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Well, it's official. The classifieds will be full of used rifles and shelves emptied of ammo. Why I hate the NRA and gun rags.....too funny.



Why I Hate the .270
by Bryce M. Towsley - Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Opinion: Why I Hate the .270

Why do I hate the .270 Winchester? Well perhaps for the same reasons I dislike fish dinners, smart cars and rap music—they just are not to my taste.

First off, the .270 is too popular, and I have always disliked running with the crowd. I usually find the misfits of the world much more interesting, but I can’t make that argument and still talk about how much I like the even more popular .30-06 Springfield without embracing hypocrisy.

The .270 Win. was introduced in 1925 along with a new Winchester bolt-action rifle—the Model 54. It ushered in a new era for American hunters, with a muzzle velocity in excess of 3000 fps, and a bullet big and heavy enough for big game. It’s a mystery exactly why Winchester chose the .277-inch bullet diameter. One theory is that the company wanted something different and distinctive from the bullets everyone else was using. The 30-caliber was well established with the .30-06 Springfield, .30-30 Win., .30-40 Krag and other cartridges. The 7mm cartridges were mostly European at the time and not popular with or well-known by American hunters. That left the .250-3000 Savage as the next step down in popular U.S. rifle cartridges. I don’t think it’s any accident that the .270 Win. split the difference almost exactly.



The .270 Win. was an orphan for 20 years. Then for the next 56 years, its only sibling was a stepbrother, the .270 Weatherby Magnum. The latter is a good cartridge, perhaps even a great cartridge, but it has never enjoyed the commercial success of the .270 Winchester.

It’s only recently that a few more 27-caliber cartridges have entered the market. The .270 WSM was introduced in 2001, but sales withered in the shadow of its bigger sibling, the .300 WSM. The 6.8 SPC was introduced commercially by Remington in 2004 and was designed to bring a bit more performance to the AR-15 rifle platform. It has a small but loyal following.

The truth is, the .270 Win. is the only 27-caliber cartridge that enjoys huge commercial success—and it didn’t gain popularity until decades after its release. My guess is that if the .270 Win. were introduced into today’s “make-or-break” market, it likely would never have survived. Its eventual success is attributed to the writings of Jack O’Connor, who is often quoted as saying he thought the .30-06 was a better cartridge.

It’s said that foolish people get their opinions from others, but intelligent people form opinions from multiple sources, including their experiences. My experiences with the .270 Win. have not been very impressive.

The first time I saw it in action was back in the ’60s when my grandfather shot a whitetail on the point of the shoulder. It politely fell down and didn’t move. It was, however, in a different pasture on the other side of a fence. When we arrived, the deer was gone. We looked long and hard, but never found it.

Years later, I was hunting moose in Newfoundland and I watched a man shoot a spike bull seven times with a .270 Win. The last shot hit the spine, and mercifully the bull tipped over and hit the ground. I gutted it for him, and was shocked to find most of the bullets only penetrated about halfway through the moose.

I could, and have, blamed both of those experiences on bullet failure. While I’ll never know for sure with my grandfather’s whitetail, the moose hunter spent thousands of dollars on his hunt, yet went cheap on his ammo. He had the lowest priced, bargain-basement ammo he could find.

Bad bullet, not a bad cartridge? Not so fast.

Several years later, I was hunting mule deer in Montana when I spotted a rutted out, scrawny buck with a huge rack. I shot him with a .270 Win. loaded with factory ammo using the latest, high-tech wonder bullet. The deer dropped, but as I walked closer it tried to get up, so I shot it again. Both were broadside shots, and neither of the 140-grain bullets managed to exit the deer’s body.



I have plenty of other experiences with the .270 Win. that were also less than impressive—whitetails in Alabama, Maine, Saskatchewan and probably a few other places I am mentally blocking. There was a hog in California and an elk in Colorado. They all died, so the unimaginative will argue that the cartridge worked. I am a student of terminal ballistics, and can tell you without hesitation that in each of these circumstances it did not—at least in the technical sense. The fact that the critter died was secondary to the failed performance of the cartridge.

