Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 270 vs 30-06

As "idahostalker" originally stated, he presently has a .270 and 338WM. But when on to say there would be no point in really buying a 30-06. Taken just like that, he is right. The 270 and 338WM cover basically everything for North America. Its a very nice, functional combination. If "idaho" had NO rifle, then we all might agree for him to buy the 30-06 and be done with it.
As it is, he doesn't need anything else unless he just WANTS it.

Dober/RuralDoc: Good posts!I never paid to much attention to exits vs non-exits because sometimes bullets exited and sometimes they did not,depending on....well...all kinds of things.

One thing I am learning, especially as I watch on here,and since I have younger compadres who keep sending me info and recovered Barnes bullets(if they are recovered, clearly they did not exit) is that,even with these super-penetrators,exits some times happen and sometimes they don't.....so the trend continues....

The most recent is a friend who just returned from a BB hunt on the Peninsula and last week he used a 416 Rigby with a 400 gr Barnes to shoulder shoot this very large bear....another recovered Barnes(did a splendid job BTW),.........and if you can't depend on a 400 gr Barnes from a Rigby to make two holes...well what the hell CAN you depend on?

Rambling thoughts and a bit off-topic but I guess as good a place as any to discuss it because we are talking about "holes"

I don't own either one any more. With a 25-06AI and a .308 why would I?

Funny thing, many here state that there's not much difference in the field between the .270 and the .30-06, which I tend to believe. Heck, on mule deer I haven't seen much difference (none?) between the little 6mm Rem and the .30-06... Shoot 'em and they fall over... Yet here we are, debating between to fine, well established cartridges.

Not long ago, in another thread the .30 cal was touted as being far superior to the 7mm because the .30 produced better blood trails.

Are we back to the angels on the pin argument? Hint: Yes.

Mark,

Well, you got me curious, so I went to my hunting notes and added up all the bullets from .270's and .30-06's that I'd recovered over the years. I am guessing that the number of animals shot with each is pretty similar, but didn't go back and check.

Not all the animals were shot by me. Some were taken by Eileen, and a few by other people I was hunting with or guiding.

Turns out the number of bullets recovered from each caliber was so similar that there was no "statistically significant" difference.

The animals that stopped .270 bullets ranged from pronghorns to elk and Shiras moose, and in the .30-06 from relatively small whitetails to kudu and blue wildbeest. So the size range was pretty similar.

The .270 bullets included Sierra GameKings, Hornady Interlocks, Nosler Partitions and Speer Grand Slams. The .30-06 bullets included Berger VLD's, Winchester Silvertips, Remington Core-Lokts, Nosler Partitions, Winchester Fail Safes, Speer Deep-Shoks and Norma Oryxes. So bullets ran the gamut in both cartridges as well.

This is obviously only one person's experience, but it covers a wide variety of game with a wide variety of bullets. And there just wasn't any real difference.

Sorry for the left turn here, but logcutter, my experience with Bronze Points is that they came apart upon contact with hair let alone anything thereafter.

Ok, back to the fray.

edited to add, "that was my experience with the 130-gr BPs out of a .270."

To add a little more soft green cow patty to the fray. I have never met an African PH who preferred the 270 over the 30:06.

That has pretty much been my experience on Whitetail with the range of cartridges running from the .243 to the 45/70.

Disrupt the lungs/heart, you get a short dash and a pile-up.

Disrupt the CNS, and you go straight to pile-up.

Bullet construction and placement have seemed to matter more than headstamp.

Here's a wrinkle: It seems to me that size/weight must at some point make a difference even though substance, construction and S.D. Remain the same. Take bullets of a S.D. Of .250 which for most standard cartridges most would agree is on the wee side for elk for instance. In a .270 this might be somewhere around 140 grains; it might exit; it might not. But a similar bullet (construction, S.D.) of 150mm and the size of a loaf of bread and at about them same vel (case capacity stays proportional)--does anyone doubt that that would exit? Probably, not even here.

MDs notes show no significant differences between the '06 and its progeny but my extreme example from common sense tells us that at some point size will be "a better killer". It seems silly in the telling and yet that is what this whole thread is about-- does .031" make a difference on the same range of creatures?

Apparently not at this point in slight difference but at some point it will.

To wrinkle it some more....

