Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Has the 6.5 smothered the 270's chances?

I always hoped that better .270 bullets would be built. That high end bullet manufactures would pick up the torch, and brass makers would follow.

Has the 6.5 popularity squashed that hope? For a good 10 years? More?

I know there are some longer range .270 shooters out there, but few and far between like the components available for taking it long.

Dogshooter is a HUGE .270 fan. He seems quite happy with the available bullet choices and the fact that the .270 is considered to be a Pillow Biting cartridge...it just leaves more components available for him.

He'll prove its Worth at the next SRM I'm sure.

Not sure which 6.5 you talk of. The 6.5 x 284 is very accurate compared to the old 270 without the improved shoulders.

I believe you're thinking of Prairie_goat

Are you attributing its accuracy to the sharper shoulder? Or is short fat the reason? Or exactly what makes on cartridge more accurate than another? Maybe this should be another thread.

Prairie_goat really got to Dogshooter. I think he's been "converted".

LOL

Can't wait to kick your azz running my .270 WCF/150 Partitions.... but that won't matter. The SRM don't mean schitt when it comes to an actual representation of field shooting ability. LMAO

I am going sub 8lbs and shooting off the pack this weekend.... no bipod, factory sporter .243. I may DQ myself and shoot stage 7 off the SFT, just to see if it can be shot clean with the added support. God knows I ain't cleaning it off sticks...

As it pertains to the OP's question.... the only thing stunting the .270 (and .25's) is factory 1-10" twisted pipes. Nosler bottled some lightning with the .277 150 LRAB, and the apparent .625 BC. Don't know how they got it all to come together, but they did.... we'll see if that moves the needle for any other manufacturers. A .277 140-145 Amax would be sick with a .575-.600 BC.

I know. Hitting ANYTHING past PBR is dumb luck. Just ask some of the expurts...

I'd say yes. The .270 never made it into BR,Long range or any form or International shooting matchs. No doubt for some very good reasons.

You will find the odd accurate combo and afficiado, but for ultimate consistant accuracy, it just doesn't cut it
compared to too many competitors. There are just more better options.

The 270 smothered the 270s chance.

Standardized twist 1/10 is just too slow for serious LR bullets.

Not to say you can't get there with the 270, but it will always suffer the limitations of it's twist rate. And there will always be choices in 6.5 or 7mm that will do better way out there.

Good bullets in .264" take the wind out of the sails of both the .277" bore and the .257", at least in terms of LR/target bullets.

I think these are good questions. I would think the 6.5-284 is not anymore accurate of a cartridge than the 270, but it has a better selection of bullets that result in better accuracy at long range distances.

Curious of others thoughts???

Same sad story with 25-06/257 Roy.
I have some 25 cal. 125 Wildcats, but they are no more.

Brian Litz wrote an article about "scaling" to explain why the .264 & .284 bullets were the top choices. I applied his logic and came to the conclusion that .277 is ideal. I wrote him twice but he never replied. If the bullets were made the users would come. There are 1-9 and 1-9.25 twist barrels being made. I have had a Kreiger 1-9, two Bartlien in 1-9.25, and a Douglas 1-9. Matrix makes some VLD's.

Of course, why not?

Building a 9 twist .277 is pretty easy. Think I'll order one.....again. (I have only had 3 IIRC).A .277 barrel only has to be a 10 twist if you want it that way.

Still trying to fathom what's wrong with 150 gr with .625 BC at 2900 plus fps. That beats a 140 VLD from a 6.5/06 doesn't it?

Can someone run those numbers? I did it a few months ago, but can't remember.....

Been a 6.5 whore all my life never a .277 even on my radar



Swede,6.5/06AI and 264 Win

You think they're good now, just try some decent bullets in them soon and you'll really be a believer!

LOL

Bob,

The real reason some calibers have higher-BC bullets goes back to the beginnings of smokeless powder in the 1880's. When the transition was made (naturally, at first by various armies), the bullets used were very long-for-caliber round-noses, apparently because that's what most countries used in the black powder cartridges that were replaced by the new "small bores."
Most early smokeless military cartridges were 6.5mm, 7mm, .30 and 8mm. The typical bullet weight in 6.5mm was 155-160 grains, in 7mm 170-175, in .30 215-220 and in 8mm 230+. . With the first, fast-burning powders the muzzle velocities were in the 2100-2200 fps range, so twists had to be pretty fast to stabilize the long bullets.

One basic rule of rifle ballistics is that the smaller the caliber, the faster the twist has to be to stabilize a bullet of the same sectional density. In 6.5mm this turned out to be around 1-8, in 7mm 1-9, and in .30 and 8mm 1-10.

Soon many countries started using lighter pointed bullets, at much higher velocities. It was discovered that the standard 6.5mm twist of about 1-8 stabilized spitzers of around 140 grains, which held their velocity very well, without as much recoil as the heaviest spitzers from 7mm, .30 and 8mm rounds.

Only after that were high-velocity smokeless rounds in caliber such as .25 and .27 developed, and by that time fast, light spitzers were standard. Bullets weren�t very well balanced back then, and too fast a twist could cause accuracy problems. As a result the first hunting cartridges in .25 and .27 had twists JUST fast enough to stabilize their bullets. The .250 Savage had a standard 1-14 twist for 87-grain bullets, and the .270 Winchester a 1-10. Both twists were slower than the standard military twists for heavy round-nosed bullets in 6.5mm and 7mm.

As a result, until very recently ALL the bullets in .25 and .27 caliber were designed around the standard slower twists in those calibers. If military rounds of the 1880�s had started out as .25 or .27 caliber, no doubt they would have used faster twists for long, heavy round-nosed bullets�say a 150-grain .25 or a 180-grain .270.

But none of the military rounds were .25 or .27, and as a result those calibers were developed around the �improved� lighter, faster spitzers that, 100 years later, suddenly were considered too light to keep up with the longer-range shooting made possible by affordable laser rangefinders.

It has nothing to do with the �magic� of 6.5mm and 7mm bullets. Instead it has to do with the sequence in which military and sporting cartridges developed.

John I knew about the military origins, long bullets and fast twist of the 6.5's and 7mm's, but never thought about the slower twist due to lesser quality bullets in 270 and 25 cal....interesting and makes sense.

There's an historic answer for most everything.

So, today, we build fast twist barrels and better bullets.