I used to do a lot of black bear hunting in Canada and I think I have tracked more wounded bears that were hit with the .270 than all other cartridges combined. But don’t just take my word for it. Kenny Jarrett—inventor of the legendary Beanfield Rifle, the .300 Jarrett cartridge and a world-traveled hunter—told me that hunters lose more deer at his Cowden Plantation in South Carolina with the .270 Win. than with any other cartridge.

I know this will ruffle some feathers, as the .270 has a large, loyal following. I understand that it makes no sense that I’ve had better luck with a .243 Win. than with the .270 Win. I’m a huge fan of the .280 Remington, but when you compare it to the .270 Win., there is little ballistic difference. Explain it? I can’t—at least not from a technical standpoint.

Most will agree that our dislikes and biases are often anything but logical. If you love the .270, I understand—there is no need for you to send me hate mail. I am simply explaining why I do not. I’ll bet there is a cartridge out there you feel the same way about.

For the record, I am stubborn. If anything, I continually try to prove myself wrong. I own several rifles chambered for .270 Win. and keep hunting with them, mostly because I like a little contradiction in my life. I find it keeps things interesting. But it also ensures that my opinions are drawn from a solid foundation of experience. I maintain they are.

It seems no matter how hard I try—as with the search for the Holy Grail—my quest to find love for the .270 has gone and may always remain unfulfilled.

Man, pretty rough on the old killer. Seems like alot of bad bullets to me. I like the 270 and about 20 other cartridges, but writing that was probably to draw mail rather than his actual dislike. JB will probably have better insight in it though..

I kinda wished when they mentioned failures they mentioned the bullets used. That is much more useful to me.

Well, he's convinced me. I must have imagined my brother dropping a big waterbuck in his tracks last August in SA at 370 yds. Better go throw mine in the local landfill.

Hail Mary article......

He's a writer who gets paid to fill up pages with stuff that people will read, either because it's useful, or controversial.

No more, no less. Hook, line, and sinker.

"A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still."

You can't fix stupid as they say...

I loaded too many 270 and 30-06 cartridges with 130 and 150 grain Sierras resp. for my father's deer hunts, which he used to excellent effect, to give a whole lot of weight to some things I read these days.

Hopefully this article will convince many folks and there will be run of .270s in the Classifieds, for cheap.

I don’t care for .277’s because I like 6.5’s better.

His point seems to be, "Lots of people hunt with .270's so lots of them have schit happen."
Yep, that's how numbers work.

Hey Mr. Towsley-

I see he has finally joined the Lee J Hoots school of journalism if that is considered an accomplishment....All ways thought Towsley was a dick glad he finally proved it by himself without any outside help. MB

Never shot one................. likely never will.

I opt for the extra .007"

I wouldn't call him a dick. How easy do you think it would be to come up with a new topic to write about every month if the subject is guns and the audience is the general public?

They're all the same for the most part but you'll never hear that from the spin makers.

He is an idiot and always has been.

The way Towsley speaks of the 270 is sort of the way I feel about the 30-06 and 7Rem Mag.

lol....I think he was just poking the bear. How many of the various gun articles written all of the time get a post made specifically about them? His did. grin....

Lol, blaming poor shooting and poor choices in bullets used in the wrong application on the cartridge. Top it all off with some "feelings" on how the 243 and 280 are better. Nice............

I have all three, I like them all. The 270WCF has always been lucky for me!!

At what point do we realize they all work and there is very miniscule difference between them? I am more likely to rationalize a preference for a specific bullet for its terminal performance.

Fake News!!

Make 270's Great Again

270 Sexually Harassed a Doe

If he wants to poke the bear then he should man up and go after the Creedmoor and see what happens. The millennials might get their skinny jeans all up in a knot, lol.

EXACTLY! Hard to believe someone shooting a 270 so poorly though or having that bad of a danged bullet in factory loaded 270’s. Almost harder to find one that doesn’t work these days.

The rifle is only as good as the hands that are holding it. That said I really like the 270 Winchester

No doubt that'll be next month's column.....

I wish I'd never messed with anything other than my 270. Probably wasted a few dollars over the years chasing unicorns.


It is a unicorn killer for sure.

It's Towsley-what the heck else would you expect from him?

I have never owned a .270, but I've seen what they can do.

They seem to work!

