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

Have taken many whitetails, hogs and an Audad with my 270, a Tikka Whitetail Hunter with Zeiss 3-9X42 Diavari. Cold bore shot placement is always on the money, and it shoots tiny groups with 130 TSX's. I won't part with it, despite favoring my SA rifles (7-08AI and 338Fed) lately for carrying in the woods. The Tikka wears it's original stock and is a tad heavier, and I'm getting old and weaker

The other side of that coin, I came by a Creedmoor via a customer who backed out of a build. Finished the build, couldn't find a buyer. I like it...but I would trade it in a heartbeat for a good ol' .270. My only criticism is with the old fashioned cup and core bullets we used to use..it will bloodshot meat pretty bad.

I have a marketing and communications background - I say that because the topic of this thread has more to do with demographics than cartridge performance. And to get this out of the way - to say something like, "a cartridge doesn't perform like it used to" is utterly ridiculous - think about it. That's almost like saying that cartridge (bullet) performance is emotional, not physical.

Now to demographics. I'm not going to lecture the topic, but instead just give a few quick bullets -

- Seasoned hunters who have been at it for a while and choose to carry a .270 (or 30/06 and the historical-like) are past their influential stage. They don't cling to everything they read about the newest product on the market like those who are still trying to choose what to carry. I dare say they probably don't read many (if any) gun magazines either. Gun magazines have useful information, but most weight heavily on product promotion.

- Those who are influenced by marketing hype, and that includes 1950's and '60's .270 buyers, are sometimes boisterous about their choice. This is probably because they are excited to own the whizbang 2000 everyone has been talking about, and perhaps also because they feel the need to defend their decision. And as we know about the .270, sometimes the hype is real and their decisions work out for them.

- These bullet points can go on but I'll stop with this last one - old dudes who carry .270s sometimes type on chat rooms like this, but otherwise don't get caught up in social media, technical data, computer programs, field ballistic calculators, etc. etc. They range their deer, hold accordingly and take their shot.


Buying the latest and greatest is cool. I'm all for whatever keeps our shooting industry going! But when one looks at recoil and effectiveness on big game as far as most people would care to shoot, it's pretty obvious cartridge technology has not come very far in the past century.

Yep. The .270 Winchester is the poster child for psychosocial behavior.

My views on the .270 have basically comes full circle and for bullets outlined above.

It seems like not so long ago, I was the young buck of the communal hunting & shooting clan. Many of those folks shot .270’s (including my father) but I was too immature to learn from elders and my quiver void of any sort of emotional intelligence.

The .270 Winchester was my first centerfire rifle. I killed a couple of animals with it but soon grew weary of it and was seemingly always searching in greener pastures. I needed bigger, better and chased all kinds of chamberings.

Despite all that, experience & knowledge still somehow managed to seep in though osmosis and experimentation.

25 years layer, what’s old is new again.

Bob may he Rest In Peace loved the cartridge, that's all I will say.

They make great donor rifles!

Newer generation brainwashed by advertising latest and greatest for sales dollars 💸

Nothing wrong with the 270

270 adequate for all game here in Texas less some of the private ranch exotics such as Nilgai. Fairly mild mannered, reasonably priced commercial ammo that is readily available under normal circumstances. Good enough for Jack O’Connor and we have the benefit of premium bullets.

first I bought was .270, never been with out one, I would like a bit of a faster twist.

Thanks Brad. A couple statements I found very interesting:

"The 7mm Rem mag will boost a 160 gr bullet to the same velocity and trajectory that the 270 with the 140 gr bullet, but it takes an additional 2" of barrel barrel and a lot more powder and recoil to do it. Many hunters feel that the big 7 is a vastly superior cartridge, but I must say that I have been unable to detect much difference between it and the 270 on game."

