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

Not true. They are fantastic for donors!

It's a very popular caliber for elk here in the East Kootenays of BC. With the quality of bullets available today, one does his job, this caliber will take care of the rest.

My next rifle will likely be .270 WSM, although I've been giving the .270 Win some reconsideration of late.

I was going to light my pal BobinNh up and say "Rodents and donor actions" too but everyone else got to the trailhead before I did.... Damn empirical data aside....

................I`ve never owned or hunted with a 270. But I`ll give credit where credit is due.

With the right bullet and with the exception of dangerous bears, most if not all N/A big game including moose over the decades has been taken using a 270 and will continue to be taken by the 270.

Sure! There are other calibers like the 7mms and 30s with better bullet selections. But to say that the 270 is somehow inadequate or won`t get the job done is a delusional bunch of crap.

Just to set the record straight, countless "dangerous" North American bears (brown/grizzly) have been killed with the .270 Winchester. Written history during the past decade provide many, many accounts of brown/grizzly bears taken not only on this continent, but others as well, with the .270 Winchester.

Anything up to elk, and elk if you can actually shoot.

Do you have any pictures of elk that you shot?

I waited till I was past 50 when I finally gave in and bought one, should have given in to years ago it is a good killin round.

In my old semi-custom pre-64 270 WCF, 150 gn NPT's @2925 are absolutely perfect for Okleehoma WT deer.

That load really knocks the piss out of 'em.

Gunner

They knock the snot out of elk and moose too. In fact the "quickest deadest" I've seen a bull moose killed was when my wife drew her Shiras permit around 25 years ago here in Montana.

People told her how moose could take a solid hit and just stand there looking at you, and she was actually thinking about using a bigger rifle than her .270. But eventually good sense took over (partly because she'd killed elk with it), and the moose took a step and half before folding up like a cheap card table from one 150-grain Partition in the lungs.

My second Newfoundland moose, fell to 1 shot from a 270 @ 150 gr bullet, I brought the 270 as a back up rifle and when my other gun got damaged in transit. Well it didn't matter none. Come to think about it I stopped shooting a 300 Weatherby right after that hunt. That rifle remained a gun safe queen, till I sold it some years ago when I paired down my collection, Now I just shoot every thing with a 7mm RM and 150 gr bullets. Pretty much a flatter shooting 30-06! I would not think twice in shooting 98% of the worlds big game with a 270.

It's outstanding for long range. The 130 grain bullet has the same BC as 190 grain .30 caliber bullets and can be driven to about the same velocity as a .300 magnum drives the 190s. The .270 kicks a lot less, though, and it's a lot easier to shoot a light kicking rifle than a heavier kicker.

Craig Boddington decided he had to hunt elk with the .270 Winchester several years ago. He'd always advocated at least caliber for elk, but as we all know, gun writers have to PERSONALLY try everything in order to write about it. (This has always seemed a little odd to me, since I've known elk outfitters who've only taken a few elk in their lives, often all with one rifle, but have seen hundreds killed by a bunch of different cartridges. They constantly get asked about elk rifles, but if held to the same standard as gun writers their opinion isn't worth anything.)

Anyway, Craig took his .270 to the Whittington Center and killed a big bull at over 400 yards with one shot through both lungs. He reported the bull went down quicker than any other elk he'd ever shot. The bullet, of course, was a 150-grain Nosler Partition.

Providing a much discussed sample - of - one.

Hi John,

Sure my answer will rise hell but does'nt matter it's pure truth.

One of my friend, an old portugese gentleman of great education and hunting experience explained me one day in Lisbon, that, when he was living in Mozanbique he used for hunting different calibers.
One of them was 270 Winchester, with original Silvertip, sort of controlled expansion bullet of that era. With it he shot everithing up and including buffalos in total safety and without any problem.

His best friend and hunting partner used almost exclusively the 270 Winchester, up and including elephant.
These guys lived and hunted Mozanbique for years, being portugese and Mozambique being under Portugal control.

My old friend used to meet Taylor (of who he had no respect), hunting on his own he shot more than hundred bull elephants, only tuskers and dangerous "cambaco" (raider), who destroyed plantations and sometimes killed people, more than 1500 buffalos, some lions, and the rest...

So when he tell me the caliber can do it, i believe him. No he don't promote it for such hunt but the ammo can can do it if bullet is up to the task and placed in vitals.

For history my old friend developped caliber that were same of A-square but 20 years before, made solids from bronze and copper wire years ahead of Randy Brooks and others that came after. Would he be american he would be as known as some most famous writers and developpers from your country...

My small experience with 270 is nothing to brag when you know such guy but, be it allowded and had only that rifle caliber to hunt i would not hesitate to use it for all big game up to buffalo included.
I would load it with 180grs Woodleigh PP and could give a match to the old 7x57 Spanish Mauser. Then i would train and train again, learn the anatomy of these animals and go out in the wild without any fear.

Regards
Dom

Thanks certainly good to know, would make me feel better about loaning or including a 270 WCF as a back-up rifle on Western BG hunts, Thanks JB.

Gunner

For the OP, anything you or I will likely encounter. However I have a thing for the '06 and that is what I shoot. Being that a 270 is a " true" 7 mm and I'm anti-metric. . You'd be hard pressed to find something it couldn't effectively kill.

The first rifle I ever bought for myself was a used LH Savage 110 in .270win. It served me well through my College years in the UP and I took several big bodied northern whitetails with it. I pretty much stuck with the cheap stuff back then, round nose, corelokt ect. and only had a couple of hard recoveries. One was hit further back than I wanted and split the liver. It went about 180 yds before bleeding out. Another was a good lung shot but headed straight into a cedar swamp, she didnt go far maybe 75 yds but it was the roughest drag of my life.

That rifle got traded in on a new 700 almost 20 years ago now, but I sure wish I had that rifle back.

cmg,

Not exactly a sample of one when added to thousands of other examples of the .270's effectiveness on big game.

No matter how often skeptics are told about the effectiveness of the .270 on game bigger than deer, they refuse to believe believe it until they try it themselves--apparently because of what Elmer Keith wrote decades ago. And unlike Craig, I don't believe Elmer ever shot an animal with the .270. Yeah, he saw game shot with it, but apparently before the Nosler Partition appeared.

This Colorado hunter hunted with me this past spring on the Alaska peninsula and brought his 270 loaded with 150 Partitions. Two quick shots behind the front shoulder dropped this boar where he stood.
With today's bullets and a shooter who can place their shots correctly the 270 is more effective than ever