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

I have a couple, really like them, good performance, little recoil at all.

Load up some 110 or 130 with low to middle powder charges and it becomes a pussycat. Started nephews and sons with reduced to moderate loads and they worked great.

Can always do it with smaller cartridges too, but I am so far entrenched in 270 rifles and reloading supplies...

Have some .270 brass in the tumbler as I write this. One load is 130 grain Balistic Tip that I've been using for many years and the other is going to be .150 grain Nosler Partition, might go elk hunting this fall with it. Like some on you, I bought my .270 several years ago, 1979. It has served me well as my deer rifle since with the exception of maybe 5 seasons when I used something else.

My .270 story starts as a twelve years old.
My Dad had a Husqvarna, it was kept in the open and I had already been shooting positions for a couple of years with a .22 at the local armory and plinking around.
Well, it given to me as a birthday gift, this was amazing! Luckily, my Uncle drew me into his reloading room and so it began.
I carried that rifle for years, but as I got a little older , decide to buy a lightweight version. It was easier to carry, barrel was shorter. Another .270 wcf.
Now, I have 4
Model 700, Browning B78 and a takedown BLR.
Of course I tried other chamberings and always prefered the .270 wcf.
It suits me and I know what the capabilities are.
On bigger ,tougher Game, use a tougher bullet.
It is the bullet, not the bullet diameter that makes the difference, imo.

I have a couple of 270's as well. It's usually the first one I grab out of the safe when I head to camp. They just get the job done with excellent results.

I bought some 90 gr Speer Gold Dots (bonded) from Midway cheap-cheap, that were made for the 6.8 SPC. The run out of the .270 Win at 3700 fps.

Shot my first elk with a 270win.. Not much of a story. Someone kicked him out of his bed. He ran along an old cow trail straight to me. I shot him in the chest with a factory Rem 150gr core lock.
Rag horn bull. Only bull I ever got. It's also the only elk I've shot where the bullet impact was loud enough to echo.He didn't fall down dead, but he fell exactly where he was hit and died some minutes after. Rifle was an old M700 ADL with a jeweled bolt and safety that locked the bolt closed. Stock warped. I restocked with a B&C.. When I took it to the range, RO thought I had some kind of custom rifle. Those stocks were kind of new on the market. Rifle's a laser. My Dad still has it. I traded it to him for Granddad's old rifle.

I've just joined the 270 club. Had an H&R 35 Whelen I was trying to sell with no success so I added I'd trade. Straight traded for a JM stamped Marlin XL7C in 270. It's blued and wears a camo synthetic stock. The adjustable trigger feels like it's about 3 lbs. Looking forward to sighting her in and taking her deer hunting this upcoming season.

I've owned many 270s over the years, used one to take my only Mule Deer and a Saskatchewan Whitetail (my biggest until recently) and many GA deer over the years. I have one now that doesn't get used much, a Win 70 with a Shilen barrel in a McM FWT stock with Leupold VXIII in 3.5x10-50. The rifle is plain,simple and perfect, I could say myself lots of trouble by using it but life is not that simple so I have many rifles that I really don't need but they keep me entertained. In my limited experience with GA deer, I've never seen a cartridge more effective in killing than the 270, it just works really, really well.

My long time friend who has extensive hunting experience spends a fortune on hunting, guides and travel but won't buy a rifle to say his life, he has a 1980 vintage Rem 700 BDL in 270 that was given to him as a gift from his father, using 150 Nosler Partitions, has killed well over 100 (could be much higher) deer and counting. He can't imaging using anything but a 270 and I don't blame him.

I think the 270 is as good today as anything it's class and better than some. Rifles/cartridges really haven't change much since the '98 (be that 1898) Mauser and the 30-06, consider that compared to planes, automobiles and the rest of the advances in the world.

Well said 257.. Well said...

My experience with the .270 started back in 1973. it was a commercial FN with 24" barrel. Never used it all that much. I used it on a deer hunt the year I bought it but maybe only once of twice since I got it. Never figured out why that was. I've since picked up a few more .270s over the years as prices just happened to have been low enough to gain my interest.

I've told the story before but that first .270 was used on a deer hunt the same year I bought it. It was sighted in with IIRC, Winchester 130 gr. bullets and sighted three inches high at 100 yards. Accuracy was decent but not spectacular. I took my next door neighbor who incidentally was from New York City as he wanted to hunt but at the time had no rifle so he got to use my loaner. Opening day we were in my favorite area to hunt and worked diligently to find a deer. Just one of those days when they were not cooperating.

After a few hours we hiked back to where my truck was parked and were sitting upon the top of the back of the cut out for road and could look down as see the truck, We were eating our lunch and trying to figure out next where to try for the afternoon hunt when we heard shots farther down the canyon. I looked in that direction just in time to see a nice buck top over the saddle running like mad straight for us. No way could I turn around enough to shoot normally so I set up to shoot as best I could left handed. My neighbor and stepson were leisurely eating when I took the shot. neighbor hollers out that I should be careful with that gun. I said something like why? I just shot a deer. He didn't believe me. In fact, he didn't think there were any deer anywhere in the fairly wide open of the northern Nevada desert. Well, there it lay, one very dead deer and the only bullet hole in him was mine. Nice 4x4 BTW. I wish I'd had a camera as the look on that city slicked from NYC was priceless. I took him out the again the next day and we got him a nice fat eating sized spike.

I wasn't too pleased with the meat damage though but when the shot was only about 35 or so yards, that bullet would still have been move awfully damn fast. After a few more deer with that rifle and ammo I switched to a 150 gr. bullet and load using that same rifle and the 150 gr. Sierra Game King. Much happier with the end results; dead deer and not much mangled meat.

Last game I took with a .270 was a Pronghorn Antelope in New Mexico on a guided ranch hunt. Took a Winchester M70 XTR I picked up on a whim at a gun show that proved to be a great shooter. From the holes in and out it looks like the bullet didn't open up much which was good as the stalk got me to about 75 yards from him. Bullet in both hunts mentioned were the Sierra 150 gr. Game King. Powder was the now long gone Winchester WMR, standard WLR primer and Winchester brass.
PJ

270? Factory Core loks? Elk? Leupold? 2 full pages - not one derogatory comment?



Scared guys. What's going on? I got something terminal??? Tell me.

Another .270 fan here. My first centerfire was a Ruger 77 tanger in .270, and it's the first rifle I reloaded for.

I don't understand all the haters, but don't really care. I like it, still have it, still hunt with it.

Furthermore, everything I ever kilt with it is still dead.

GFY...........

Long Live the 270

All the ballyhoo can be said of about two dozen other cartridges too. Ain't no magic in any one of them. The magic takes place between the ears of the hunter.

And the hunter's trigger finger....

There’s a lot to like about a good .270.....or any other good tool that gives confidence day in, day out year after year.

I don't have any particularly good 270 Win stories, but I can say for a period of about 10 years it was my first and only choice for whitetail deer. I had great results with handloaded 150 grain Nosler Solid Base bullets. Shots were always under 100 yards and always 1 shot per deer. 52 grains of H 4350 was the best performer in my Remington 700. I've since moved away from the 270 Win, but it was and is all anyone would ever need.

The .270 is like a 5 iron in golf. Not perfect for every shot, but nevertheless versatile. I had 4 of them before the boating accident.