Home Forums Hunting & Shooting General Big Game The Cult of the 270

Belonged to this cult for a number of years got out will probably never return since I own a 6.5x284 and it will do anything a 270 will do in a shorter package.

I started to read about the 270 Win. while I was still in high school. Then in 1978 I bought my first one, and I've never been without at least one 270 in my battery every since. I've carried a 270 Win. (and Bob, like you, I've owned a bunch of them) on many mule deer, whitetail, elk, pronghorn, and black bear hunts, as well as moose hunts and coyote hunts.

It's been a very "lucky" (for want of a better word) cartridge for me, in that I've used it to take my first black bear, as well as my very best trophy mule deer, as well as my best pronghorn, best Texas whitetail, etc. Actually, I think the real "luck" of the 270 has been that it shoots flat, carries light, kills well, and is easy to hit with.

In fact, I quit using a 7mm Rem. Mag. mostly because as far as I could tell, the 270 killed just as well as it did, shot just as flat, kicked less, was shorter and lighter to carry, and wasn't as loud.

Mostly, I've used a 130 gr. Nosler Partition loaded to around 3140 fps. or thereabouts for just about everything I've shot with the 270 Win., and I'll take the same load after mule deer this year.

The only hunters I know who put the 270 down have either very little or no experience with it, or else they have used poor bullets, anemic loads, or they just can't shoot so they blame the cartridge instead of themselves.

My favorite two-rifle North American hunting battery would consist of a 270 Win. and a 338 Win. Mag.. If I could have only one rifle for our continent, I'd go with a 300 Win. Mag..

One of my real ambitions is to take a 270 Win. to Africa along with a 375 H&H, and one year, I'll devote an entire safari to those two cartridges. Since I grew up reading about Jack O'Connor and John Jobson using that very two-rifle battery in Africa on more than once occasion, I have to do it at least once myself and realize yet another a hunting dream from my youth......

If I lived in primarily a whitetail state and/or hunted little else other than antelope, deer, etc., the 270 Win. would likely be the only big game rifle I'd own or would want to own.

The 270 Win. is hardly the only cartridge I use or have used, but it is one of my favorites, and I am a member of "The Cult of the 270"

AD

SU- I am this week ordering another 270 Lilja tube for my lil G33 want me to get you one coming as well....grins

I once had a bumper sticker made up that said "if you don't have a .270 you don't have caca"

Me thinks that makes me a card carrying member of the 270 cult.

Dober

LOL!!!

I love it! I'm surprised you don't have Lic. plate # 270 WIN.



Mark you can call me "Caca Head"

who said I didn't......grins

I could always help you buy your plates next time as well.

Dober

I've got all of JOC's books and a complete set of 1955 - 1963 Outdoor Life mags. And, I am down to seven .270's at present.
The caliber will take care of most all NA big game!

Only SEVEN 270s??
WOW!!

Yup and that doesn't count the pre 64's.

Wowsers,
P64s in 270winny? I am envious!

love the .270 win
love the .270 wsm even more!

now if only i could afford the .270 wby!

Allen: I'm a bit late reading your post, and as usual you are spot on. Back in the eighties a buddy asked me to help him put together two rifles for any hunting he would do in North America; Africa was not in the game plan. I speced two rifles for him, both on pre-64 M70's and Kreiger barrels; a 270 and a 338.

O'Connor was a huge influence on people in our age category, and not having anyone to teach me, I turned to reading his stuff to learn, because he LOOKED like a professor, wrote well, made sense and was easy to follow. I did what he said and over the years I learned he was not right about everything,but who the hell is!? Mostly, what he said was true, and is just as valid today as it was 30 years ago, even in light of newer technology.

It is still hard today to put together a better light, portable 22" barreled sporter that does not recoil excessively, shoots flat,has minimal muzzle blast,and enough bullet weight for most things on the continent, than a 270 (or 280-they're the same IMO). Go up in case capacity and recoil, blast, etc go up for a nominal gain in performance; go down in capacity and velocity and trajectory suffers. There may be other things that make as good a package as a light 270, but I have better things to do than waste a lot of time looking for them!

