Have been gone three days helping a friend look for a bighorn ram in the Missouri Breaks, where he finally drew a Montana ram tag after 38 years of applying. Got rained out (that country is impassable to both vehicles and hiking when it gets really wet) so came home to find the Campfire is once again up to its old tricks.
Bought my first .270 in 1974 (don't want to do the math of how long ago that was) and since then have both used it personally and seen it used on a wide variety of big game, including piles of pronghorns, dumptruck loads of deer, enough elk to know it kills them fine, and other elk-sized animal from Shiras moose to African plains game to know it works fine on them as well. In fact I know it works fine even without the magic monolithic bullets. Have never used it or seen it used beyond 500 yards, but then have not seen most big game rounds used beyond 500.
Have extensively used a bunch of other cartridges in the same class from the .270-sized 6.5's to various 7mm's (including the more moderate "magnums" and the .280 and .280 AI) and the .308 and .30-06. Have not seen a trace of difference in how "well" any of them killed with at least a dozen different kinds of expanding bullets. Which is why I've come to the conclusion that the reasons some people "prefer" other rounds in the same class to the .270 a normally more theoretical than real, usually involving a few fps, or relatively minor differences in bullet weight and diameter. Or some more nebulous reason, such a "panache" or the latest styles, which in hunting cartridges can change almost as fast as trends in cell phones.
Have always had at least one .270 since 1974, and my present one is a Winchester Model 70, a Jack O'Connor Commemorative Featherweight with a walnut stock that has VERY fancy figure. It's very accurate as well, and yes, I have hunted with it. However, I tend to use a wide variety of cartridges, due to my job, so continue to search for a round that works better than the .270 for general big game hunting. So far haven't found it, but the search continues.
“Montana seems to me to be what a small boy would think Texas is like from hearing Texans.” John Steinbeck