I generally use a .308, sometimes an "06, or .45-70, or .30-30, or........

The deer my buddies have shot with a .270 died in exactly the same manner as the ones I've shot with various rifles.

I did notice a slight rainbow coloration around the wound, though.........(grin)

How does he know where grandpa hit the whitetail? Did it leave a note?

Seems his opinion formed its foundation decades ago when there were a few bullets that worked at 3000 fps MV, and others that didn't. Combine fragile bullets with "unknown" bullet placement, and I guess that can leave a sour taste in an inexperienced hunter's mouth that is difficult to overcome.

IME watching bullets hit animals, as long as a good bullet was used for the application and it was put in the right place, with very few exceptions animals have fallen over within 100 yards or less. The headstamp has largely been irrelevant. Putting a good bullet in the right place is the catch, and as long as the shooter isn't trying to content with wind beyond 300 yards or so, and recoil doesn't prevent good marksmanship (which is a sliding scale for most people), headstamp is mostly irrelevant there, too, for hunting purposes.

But logic and pragmatism don't seem to sell magazine articles these days...

Eh...fodder for those who know not and know not that they know not.

My daughter been killing moose with an inferior obsolete cartridge.. if this gunwriter found out she was using inferior hornady btsp to do it, man his panties be in a big bunch..

I had to shoot a small buck three times with 130 CLs to put him down at about 90 yards in the early '90s with my 700 MR, all hits were well placed but showed no expansion and little internal damage.

I merely changed bullets not head stamps. Until I got on here and went rifle loony.

I may put the MR in the rotation this weekend. It's only killed 12-15 big game animals for me since '88.

What an epic troll job!

The thing that puzzles me is this. If he hates the 270 as much as he says he does, why in hell does he keep using one? I'm no big fan of the .270 but I do have one and use it on occasion. Everything I've shot with mine has died, usually DRT. What's not to like?
Paul B.

Bryce posts here from time to time.

Glad I bought a 30/06.

Probably where he got the idea for the exposé.....

Prexactly ! ! !


Jerry

I hate the .270 because it was the first “big game” rifle I ever owned..... a wood/Blue A-Bolt with a Fixed 4x Leupold..... that thing beat me... bad.... like Ike on Tina.

Haven’t owned one since.....

That's as logical as the OP.
Blame the cartridge because of a poor fitting stock.


Jerry

He did prove that the .284 version of the same bullet in a .277 kills more better than dead.

I don't know Mr. Towsley, but if I did, I would call him a lying S.O.B. This is not much different from the hit pieces that Ole Elmer Keith used to do on the 270, when he proclaimed that that the woods were full of elk, running around, packing 270 bullets. It's like an article I read many years ago, where the writer said that a 280 Remington, with a .284 diameter bullet, was a much better killer on game than the 270, with its .277 diameter bullet. Boy, that .007 sure makes a difference doesn't it.

Personally, there are a lot of cartridges that I don't care for, but I don't trash them.....I just don't use them.

Uncle took two rifles on his two safaris to Africa in the late 60s/early 70s. Both were Model 70s, one in 458 the other 270. He used the former on elephant and buffalo. For the rest, including TWO (2) lion he used the 270 with old style Silvertips...

Why is anyone surprised? Bryce is the modern day Elmer Keith. He only trusts medium to large bore magnums.

He hasn't been on here since April 2014

Quite a few years, back in 1995 to be precise, I drew a coveted Rocky Mtn Big Horn tag for Pikes Peak.Since Jack O'Conner wrote that it was the best cartridge for sheep hunting, I built one up on an Jap Araisaka action. I worked up a load using 130gr Game Kings and killed a nice ram with one shot at about 350 yards.

I then gave it to my niece which she still has, I didn't figure Colorado would ever give me another sheep tag as I had no use for it

I have never warmed up to 270 Win or a 30-06.

I have owned several of each, but prefer a 6.5 CM, 7x57, 7-08 or even a 7mm WSM.

If that makes me a rifle looney, so be it.

donsm70

He must be from Alabama. Every redneck here thinks he needs at least a 300 win mag to hunt deer. The rifle of choice, Browning,gag!