I think that one of the main reasons that JOC influenced so many people, AND in the "right" direction, IMHO, is that he was a VERY skilled writer whose material was SO enjoyable to read. As a "bushman", JOC couldn't carry Elmer's jockstrap,but, Elmer, for all of his hardwon knowledge, tended to "preach" while JOC's wicked Irish humour kept you snickering and learning.

JOC's advocacy of a light .270 as a "mountain rifle" really hit the mark with postwar hunters all over North America and the .270/.280 with good bullets DID what he said it would, consistently. Elmer's stubborn opinion on using nothing less than a .33 cal-250 gr. bullet on Elk struck most guys as overkill and many cannot shoot a .338 Win. with consistent accuracy.

I am "dealing" on a sixth .338 WM, a P-64 that was a .264, with a stainless Shilen, turned down, chopped to 22", equipped with Recknagels, a modified Micky SG stock and Weaver steel Grand Slams/Burris Zee rings...total weight 8lbs-2ozs, with Leupy 4x. This will be my backpacking rifle as my original P-64s are getting too valuable to hunt with in BC's moun tains and it is LIGHT for the chambering, meeting JOC's criteria for a "mountain rifle".

I am going to have my last Brno 21H action built into a 7.25-7.5 lb. .280 to accompany this rifle as my last serious backpack hunting set and I WOULD go with the ".270 cult" if I did not have a pair of .270s, but, only ONE, lonely .280 now. A man can't have too many .270 class rifles, it does the job!

Kutenay: That 338 I talked about above was about 8 1/4 all up with a 4X leup. The barrel was 23". I think a 22-23" barrel on a 338 is an improvement over the pre 64 25" job, nice as they were though.

I'm glad O'Connor and Keith were both around; they were products of their time and experience, and both were "right" in their own ways. Big bores and big bullets really make the fur fly,if you can shoot them straight, as you point out.

I bought into the 270WSM for a couple of years and had 3 rifles in that caliber. However after looking at the velocities vs. recoil, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing that the WSM could do that the 270Win. couldn't also do. I do leave the .270Win. home and bring the 300WM for elk hunting. However there have been 5 cows and 2 bulls taken in our elk camp over the years with the .270Win and 150gr. Partitions.

I came to a similar conclusion concerning the 270WSM.
I figure my 270wby will work with heavier bullets, my 270Win for everything else.

Allen,

I must admit that it is very difficult to find anything to argue about in your writings. I beat you to the punch with the 270 as I got my first one in about 1962 or 63. In my gun safe as I write this, there are four 270 winchesters, and a 270 Weatherby. There are also three 375s in the safe. How could I possibly argue with your choices. Not that I wanted to, mind you.

My first Safari was in 1987 in Zimbabwe. I took two rifles, a Heym 470 NE double, and my David Miller 270. I shot a buffalo with the 470, and used the 270 for everything else. I've not taken a 270 again to Africa, relying more on a 30-06, but wouldn't hesitate to take it back with me. If I have learned one thing in a lifetime of hunting, it is this. It doesn't make a lot of difference what cartridge one is using, but it makes all the difference where the shooter places the bullet.

Tom

That is an excellent way of explaining it........


Casey

While I agree that Elmer was a better "outdoorsman" than JOC,

Elmer was so full of schitt that it ran out his ears.

The old saying of believing none of what you hear and half of what you see applies to Elmer.

As far as info on shooting goes, he wasn't even in the same ballpark as Hagel.

MM

Well, the men of his generation whom I knew as friends 30-50 years ago who actually knew Elmer personally had great respect for him; some of these guys also knew JOC and had little time for him, so it seems to go. I agree that much of Elmer's rhetoric on many issues and his never-ending references to Civil War veterans plus his rather large ego could be tiresome, but, his serious comments on rifles always impressed me.

As to Bob Hagel, well, he is STILL, always has been and probably will continue to be my favourite gun writer. Probably only Finn Aagaard and Phil Shoemaker impress me as much, I wish I had known Bob personally. Nobody is perfect and Elmer was a pretty impressive guy,, especially considering his background and level of education...like most of us, once past 60, he could be a mite stubborn and opinionated.......... "grin"