I really don't know what to tell you. I shot an '06 as my only rifle for the first 20 or so years that I hunted big game. Since then I have messed around with a lot of different stuff, but have shot .270s, .280s (both the Remington and AI versions) and (occasionally) my old '06 more than anything else. I'll be damned if I can tell any difference in "killing power". For me, the .270, in rifles that fit me and shoot accurately, is just what works best for me.
I will readily admit that I don't shoot animals out to 600 yards. My longest kills, mostly on pronghorns, have been not much over 300 yards. Most of the Coues whitetails that I have shot (critters that supposedly require sniper rifles and scopes) were taken at less than 100 yards--same with desert mule deer. If I had never bought anything other than the old pre-64 .30-06 Model 70 that still resides in my safe, I think that my results would have been about the same--but I wouldn't have had as much fun as I have had trying other things.
My experiences are similar to mudhen's...and distances about the same although I have here and there stretched a 270 a bit further.
Recent kills include a couple of big bodied mule deer;one hit broadside through the lungs at 340 yards with a 130 Bitterroot,a pretty tough bullet(lazered after the fact). He staggered downhill for about 10 yards and I hit him a second time on the point of the shoulder quartering on and he was down as the rifle recoiled.
The second was a crossing shot off hand at about 80 yards with a 130 NPT;as the rifle recoiled I can still see his head snap down between his legs as he tumbled out of sight over the lip of a canyon. He was dead when I got to him.
These sorts of things have repeated themselves over and over again for me with monotonous regularity.
As to the 30 calibers,they are no doubt great game killers and I have used them a lot. But I recall a heavy old Saskatchewan buck (as a single example)hit at 350 yards across a grain field that took two successive chest hits through the ribs and still managed 80 yards or so along the field edge before he tumbled.In the snow where he was hit, there were chunks of whitetail clockwork scattered everywhere....yet on he went. Made me wonder how he took a single step after each hit.
So this "thing" with animals sometimes covering distance after a hit can happen with anything you can fire from the shoulder and is not at all unusual,no matter what you shoot.