Before I knew that the .270 wasn't enough gun for moose I took one just about every year for 20 years using over the counter 140 and 150 grain ammo. Usually federal blue box or remington core lokt. Never lost an animal and shots were anywhere from 50 to 300 yards, most at around 250 since that's the average distance across the slough we usually hunt on.

You don't get many complete pass throughs on a moose with a .270 but I did recover a good portion of the bullets stuck to the opposite hide.

Yep. Guy is a butthead. Would never waste a second reading anything he wrote.

Bryce has written a couple off books about hunting with the Benoits. So he knows about a couple of 270s that kill the HELL out of 300 lb whitetails.

To All,

NEVER owned a .270WCF as I've seen little that it will do that my .300SAV with 150 grain bullet won't do. Therefore, I see NO reason to buy one, though it's a FINE cartridge for any number of big game animals.

When I "step up" in caliber, it's time for the 9.3x62 Mauser that will work for ANY big game, including elephant.

yours, tex

Ding ding ding.

Most ironic thing is it got posted here and a bunch more people are reading it.

I’ve never found love for the cartridge but it sure kills stuff. I got no rational reason whatsoever and when friends ask me advice on the old “one rifle for everything” purchase it’s always on the list: 30-06, .308, .270, and 7 RM.

Attack my beautiful 30-06; won’t be no butt hurt here... just an assumption that, like Bryce, one is sensationalizing his opinion for his readers. It’s cool.

I've had a couple of bad experiences with Hornady 140gr. BTSPs, but other than that, I've never had any issues with my .270s over the years since I got my first one. I simply don't buy any more Hornady 140s. I have poleaxed a BUNCH of deer with 130 Sierras and the old Remington Bronze Points.

Life is good. My current M70 .270 makes short work of anything I point it at. Bang, thump.

Killed my first deer with a 270 and loved the caliber ever since. First rifle i bought myself was a 270 and i have 4 different rifles in 270 and a 270 wsm also owned a 270 weatherby but wasn’t fond of the cost of the ammo for a little more performance. Hell even the cheap “[bleep]” core locts hot deer like a lightening bolt. Nothing beats it for me.

Did someone actually pay him to scribble that drivel?

I suppose this has something to do with the long lead times of publishing and a mix up that resulted in an April 1st article ending up in Dec.

Wow...lots of hate for Mr. Towsley. I may be the odd man out, but I find it refreshing to hear what gunwriters don't like. Sometimes I feel like they have to like everything or say something positive about a product or cartridge. From what I read, he freely admits his hate is irrational, but it still keeps him biased. I think we are all like him when it comes to what we like and dislike. He could have easily started a Ford vs Chevy argument and gotten the same results.

Who in the hell reads what these gunwriters write let alone take it to heart?

And I despise the .270....

I enjoyed the read. It reminds me of some of the stuff that Askins Jr. used to write about the 30-06. I always chuckled when he called it a "pipsqueak" and said that it was for those who had lace on their panties.

I know the '06 is a good cartridge, and will work on 98 percent of the world's game animals, but I don't care for it.

Towsley's article will or did generate hate mail for at least 6 months.

Regardless, the 270 WCF is a good cartridge and kills game with aplomb. (especially if loaded with the 130 grain Partition.)

Pretty funny. Glad my dad had the sense to make my first rifle a 280. I've never had to suffer using a 270.

Preach it....

Yawn. Towsley.

Even his controversy pieces are gruel.

So he doesn’t like them because he doesn’t like them. Must be some real meat in there somewhere…


At least he admits he is a hypocrite. In my experience, things generally don’t become popular unless they work or fill a need, - which, based on its popularity, the .270 Win appears to do. I’ve always thought it one of the best choices for a dedicated deer rifle - and still do. It makes no more sense to ‘hate’ a .270 Win than it does to ‘hate’ a popular model of automobile.


Based on popularity, I’d say he has it exactly backwards – the .270 Win is one of a few ‘great’ cartridges while the .270 WBY is merely a ‘good’ cartridge.


And then he provides his experiences with the .270 Win, in what – hopes that his opinion will sway other people, who, in his words, would be fools if it did?



I’m not one to believe in magic cartridges or fairy dust. If a .243 Win can work there is no reason a .270 Win cannot work as well or better if fed with proper bullets.

