Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 100 yr. .270 birthday- lots of .270 stories?

Well.... The experienced and well seasoned .270 Win is one year from it's 100 yr. date of introduction. Will we have one heck of a birthday celebration in all the media from magazines to the internet? In 2006 the 30-06 received a lot of attention. Will the .270 Win. receive a lot of attention and praise? I look forward to seeing if it happens. I also love the 06 as I do the .270.

Most of the 270 guys will be too busy to celebrate, likley trying to stack some more bucks and bulls onto their meatpoles

Post of the year. :-)

Yes. I agree. The .270 has been one of the great working rifles for 99 years. May it have another 101 years to reach age 200. Some of these new calibers will not be around in 10-20 years. The .270 will be here. Even the 7mm Rem Mag didn't bury it when it was all the rage back in the 60s-90s. Time will tell how all this plays out in the future. There are so many 30-06 & .270 rifles in homes across the nation, the gun makers need to kill off the two so they can sell other guns. Will .25 to .50 inch more accuracy make that much difference in the future? NO! We have returned to a nation of target shooters as we were 100 yrs ago. We've even reverted to long, heavy bullets as we were shooting 100 yrs ago. These new bullets have totally superior BC abilities. Hunting has become so expensive that I quit a few years ago.
We've back to where only the rich can afford to hunt.

It was brought out the same year my mom and dad were born. 1925 was a hell of a year. I plan on using the 270 for whatever hunts I go on next year.

I killed my first deer, elk, pronghorn, and bear with 270’s, and it’s very likely I’ll kill my last ones with a 270……

I no longer have one, & really don't rifle hunt much anymore anyway. BUT;

My first Mule Deer & Whitetail with a rifle was with a .270/130 Speer. No complaints from me.

Maybe, besides being the very best .270, it is also the very best 7mm. It is a 7 mm. . The .270 wcf.
Look it up.
It justs gets better and better.

My favorite .270 story took place in 1989, when Eileen drew a Montana bull moose tag the first time she applied--five years after she took her first big game animal.

She used the .257 Roberts on deer and antelope for several years , but eventually got a .270 because she wanted to hunt elk too. (She's taken elk with the .257 since then, quite handily, but....) She got a spike elk her first year with the .270, which died promptly, but when she drew the moose tag "everybody" said it wasn't enough.

She shot my .30-06, and didn't like the recoil, so stuck to the .270. On opening morning a medium-sized bull showed up at about 125 yards, quartering away. At the shot the bull took a step-and-a-half and folded. The bullet had entered the middle of the left ribs and ended up in the right shoulder. It's still the quickest-deadest I've seen a bull moose drop from a heart-lung shot....

[quote=beretzs]Most of the 270 guys will be too busy to celebrate, likley trying to stack some more bucks and bulls onto their meatpoles [/quote

Well stated Scotty!

I really like this story. This is telling the world the .270 is very capable. It is a 7mm. I learned this when I purchased my first Lee Collet Neck Sizing Dies in .270 many, many moons ago. I've never forgotten that .277 translates to 7.04mm in the metric system. This info was on the front page of the directions. After all these many decades I am still using that Lee set of dies. The 140gr Hornady boat tail bullet has given me 1/2 moa when I've cooperated with my rifle and done my part. The dies were purchased through my gun smith who died approx. four years ago. He was a very nice man who is very much missed by everyone who knew him.

honorary 7mm...

Just a week or two ago, a Finn Aagaard article was posted here so we could read about Finn's experiences with the .270. He told us a .277 bullet cannot freely be dropped through a .284(7mm)bore. Well, this just shows me how close the two are and almost identical except in the twist rates. With proper twist rates the .277 bullet can better, equal weighted bullets, the .284 bullets for SD and BC. It is tit for tat.

Had to think about a story as I have had so many good stories with the 270 between family, friends, and myself.

