Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters .270 Win. 130 grain. Where should the line be drawn?

What is the sensible limits for a guy hunting North America with a 270 Winchester and a 130 grain bullet, any 130 grain bullet? I've heard the round is marginal for Elk but others point out O'Connor took Grizzlies with this combo. Now I know there is no right or wrong answers but I want to hear some opinions. I'm not asking about the .270 Winchester in general as I know there are 150-160 grain bullets available that can even take Brown bear cleanly, but just asking about 130's?

Big difference in 130gr projectiles. 130 gr GK is a whole different animal than the 130 TSX.

Would it be fair then to say a 130 monometal has no limitations in North America but a 130 cup and core should top out at Elk?

Keep In mind I have used either one on elk, and don't plan to. But FWIW, IMO, the 130 GK tops out at deer, and the 130 TSXS tops out at elk.

If the bullet has the construction to penetrate into the chest cavity,and expand to destroy tissue and create a severe wound through vital organs, I can't think of any BG animal in North America that can sustain that damage, and live.

For anything bigger then deer it's time for 150gr Partition.

The biggest animal I've seen taken with a 130 from the .270 Winchester was a cow bison my wife killed a few years ago that weighed around 900 pounds. Eileen put the TSX about a third of the way up the body, along the rear edge of the shoulder muscle, and the buffalo went 40 yards before tipping over. Pretty good blood trail too, even though we didn't need it!

I've seen a 130 Core-Lokt kill large bull moose with aplomb and couldn't see how a brown bear would have fared better in such a situation. I'd be confident that I could kill any moose or brown bear alive with a 130 TSX from a 270 Winchester, of course I'd say the same thing about a host of "lesser" combinations as well. Experience has displayed to me that hunters have a lot more limitations than does their rifle/cartridge/bullet selections, though I guess we've got to talk about something..........

There you go.

John how big is a cow bison? I've seen them but could not hazard a guess as to how many pounds they are.

With 130 grain TSX or TTSX I would not hesitate on Alaska yukon moose or even a big bear.

Bob,

1000 pounds is very big, with most around 900. In other words, bigger than most mature bull elk.

I'd say that's pretty big.

Like a moose really.

130 ttsx hammered my black bear this past fall.

Isn't the .270 the gay caliber I have been reading about here that just bounces off things? I'm not using that gun for anything.

I don't recall Jack writing about shooting any grizzlies with 130gr .270s, but it's been a long while since I re-read his stuff. His first moose and certainly elk, but off the top of my head, I can only recall him passing on a griz with a .270 because he wanted to watch it instead, and he was carrying 150s at the time.

If anyone can recall the story where he used the 130s, please give me a reference.

He wrote that he killed two grizzlies with a .270,he doesn't mention bullet weight.

I looked in his book "The Hunting Rifle."

If anyone can tell the difference between premium 130's and 150's in the field you're more astute than I.

I've shot 15 elk with centerfire rifles in my half century of life on earth.

Seven of them were shot with a Ruger M77MkII in .270 Winchester. As far as I can recall, they were all shot with 130 grain bullets.

I was an early adopter of the Barnes X-Bullet, and that's what I used in the .270 for four or maybe five of the elk I shot with it.

I'm not a particular fan of the round. But, for a guy who isn't a huge fan of it, I've had more than few rifles that were chambered to it. Usually, I "settled" for a .270 when a particular rifle I wanted wasn't available to me me locally in .30-'06. That's how I wound up with the Ruger M77MKII I mentioned.

It's not that I think there is "something wrong" with the .270, because I don't. It's just that I'd rather have a .30-'06 instead and even that has more to do with off-season target work and the assortment of .308" match bullets to play with than any difference in "game taking ability" I might perceive that one has over the other. For the game I want to hunt, a .256 Newton / 6.5mm-'06, .270 Win, .280 Rem, or .30-'06 are all substantively similar peas in the same "general North American Big Game" pod to me.

Let's say I only had one rifle and it was chambered to .270. Now let's say I have come in to a pile of money that I have to spend but can only spend on either a new rifle set-up or a moose hunt.....

I'm going moose hunting with the .270 and maybe even with 130 grain "monometal" bullets.

Another contributor to this thread hit this point already, but the older I get, with the benefit of hindsight that comes with getting older and, hopefully, a bit wiser, I think rifle and cartridge combinations are a whole lot less limiting than the shooters using them can be.

While I'm not a particular fan, I do believe that the .270 in the hands of a competent shot is capable of cleanly killing any big game animal in North America, whether tipped with 130 or 15o grain bullets.

I see no need for "monumental's" in anything, including the 270.

The 270 is THE "classic" Western round... I swear I smell sagebrush and elk when I load for it.

I'd not feel handicapped with a 270 and 130 NP's on anything in NA. The 150's are my prejudiced favorite, but I've seen more elk killed with 130's than anything else.

Telecaster, I hear you on the whole .270-.30/06 thing. I've agonized between those two cartridges for years. I was raised in a ".30-06 family" and if that sounds like some weird religious cult , believe me it was. I was told that the .270 was inferior and wouldn't leave a proper blood trail. So when I rebelled and got into the .270 150 grains were all I'd trust. I figured that kept the cartridge closer to the trusty aught six in performance. Now I find myself wanting to delve into 130 grain bullets for the first time . So I launched an exploratory committee. Hence this thread.