But maybe such reasoning is old-fashioned and the .270 Win is as obsolete as the .30-06.

These are either the most funny or most ridiculous responses.
Using equal bullets per cartridge --- you can't tell ANY difference.


Jerry

Say what you will, but .277 is odd.

Coyote H, you are spot on !

I think the article was written to evoke responses and draw attention. His content, as you clearly pointed out,
is full of contradictions.


Jerry

Someone of renoun says, it's the TRUE 7mm.


Jerry

Vermont. And that really takes the surprise out of it for me. I've spent a good deal of time in VT and the worst things I've ever heard said about the .270 Winchester were said by Vermonters. Evidently it's not unheard of at all to lose a deer in that brush choked dense forest up there because the .270 didn't drop him on the spot and didn't leave a blood trail. I've ran into that in PA too but our woods aren't as thick so you're not as likely to lose an animal.

The last 3 black bears I shot with the 270 Win and 160 gr Partition bullets didn't like at all how the 270 worked. Dropped them quickly and no bullets recovered. I had a hankering for years to get a left hand 280 Rem but those are quite hard to find. About 3-4 years ago I decided to finally give the much easier to find 270 Win a good look and am happy I did, easy to find both guns and ammo and there are lots of great bullets for reloading. Of course over time if you keep your eyes open you eventually realise there isn't any difference in killing power between similar sized cartridges. Still would spring for the right 280 though but the 270 ain't going anywhere.

So, any Southpaws who might be tempted to run out and throw all your .270's in the dumpster, take a breath and shoot me a PM. I'll pay shipping to take them off your hands ...

Great, I'll take the lefties in Canada then

I’m a 270 fan. I’ve ran around in circles trying to find something better as an all around whitetail cartridge, but have yet to find nirvana. Some kick less, some kick more. Some use more powder, some use less powder. Funny, but all others are still compared to the 270 as the performance standard.

Zero to five hundred, it does all I need doing. (Several other cartridges do too)

And I’ve not killed anything with a 270 in quite a few years! It’s still one of my favorites.

After decades of hunting and shooting whitetail here in Missouri with just about every caliber out there, I can say with a straight and honest face, there is not much out there that isn’t a decent whitetail cartridge when used within its perimeters. The 270 is way above average in my book as a whitetail round.. my .02 on the matter anyway.

This is serious stuff we are talking about here. 0.007" is no laughing matter.

He needs to detach his sap sucker lips from those maple trees up in v'mont, sure he's in the throes of a diabetic coma.

Yep, the very same here Darrick. Some things we just have to experience for ourselves to be convinced.
There are other good, dependable deer cartridges but as you said the 270 is the standard others are compared against.

I actually bought my first Rem 700 BDL 270 W before I knew JOC championed it as he did. It made me feel good to read of his accomplishments.

Jerry

Hmmmmm, one more writer to write off.

After a couple hundred critters with cartridges ranging from 222 to 50 caliber muzzleloaders and most everything in between. Prairie dogs to elk, I am of the opinion that the 270 with a 130gr bullet, or that ballistic range of cartridges is about as good as you can get for deer sized game.

I personally do not like the 243 or the 7mm RM. Here is my experience with those two cartridges.

My first year deer hunting I shot a deer with a 243 and never recovered it, second year I shot a spike buck that did know it was shot...until it died, thought I missed. Then there was the fuggin idiot who talked down my 270 whick killed like Thor's Hammer , while he went on to miss and wound multiple deer with his wonderful 7mm RM. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

After reading all the responses, I would say the author accomplished what he sat out to do. It seems to me at times that he is somewhat lamenting the fact that he doesn't feel the same way most people do about the 270. Heck, I have read enough threads on here in the last year to know that most of us feel the same way about at least 1 cartridge. And, I get it, I don't want to hunt what everyone else does. It's the reason I bought my 1st M77 in a 25/06 in the late 70's. No one I knew had a Ruger 77 in my neck of the woods and no one had a 25/06. I remember a guy telling me several years later that he saw my rifle at the hardware store which had ordered it for me before I got up there to pick it up. He told me he had been wanting one and that was the 1st one he had ever seen. For a number of years around here, I knew of very few folks who shot anything other than a 30/06, 270, 308, or a 243...except we hunted with 1 guy who hunted a 224 Weatherby Magnum. No way I could compete with him for hunting a cartridge no one else had.

