Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Long Range Hunting Long range with the 270 Win, and 308 Win

It was a great day of shooting with some very interesting phenomena.

My drop data was obtained on a flat range at sea level and I just plugged in the local altitude, weather etc. When shooting north across a deeper canyon at about 600-800 yards, rounds were impacting almost .5 mil high. We turned south shooting over multiple shallow canyons and impacts were exactly as the data predicted. My best guess is a vertical updraft but I have limited mountain experience. Even my hunting spots here in Central and Eastern Montana are over flat ground and I have not observed the differences in comeups. For me it was also a first that I was able to be in an environment where I could pivot 180 degrees from one target and have completely different wind conditions etc for new targets.

I did a lot of digging on the .270 and settled on the 140 Berger as the best balanced load past 600 yards (the Hornady 140 is also another sleeper) but I was consistently using .5-1.0 mil more of windage at the longer ranges vs the heavy .308. I know everyone likes to reach for the heavy slugs for long range stuff but I also run the 110TTSX at 3400fps and under 500 yards it is significantly flatter and better in the wind than anything else I can load in a .270, just some food for thought.

I also run a simple SWFA 3x9 with no parallax adjustments. Under 800 yards I keep it down at 6x so I can spot most of my hits which can be tough at times with a lighter rifle. It is mounted in a flat DNZ base and I only have about 12.5 mils of elevation left in the turret which takes me to 1200 yards. At one point I was using all 12.5 and still adding another 5 of hold to try to hit some of the targets he was pointing out. That is the farthest I have ever pushed the combo and data said I was going subsonic at the longest ranges. Also for what it is worth we were dialing from a called shot, back down to base zero and then dialing back up for the next shot. I did not see a single instance of dialed elevation not matching the needed elevation and no need to turn past the point and come back for an accurate comeup. The SWFA flat out work and there is a reason I pick them for every new rifle I set up.

I know we all like to think high tech and dedicated rigs for long range. With proper equipment selection you can build a capable hunting rig that will not break the bank to set it up or break your back to pack it up the mountain. My rig is under 8lb as pictured and I have about $1000 total into it. It might not fit the image of a long range rig but I have filled freezers with pigs taken from 20 feet to a little over 800 yards and there is nothing I would change about it.

Thanks again Shane, great day of shooting.