An 06 struggles to get 2700fps with a 180gr and 22 inch bbl. A 270 can generally hit 2900fps with a 150gr and 22 inch bbl. Again, it's a push as far as any kind of "killing power".



Casey

Well, this seems like a good post to increase my post count while making as much sense as the rest. Bob

Casey, I don't know nuthin' about what a .270 will do. But my 22" '06 doesn't struggle to make 2800 fps with 180's, much less 2700 fps. I don't think that's atypical.

A .30/06 that won't make 2800fps with a 180 grain bullet would be a rare bird indeed. That is enough for 99% of what will ever be hunted.

JW

I see it this way. In the hands of someone who can handle the rifle, I look at the 270Win, the 30-06, and the 375H&H as being about the same, with the exception that the 30-06 throws a heavier chunk of lead than the 270Win and the 375H&H throws a heavier chunk of lead than the 30-06. With that said, as long as you are throwing a chunk of lead heavy enough for the game you seek with the ability to punch a hole through the vitals, they�ll all work.

Best:)

I have a pretty nice collection of Hornady 140 grain bullets recovered from just under the offside hide of deer and hogs that were fired from my 270s.

I kept using this bullet because it is accurate and a really quick killer.

At the same time I used 150 grain Hornady bullets in the 30-06 to hunt the same critters in the same places.

I never recovered one,not ever.

I just find more 270 bullets in dead critters.

Maybe it's because most of my shots are fairly close and iimpact velocities are higher with the 270 and they expand more,I don't know.

I do know that cup and core bullets do tend to work great on game from the 308 and the 30-06.

I know Dober hunts pretty open country so maybe the differences we report are due to my critters being mostly inside of 200 yards and his are often a good bit further.

I'm assuming pretty much the same muzzle velocities from the 140 .270's and 150 .30-06's?

The difference might be in the core hardness Hornady uses in each bullet. A lot of companies vary the lead alloy in the core somewhat for different bullets, depending on the probability of what it might be used on.

I have never used the 140 Hornady in the .270, but Eileen and I have shot a lot of game with the 130 and 150 Spire Points. Most of the bullets we've recovered have been 130's, which makes sense as they're starting out quite a bit faster than the 150's, so tend to open up wider.

The only 150 .270 I ever recovered from a deer was from a whitetail buck shot at about 225 yards through both shoulders. I found the bullet in the far shoulder-blade, the core and jacket just slightly apart. But that was a long time ago, before Hornady bullets had the Interlock ring. If it had been an Interlock it might have gone all the way through, and almost certainly wouldn't have separated core and jacket. I've shot the 150 .270 Interlocks through some pretty big animals, and never recovered one.

I agree... 2800FPS for 180g bullet is no real stretch for a 30-06 with a 24 inch tube

As for recovering bullets I've not found many in deer, IMO deer are pretty darn easy to blow thru and not a good test of bullets. But, that's just the way I see it..

To me, elk/moose is where we begin to run into Big Game and begin to get to be some good test media. By my way of thinking the size of game has more to do with it than the range.

Uno mas observation about bullets being recovered, I've seen more 30 cal bullets taken out of (dead) elk than all of the 270's and 7mm's combined. Once again take that for what it's worth.

I'm one that likes to have two holes (from one bullet...grin) in game and I've noticed that I see that less with the 30's than I do with the 7's and .270's. Hence why I don't believe that we get better blood trails with the 30's. As well that's just one of the reasons I like the 200's in the 300's.

Dober

I am truly stunned by that last sentence. Actually stunned at all the remarks there directed to Mule Deer.

I don't have a dog in this fight but I will say this: Folks that hang out in the gun rooms, like this one, have usually achieved a level of ability in reloading, and shooting, and hunting that is not common to the average box a year hunter/shooter.
But it is those folks and the ones just starting out that buy magazines and they represent a much greater percentage of buyers than, for instance, folks in this room. -- how many of you have let reloading/hunting magazine subscriptions lapse because there just wasn't anything new for you?? And so your articles have got to be directed toward the market. If it insults you to have a basic reloading technique explained in detail, remember that to someone, that info is brand new.
And too, if a writer is creditable, his information should be grounded in first hand knowledge or, at least, impeccable sources. I would imagine it gets a little tedious after a while when you're standing there with blood on your hands and knife and someone starts quoting ballistic charts to prove you didn't do what you have done.
I'm through now.