Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles 270WIN-OR 7-08

30-06

It's apparent that some folks are able to goose the 7/08 up to 270 velocities,but I notice that they are doing it(in the case of factory ammo)with 24" tubes and loads blended by the factories for very high performance.Or in the case of the gentleman who has the very nicely machined,slick 24" Rock barrel and moly coated bullets, which implies some pretty sophisticated loading techniques.I have no reason to doubt the veracity of these results,or the guys running them. I beleive they got what they got.....although I would love to see the pressure data if any exists.

For the sole purpose of plaing devil's advocate for a second, I would put a 110- 270 bullet(Barnes TTSX) in the same class as a 120- gr 7mm,and if memory serves(I don't have the Barnes manual handy)a 110 TTSX can be hustled along at pretty close to 3400 fps from a 270 Winchester case and a 24" tube.

I note some pretty giddy velocities in the Nosler manual for the 7/08 and 120BT but this is from a 26" tube;I'd submit that a 26" tube on a short action sort of negates that supposed advantages of a short action altogether.Also the 120 comes up kinda short in BC and SD when compared to a 270-130 like the BT and AB.

And I know from experience that a 130 Barnes XLC can do 3200 from a 22" barrel with the Barnes manual max load of 65 RL22. What it would do from a 24" or 25" tube I can only speculate, as all of mine have had the 22" tube, as well.

Even with plain old R22 and running 61 gr without any undue duress I have managed to get about 3150,and a friends Rem 700 with 22" tube runs nicely at 3180 or so with the same charge.

So if speed is the criteria(which must be the case because it's apparent that many 7/08 users decide the cartridge's greatest virtue is to reach 270 speeds,which tells me which cartridge is the "standard bearer")the 270 will still trump across the board in the broad range of cartridges if loaded to equal pressures in equal barrels,and in the broad range of available rifles.I suspect this will always be true for one simple reason.....it holds more powder.

Just sayin'....

Bob
For years, people have taken a case with smaller capacity than another case, loaded it to higher pressures and shot it out of longer barrels to "prove" that the smaller case somehow has a magic that allows it to equal or surpass the larger case. This is what a lot of wildcatting is based on.
The argument that a 7/08 is a highly accurate, light recoiling round that is about as effective in most hands as a 270 is spot on. To say that it can equal 270 muzzle energies when measuring velocity over a chrongraph, not so much.
If anyone could tell the difference in wound channels caused by the 7/08 and the 270, though, they are far more perceptive than I am.

Fred

Isn't this all a rehash of the .308/30-06, .280/7mag?? I can't believe that it has reached 7 pages. I guess everybody had to have a chance to brag on their favorite rifle. Sometimes by discussing all sorts of ballistic data to prove their's is better. No body's gonna change their minds so why not call it a draw?
'Course as more and more of you old .270 shooters die off, the 7-08 will rise to it's proper place.

Bob, Barnes new load data has the 110 TTSX running 3500 fps with Hunter. I punched the 140 load mentioned in quickload and got 74k.

Guys this ain't a horse race... The 7/08 is a fine round and I'm not in a contest to "prove" that one is any better than the other at their appointed task.Just pointing out a minor fact of life that generally speed follows powder capacity,and if you see the little one going as fast as the big one,then something ain't always "equal"......

I know Stillbeeman wants all the old 270 farts to die off.. ..but thing is there's a whole troop of younger shooters back here glomming onto the 270 bandwagon. It may be "old tech"...but it's still the one everybody chases.

M1 sometimes we get away with those pressures, and sometimes we don't....74k is running pretty hard..

The more I shoot and hunt with the 270 Winny, the better I like it.
I used to be more of a 308 or 6.5 Swede guy, but not so much these days.

Call me old fashioned but I'll take my good old 7X57 with 140gr TSX @ 2850 fps and keep my shots less than 400 yards...dead sheep.

270 shooters - please remember me in your will.
I promise to speak of you well, ummm, and kill stuff with it.

.270 if you like speed.
7mm/08 if you like slower.

Hey Bob, lets not die off for a while. there's more mule deer and whitetail bucks for us to kill before its over.

270: Yes there are......

Although I am liking that 257 real well these days.....

QL kinda cuts out the BS, doesn't it? I've ran many loads through it, that guys were claiming, and wonder how they still have all their body parts.

Q: 270?
A: You betchya!

I've shot elk with both, using Partitions, and my impression was that the damage from the 270 was more dramatic, but on a couple of occasions that was from a 26" barrel so it was probably moving pretty fast. The one I shot with a 7mm08 walked a little farther before falling over, but because of the angle I had only centered one lung and taken the end of the other. The ones I have shot with the 270 were pretty well jellied inside.

That said, I would hunt with the 7-08 again at least for cow elk. I do notice the reduced recoil and especially the noise and flash are less on the 7mm08 with 22" barrels on both. And the 7mm08 SA just feels handier. If I were to buy just one, I might go with the 7-08, but that's not really a practical decision, I just like it. The 270 is more versatile by a little bit.

Just given some time all the young 7-08 guys will mature into another batch of "old .270 shooters". With age comes wisdom.

Curious, do Cow elk and Bull elk die differently?

No doubt an LA ctg. will trump a SA ctg. all else equal due to displacement/Case capacity, however the diff is not a 1:1 ROI on powder burnt/performance achieved. I contend the diff is not normally enough to make a material diff in the field on MOST game and normal ranges.

"Curious, do Cow elk and Bull elk die differently?"

Well, no, but bulls have heavier shoulder bones, clavicles, and cartilage, and if you hit any paunch on a quartering shot it's all just way bigger on a bull and it's harder to get through to vitals. That's when a 150 grain from a 270 would be meaningfully better. Side to side through the slats it shouldn't matter at all. For deer and sheep, the only diff would be the flatter trajectory for 130 gr 270, which is a pretty trivial diff. I wouldn't hunt bull elk with a 7mm-08 if I had a choice.

Both are good, but I'd go 270.

What "wisdom" do you claim? You guys are amazing! Wisdom would tell you that you can just about do the same thing with a 7-08 with 15gr of less powder.