I have killed a number of deer with a 270 and have a couple of them still here at the house. But my favorite little gun shop that my friend owns had a run on people trading in 270's this past Summer. At one time, the 270 made up between 1/4 and 1/3 of his used rifles. The rest of them ran the gamut from a semi-custom 222 to a couple of larger magnums. I wondered why so many people were trading them in. Maybe it became too routine to see animals die when shooting them. The pawn shop close to me which has a much larger inventory of rifles had about as many of the 270 Win as they did other popular chamberings.

This is how I see it, a 270 is in an 06 case. If you have a 30-06, 25-06, 270, 280, 6.5-06, or even a 338-06, they're all the same from 0-300yds, maybe even further. I'm a .284 fan, love the caliber, love 280's, and have killed a pile of 350lb whitetail with them, as well as a pile of elk and moose with them. I've gone through my magnum phase and found that at 0-600yds they don't kill any deader than an 06 case bullet.

Animals are made of flesh and bone, an 06 case holds enough powder to drive a piece of lead deep enough through that flesh and bone to kill any North American animal out to 300yds with no problem, and if you choose the proper bullet construction, you can stretch that out a lot further.

The guy wrote the article to get a rise out of people and it obviously worked.


Despite what he wrote, everyone knows the 280ai is the king of cartridges, it just takes more time for some people to figure this out

I pretty much agree. First rifle I bought at 16 was a 7mm Rem Mag. I picked it because it was different than anything my family members used. I was started with a 30-30, my grandfather use a 300 Savage, my dad had a sporterized 8x57 Mauser. My uncle hunted with a 270 and my cousin had a 30-06. My uncle on the other side swore by his no jive 35 rem. When it came time to buy the gun my uncle tried to talk me into getting a Browning 30-06 similar to his .270. I ended up buying my 7mm mag in a model 70 classic stainless.

My dad bought reloading equipment and I started rolling my own. For deer I loaded 150 grain Nosler ballistic tip with 61 grains of IMR 4831, which is the starting load. I shot it and was so pleased with the accuracy I got that I never experimented with other loads. I wasn't pushing it to its limits but was happy with the results. Everything I've shot with that load has dropped in its tracks.

I could easily replicate that velocity in a 280ai.

Since purchasing that 7mm I've accumulated more rifles than I'd like to admit, but none in .270. I don't hate it but I've always wanted something else more. I eventually did end up getting that Browning 30-06. I found a NOS A-Bolt stainless stalker on gun broker a few years after my uncle passed and I bought it. I've never shot it with anything other than 150 grain factory core lokts, but it shoots as well with those as my 7mm hand loads and I believe kicks a bit harder.

I have probably killed close to 50 whitetails with the 270, anywhere from 15 to 450 yards. All were shot with a 130 grain bullet, most with the Sierra Gameking. Never had to track one, never had one jump up and run off after being shot. Don't use it much these days, as I'm trying other things. But, if I ever draw a Kentucky elk tag, the 270 is what I'll use.

I do not like Ruger's either! , nor 25-06's.

The author may have wrote the article to get a response, but I will certainly dismiss him going forward. If he was trying for satire, he sorely missed as a writer. I certainly question his credentials if he cannot make a 270 work.

That sums up my experience as well. Started with a 7mm RM in '82 and for 20 years it was my only Colorado-legal big game rifle. It has killed more big game than all my other rifles combined.

As I started adding to my collection in '02, it was with Marlin levers. Since then I've added Colorado-legal bolts in .243 Win to .338 WM. Somehow a .270 has just never quite made the cut. The closest I've gotten was a $15 disagreement on price for a Ruger stainless/skeleton MKII at a local gun show. Went back first thing the next morning, determined to buy it, but was 10 minutes too late - someone else was filling out the paperwork on it. (dammit!)

Thought about one a couple years ago when cdnnsports had the Rugers for $499. Got a .280 instead because I already had a pile of .284 bullets. Thought my girls might use the .280 but one sticks to my .257 Roberts, another got her own (lefty) .308 Win and the other doesn't hunt.

