would be sorted out.

I guess that's a testimonial to the popularity of JOC's favorite round.

I like the .270 threads.I am a sheep hunter first and nearly always pack one of my .270 Jack's. THIS IS Grizzly country,and often bull elk are killed on these trips- it is plenty for elk and I use a good bullet all the time anyways.As a sheep hunter it is the default choice by many.A 6 lb,short barreled synthetic job is a delight in the crags and rock chutes a hunter travels doing this.Any rifle with a long 24"tube is too long imo. THE .270/.280 is about perfect.

Or those who believe the cartridge is the most over-rated cartridge in the universe.

In his book THE SHOOTERS CORNER Don Lewis said "I could never see carrying a .270 when I could get more efficiency from a .30-06". I love both rounds but I've long considered those words..........

Of course most people know how the 270 came to be...

There were a few whiners (sissies) who came back from WW1
They complained that the 30 hurt their little shoulders.
So Winchester made a cartridge for sissies.
Then they hired a hunter who needed a guide to hunt anything and they told him to promote the cartridge.

Most of those shooters went to San Francisco, but others went to New York City

Yikes! no wonder Ingwe considers the 270 gay!
Explains alot.

I may have to sell my 270's?

I feel misled by BobinNH, he told me the 270 is great and a real mans gun?

4 x Kudu bulls hunted this year obviously didn't know that they died from a gay .270 bullet - three of which did not take one step after impact. Similar story for the 5 Kudu shot last year ... they must be getting soft!

Oh shidt! It's worse than I thought!

Best ever for desert bighorns!