My favorite has to be unbeknownst to my Dad and I the day after 9/11. We were hunting the Mulchatna caribou herd in Alaska. Dad had filled one tag with his old Remington 760 Gamemaster pump topped with a Leupold Vari-X IIc, 4-12 AO scope.

We spotted a dandy bull and he lead us on a merry chase. I know you can not catch up to a moving caribou, but he stopped for a reason only know to him. There was no way I was going to get close enough for my longbow, so Dad laid down on the tundra. This before we had rangefinder, but I knew it was a good poke. He was questioning the distance and the wind. I told him to hold on the back line right where the neck started to curve up. He was still waffling, and said "put a bullet in him.

The shot rang, and could see the bull was hit, he stood there and I said hit him again, second shot broke and the bull was hit again. This time the bull did a complete circle and stopped facing the same direction. I told him to hit him again, but this time at the bullet impact, the bull started to spin. In the binoculars, I could see the blood spraying out both sides as he twirled.

We stepped it off at 425 paces, you could cover all three shots with your hand. 150gr Speer grand Slam. With the bullet drop it had to be in the 375-400 yard range. A distance in this day and age is no big deal, but it was a fair poke 23 years ago.

It would be nice if on its 100th year birthday, 8 twist became the standard twist rate for the .270 Win. and the large bullet manufacturers made some medium weight bullets (130,140 and 150 grain) with b.c.'s over .600. The current bullets used would still work ok in an 8 twist barrel. However, I think the problem is, and I'm happy to be corrected, the SAAMI throat length is too long. There would be too much of a jump to the lands for many of the high bc bullets to be accurate (some might be accurate) at the current maximum cartridge length. If they seated the high bc bullets out further, magazine length would become a problem. They can't shorten the throat as pressure with the lower bc bullets that are currently used would be too high at their current C.O.A.L.

Riflehunter,

I am with you. I hunted with a 1:8 twist 270 WCF last fall and took a spike elk, antelope, and WT doe. Used 155gr Barnes LRX at a touch under 3000fps. I am sold. Worked great on the elk, and did not wreck a bunch of meat on the antelope or WT doe.

That's great CRS, the copper bullets often like a large jump and can work with a long throat and fast twist in a .270 Win.

Wonder, will we see a 100th anniversary model 70 270 win shot show special. Chances are..

Our family is pretty 270 oriented since we mostly have deer and bear at home, and I like the 270, so when our younger cousins and brothers came up, that is what we got them. My little brother wanted to elk hunt when he turned 18, so he applied and got a cow/calf tag. Same year I gifted him a reloading kit so he could learn to make his own ammo. Well, he was able to get into a great buy from Rocky Mountain Reloading, he scored about 1000 of the Tipped Trophy Bonded bullets Federal had begun loading. 140's and plain old H4831SC worked. We worked up a load and ended up around 58-59 grains for about 2950. Anyhow, we shot all Summer out to 500 with it.

That Fall in Wyoming him and I crept on a small herd of about 25-30 animals. We were laid out prone and I ranged his cow at 275. I said you shoot first and I'll take another after you shoot. Well, being a younger hunter, first time looking at an elk through the scope made him get a touch of the elk fever cause he was aiming for what felt like forever and I could see them starting to get a little nervous. Well, finally he broke the trigger and instead of elk just meandering off the small meadow, they acted like whitetails and hauled butt out of there leaving me with no decent shot. Well, didn't matter as he smacked that cow stone dead.







Quite a few other good elk and deer hunts, but needless to say, the 270 has been great to us.

My first serious center fire (after the 30-30 that is) was a R77 in 270 win in mid 1970s.
Still have it. Bedded action and skin bedded rest of fore end. Shoots 130 and 150 Nosler
bullets to same poi, holds zero forever and is one heck of a killer.
I have killed animals from red squirrels, fox and porkies to white tails, mulies and several bull
and cow elk. It is the gun to bury with me. It has iron sights and a Leupy in tip off weaver
rings. Love this gun.