While I've long thought a .270 Win was as good as it gets for deer, it is now doubtful I'll ever get one - unless I run into a deal I just can't refuse.

Anytime someone tries to make a case for a particular chambering being ineffective while arguing that both smaller and larger chamberings are more effective, I have to doubt the validity of their opinion.

If a fella is honest and cursed with a curious mind, has an interest in "old" cartridges, seeks out rifles chambered in "old" cartridges, works up loads for them and takes lots of medium game with them and that curiosity evolves into finding rifles in "old, oddball" cartridges and does the same with them it becomes exceedingly evident that the old 8 X 57 with its original .318 bore can be just as accurate and kills just as good as the newest, latest, greatest cartridge put on the market. So do a thousand other cartridges. Hairs can be split over differences in trajectory, bullets can and do make a difference though I've not seen anything kill one bit better than a good cast bullet when put in the right place on medium game, sectional density can be argued/discussed. One experience can jaundice a hunter, one experience can gleefully convince another hunter and unfortunately both become rote....and neither is 100% correct. I'd be just as fat, dumb and happy in the deer woods with my wife's 243 as I would with my 9 X 71 Peterlongo, my 40-70 or 45-90 Sharps or my 270 or my old 9.3 X 57 Husky or any of a couple dozen other cartridges I own. Not a doubt in my mind all will cleanly kill a whitetail.

Most popular, commercially successful bolt rifle cartridges are based on basically two early cartridge cases. They are the 8 X 57 and the 375 H&H. Respectively a German and a British cartridge. Before anyone includes the 30-06 bear in mind it is a lengthened, necked down 8 X 57. Ain't nuthin' new there. Certainly there is many cartridges based on other cases or a proprietary design but compare their popular success to any based on the aforementioned cartridge cases and it has to be miniscule.

To reiterate my first post in this thread of now 4 pages, the article was "fodder for those who know not and know not that they know not".

.270 boring? Lmao
There is nothing sexier than a 8lb .270 spitting out 110grn Barnes ttsx at 3500fps. If that doesn't give you a Woody than Viagra won't help either.

HUGE difference between the two, isn't there? ........ esp with similar bullets.

So I'm confused a bunch of you are sticking up for the .270 Win.
Is it still gay, or am I safe now to admit that I use one without the wrath of the homophobes being unleashed?

The only
The only "perceived" problem with the 270 is that it's old and boring. That's it!

Shooters, esp younger ones are always looking for the next better thing but there really hasn't been much if any at all improvement in chamberings since the 270 was introduced.

I’ve had similar experiences with the .270 as the author. The only two deer I’ve ever lost have been with the .270. I’ve had two long tracks with it as well. I can’t tell you why. There is no logical reason why that has happened and every deer I’ve ever shot with a 30-06 more or less dropped on the spot. I can’t tell you why some of the most dramatic kills I’ve ever had were with a 7x57/7mm-08 and the .270 has been less than satisfactory.

All I can say is that my experience has been like his.

I'm surprised to hear there is anybody anywhere who has killed a "pile of 350 pound whitetails". Considering deer that size are as rare as hens teeth. Sure the scale isn't off?

A mature Alberta whitetail will tip the scales to 350lbs+, I've seen them close to 400lbs. I had one that was 178lbs on the meat hook without the head hide or hooves. I don't have a scale but it's not hard to tell when two guys can barely get a deer in the back of a truck that it's all of 350lbs. I don't want to derail this awesome 270 thread but I could pm you a few pics of my average size bucks. I only shoot mature deer.

Just two 350# whitetails would make a pile, really, particularly in a half-ton. It's best to carry a bathroom scale to make field estimations prior to dressing.

Odd is right...and apparently, anecdotal evidence for cartridges is far more compelling evidence for killing effectiveness than bullets or placement.... keep them convincing cartridge stories coming!

270 is to the 30-06 what 6.5CM is to the 308, just 88 years later. Glass, bullets, and placement is all that matters. The rest is bullschit and everyone knows it.


At least as it pertains to hunting.

Guess I forgot the (grin). this thread is funny though. Doesn't matter what cartridge you were to say something bad about guys seem to think something bad was said about their wife (grin)

Remembered the grin this time.