BobinNH and I had a spirited conversation on this exact statement. With Re 26, I was able to get an honest 3000 ft/sec with the Nosler Partition (3020 if memory serves me). It shot as flat as the 7RM and carried very similar energy as the 160 launched at the same speed from the 7 RM. Needless to say Bob was a 7 RM fan. Still miss his posts.

A couple more:

"The 30-06 with its heavier bullets may have an advantage over the 270 when it comes to breaking massive bone and achieving the deepest penetration on the larger beasts, but not by any great margin."

"...I would simply use the 150 gr Nosler Partition at about 2900 ft/sec. That is also my idea of the best all-around use-it-on-anything load, and is the one that I would choose if I were taking a 270 to Africa or Alaska."

I bought a used Herter's J9 rifle in the .270 Winchester to got out west hunting and leave my Savage 99 250-3000 home. It did the job on antelope and mule deer. My uncles put together a Moose hunting trip up in Ignace, Ontario and I got an invitation. While speaking to my Grandfather about the trip he said "those 130 grain bullets your shooting ain't going to work on the moose. Come on in to the den and I will show you a gun that will work." He pulled out a Winchester Model 70 from the gun cabinet. It started life (circa 1949) as a .270 but he had Emil Koshollek, old gunsmith from Stevens Point, WI, rework it to a 7x57mm. It had a 24" Buhmiller barrel.

"Buy you some 175 grain Remington Core-Lokt's and go shoot a moose."



Do I want another 270 Winchester, no.

Bob loved the 270 win as well. He was a shooter and knew his chidt. If he said something I'd take it to the bank. I'm sure he may have been discussing the attributes of his Mashy and that would walk all over the 270. That may have been his point. Although, he thought very highly of the 270. Good choice on the 150gr partition though. I totally agree about that one.

I would have sworn that I’ve read the exact same words from St. Finn. And so it was, in his article on the 338-06 in the January 1986 edition of The American Rifleman:


At least for a while, you can see the words here: https://www.ebay.com/itm/133989148256

He’s not slagging the 270, but including it among the 7mm cartridges.


Okie John

A hole through the good stuff in the front portion of an animal results in death.

My grandfather was a 30 cal guy and so was my dad. When I started deer hunting my grandfather gave me a 30-30. I soon graduated to a 30-06 and that led to a 300RUM.
Then one evening when I was about 60 I saw an ad on GB for a M70 FWT in 270 and having just reread one of JOC's books for the umteenth time, I put a bid on it. What the heck, it was cheap and someone will surely bid more. Nope.
After shooting several deer and an elk I keep wondering what took me so long to wise up.
Maybe my handle should be "Slow Learner".

I was hoping someone would dig up that article!

I remembered that line and it was driving me nuts!


Okie John

Hawg,

Interesting to hear your opinion on the .270's adequacy on nilgai. About 20 years ago I was one of several writers invited on a nilgai (+pig) hunt on the King Ranch, along with a few other folks. The cartridge involved was not the .270 Winchester, but the new .270 WSM, and the bullet the also-new 140-grain Fail Safe.

When we we showed up the guides all expressed sincere doubts about the adequacy of anything ".270" on nilgai. Many of them believed in at least a .300 magnum, and some the .375 H&H.

By the end of the hunt 30 nilgai had been taken, a bull and cow for the each of the 15 hunters. The guides were all saying the .270 WSM was one of the greatest nilgai cartridges ever.

Now, some here may believe the .270 WSM is very different than the .270 Winchester, but I have shot plenty of animals with both--and also watched my wife kill animals up through bull moose with the .270 Winchester and plain old Nosler Partitions. I never could see any difference in the way either .270 killed (or for that matter, the .270 Weatherby) as long as a good bullet hit the right place.

In fact, the longer I hunt the less difference I see in how various rounds kill big game.

I can also remember Finn stating something like he "would draw a hard line under 6.5mm as an adequate all-around big game caliber." Probably could find it, if anybody's interested. Or even if they aren't. In fact might just look it up now, since I believe it appeared in his chapter in the same book on the 6.5x55.