Who cares what JOC liked.
He picked up 1925 round and after 20 years of latent use made it popular because of print and an ability to write. Bygone era bygone round.
Well if that ain't bait....
JOC
was a long time ago...I posted that stuff to keep historical perspectives correct;because we can't know where we are unless we know how we got here.
Today hard core rifle cranks seem to prefer 6.5's and 7mm's, because there are a few specialty bullets that trump 270 slugs in BC and for target applications and some long range hunting.And it's true that with the highest BC bullets the 260 seems to catch up to almost match the 270,maybe even beat it, but those differences seem to show up beyond 600 yards(far beyond where most BG is actually killed).With most hunting bullets the differences in BC are too close to call and the 270 with it's added velocity simply trumps.Compare, for example 130 gr 6.5 AB's and 270 140 AB's.
That's assuming you can get the velocities from the little case claimed for it,and this mostly seems to involve at least 24" of barrel...so yeah you can play with numbers and make a case that the 260 is almost it's equal...
In my view and FWIW,if you want to really
beat a 270,hands down,and thoroughly,(and especially with standard hunting bullets)you better be shooting a 264WM or a 7mm mag of some sort......a case with more capacity(not less).
I had dinner with John Burns in Casper last year,and commented that it was interesting how guys like Les Bowman and Warren Page figured out years ago how good a Big 7 was as an open country BG cartridge......I no sooner had the words out of my mouth when John came back with....."So did Jack O'Connor.....anyone who thinks the 270 isn't a great open country elk cartridge is nuts...!"(or words to that effect).
I'm sure John will recall the conversation.....because his comment sort of caught me off guard
he being a real LR specialist and among that crowd the 270 has been relegated to the dust bin with 4X scopes....
I don't have the data to back it up at my disposal....but I have a funny feeling that, in a show of hands of BG hunters, world wide,the 270 Winchester will have left the nouveau short action 6.5's (and most other 6.5's for that matter)face down in the ditch.....
So,it might be from another era,but it's astonishing how it has taken 86 years of technological development just to equal it,and the use of substantially larger cases to soundly beat it,along with added recoil and shorter barrel life.
What I find interesting is that the first objective of anyone using one of these new 6.5's or 7mm's seems to be is to equal (or beat)the 270 Winchester...if the cartridge is relegated to the scrap heap, I wonder why they concern themselves?
If I were looking to replace it in a 22" barreled light sporter and standard action (I'm not)the only two cartridges that would get a second look would be a 6.5/284 or a 280 Remington,not some short action cartridge of lesser velocity.....(I'm not that mad at standard length actions yet
.....even then I seriously doubt I could tell the differences.
So we can knock it and say it's out dated,but at the end of the day, it will kill more BG animals,here and worldwide,this coming season than the entire conglomeration of 6.5mm cartridges piled together;and likely as many or more than it's magnum jugged competitors,.....even though it's users are drooling myopically in their oatmeal, using their last ounces of dwindling energy knocking off everything from groundhogs to Alaskan Yukon moose and African eland.
(My Wyoming rancher pal has used it on about 50 elk....like most ranchers, Bill is an eminently practical guy;if something does not work well, he won't use it,and I doubt he ever read a single word O'Connor ever wrote.)
Not only because of it's popularity (which continues even though it's chief proponent has been gone 35 years),but because it "works",and represents about as much power,killing effectivness, and "hittability" as 90% of the riflemen out there can manage and "prove" under field conditions, with a rifle in their hands.
This is something everyone has to figure out for themselves....