Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 270 WIN origins

Just had this conversation with a good friend.
The Winchester M51 Imperial S/N 1 is actually the World’s first factory produced 270 (chambered for the experimental 27 Cal). Winchester M54 S/N 4 (first three M54’s were chambered for the 30 GOV’T’06) was the World’s first factory produced 270 W.C.F. in 1925.

That could very well be......

Cool info. I didn't know that.......

To all the above good info I would add that a .277 caliber cartridge made good marketing sense as well. A brand new caliber (not just cartridge) would pique shooters' interest and generate magazine articles promoting the cartridge and the new Model 54, all of which would lead to more rifle sales. That the 270 caliber was uniquely American (as far as most shooters knew) would have helped sell more rifles too, more than a 7mm-06 cartridge would anyway. Maybe, at least in part, the origin of the 270 was in Winchester's marketing department and not just the ballistics lab.

Very likely, since it is always hard to follow a legend. Even if the replacement is good at what he/she does, he/she probably won't ever measure up in the eyes of the fans. Sort of like when Murcer succeeded Mantle.

I wonder if the lack of competition/match/target bullets in 0.277" might be a contributing factor to its lack of success outside of the hunting realm.

I think that may be right. Jim, was trying to swim in O'Connor wake... O'Connor, was a great story teller with just enough loonie thrown in to capture a large audience base. His articles were the first things I'd read when the new Outdoor Life would hit the stands.

The lack of competition grade .277 bullets would no doubt hamper any interest in using it outside of hunting...imo...

Never had a 270win but theres now one actually in route to my FFL at this very moment. I grew up in Idaho never owning one, but reading all about it and that Jack O'conner character. I never disliked any cartridge but i really did get tired of hearing about Jack O'conner all the time and got tired of him coming up all the time. I suspose the JOC part is what indidnt care for. Probably a case of exposure.

Shaman-
How do you know the brass was derived from the .330-03?

Jack O'Connor wrote that it was derived from the .30-06. Who would know better?

--Bob

In this case, it would be Shaman. A matter of case length. The 270 and 30-03 share the same length dimension. The '06 is .05" shorter.

The length of the 270 Winchester case is 2.540", the same length as the 30-03. The case length of the 30-06 Springfield 2.484". This may be the reason that people believe that the 270 Winchester was derived from the 30-03 case. It doesn't really matter because Winchester was capable of manufacturing brass cartridges in any length they wanted to.

This is the story I've always heard about the beginnings of the .270 Win.
Paul B.

One thing that always puzzled me about Carmichel's dislike of the .270 and picking the .280 as "his round" is that for many years his articles mentioned using 140-grain Partitions in the .280. Any difference in performance between that and 130-150 grain Partitions in the .270 is so small to be just about imaginary.. I know that from hunting with both cartridges considerably.

I started doing more gun writing in the late 1980s and early 1990s, after establishing a career writing about various other subjects, mostly hunting and fishing but also Western history. I got to know Jim pretty well over the years, both due to going on "industry" hunting trips together for animals from prairie dogs to big game, and seeing him at various shows like SHOT. But never did get up enough nerve to ask him about the .270/.280 thing....

Wonder if that was just an effort to pick something different than the 270, since it’s been championed by JOC, maybe he felt like he’d leave his mark with the 280.

My half baked theory about that .277 dimension is that it was a screwed up communication between their engineering department and the tool room. "Hey guys let's give the new rifle a .277 bore diameter", and it was misconstrued to mean groove diameter. (.276-.277" being bore diameter for 7mm.) That's my story and I'm sticking with it, haha!😀

Perhaps Carmichel was simply ahead of the whole faux-gay .270 banter?😁 He probably had a half dozen of them in his safe. "Hey Jim, whatcha carrying today?" "Uh, .280. Yeah, that's what it is. Yep."

Memory being what it is as we get older...

I recall reading years ago an article regarding the origin of the .270. I had always thought it came from Ken Waters, but I have a lot of his stuff and I sure don't see it there, or anywhere else I have looked. Maybe somebody who knows for sure different can sure speak up.

Here is the gist of what I remember. Winchester was looking at the 250/300 Savage. They decided 3,000 fps was a good place to be, but it need to be attained with a more substantial bullet than an 87 gr .250 bullet. They decided that a sectional density of close to .250 was needed. They wanted to use 30-06 class brass since no new case needed to be designed. They then went to the currently available powders and concluded that a 140 gr .280 bullet would not get 3,000 fps. Available smaller caliber bullets needed slower powders to do that. They decided after some engineering and testing that a bullet of .277 diameter weighing 130 grains could be given 3,000 fps with powders in those days. Ten grains more bullet in the 140/280 was just enough too heavy I guess.

During the research they found nothing commercially available of that dimension. I recall nothing about Chinese 6.8x57's, but Winchester could be logically assumed to know about them, I suppose. Anyway, I seems that this would have given Winchester a marketing leg up, because the greater shooting public would have no knowledge of any old Chinese Mauser's. I do not recall a reference to the .256 Newton in this piece, but it sure seems logical it was on Winchesters mind. Their goal as described in that article would have been something like, the magical 3,000 fps with enough bullet for all around big game that had the commercial backing of a company capable of mass producing and marketing it, and had just released a new rifle that could fire it. They just so happened to have a brand new cartridge for their brand new rifle. It also avoided unpopular metric designations of 6.5 and 7 mm.

As I said reliance memory can be fickle. I freely admit I have not seen that since I read it many years ago.

first i wanna say John Barsness is my favorite gun writer and he has helped many of us on campfire with our questions with some always good answers . i hunted with a great man who is no longer with us who worked for Federal Cartridge for 40 years his name was Jonny Bell a engineer/manager/machinist , his uncle started with Federal when this ammo company started Marcy Bell . here`s the story i was told 30-40 years ago by Jonny Bell > the 7mm / .284 bullet was developed overseas and yes its a great bullet, but American engineers ,ammo ,gun manufactures and some others were too proud to except the 7mm bullet and as Americans we developed our own bullet size .277/270 . Jonny Bell always hunted with a 270 Win. but always said American`s were foolish to develop /engineer the .277/270 bullet also.

I think Carmichael resented that he was never beloved like O'Connor was and he took it out on the 270

AGREED X2

There was nothing "foolish" about developing a .277" bullet

I read some time back about a German cartridge called the (6.8 Nueber?) that for all intents and purposes was the .270 but, I cannot find it or references to it. I thought I read it here on the 'fire. Maybe I'm just getting old enough where my rememberer isn't remembering anymore.