Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Why Has the 270 Winchester Fell Out of Favor?

Brad,

You might also buy a copy of either AAGARD'S AFRICA, published by NRA Publications in 1991, or AAGARD'S AFRICAN ADVENTURES, published by Safari Press in 2008, which includes the same content as AAGARD'S AFRICA, along with Berit's recollections on the same era.

Finn's chapter in both books, titled "Guns of the Settlers," includes this final paragraph:

"I had the great good fortune to be in the East African game fields in their heyday and thereby the opportunity to see how a great variety of cartridges performed on all manner of beasts. When I think back on it and browse through the journals that I have kept since 1956, one inescapable fact emerges. Within reasonable limits, the choice of a cartridge is not all that important. Whether a gnu is thumped with a 6.5mm, a 7mm magnum, an 8x60 or a .375 H&H seldom makes a noticeable difference. It will run about as far when shot through the lungs as one as with any of the others. Even today, as it always has been and ever will be, it is not the rifle or its cartridge that matters so much, but rather the skill and knowledge of the rifleman-hunter who is using it."

I must also note (as Finn does in the books) that he was not talking about "modern" 6.5mm rounds and bullets, but what were then the dominant 6.5s, moderate cartridges such as the 6.5x54 Mannlicher-Schoenauer, or 6.5x55, used with cup-and-core bullets of 155-160 grains.
This is an interesting observation, which somewhat contradicts his other quotes about caliber/cartridges--but was published later than the book you have.

What I found interesting was that my experience in Africa has been very similar. The "gnu" he mentions is the blue wildebeest, which many consider perhaps the hardest-to-kill plains game animal, which on average is a little smaller than elk, but not much. My experience with blue wildebeest, in four African countries, is perhaps not so oddly the same as Finn's: Hit right with a bullet that penetrates sufficiently, they die just as quickly with, say, a 140-grain from a .270 Winchester or 7mm-08 as a .300-.375 magnum. It also took me a while to realize (and accept) this, just as Finn did. But the longer I hunt, the more my experience matches his.