Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Why is .277 so much better than .264?

These cartridge debates reminds me of metaphysics, you know, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin...

The fact that anyone even questions the .270 Winchester's superiority is quite funny....grin

There ya go, Sam, having to bring logic into it!

JOC said the .277 was better than the .264...... enough said!! grin

We can settle this debate with the wisdom borrowed from D.C. politicians.
Use the .277 on odd number days and the .264 on even number days.
There's a "bailout" for you.

I've been around the horn, and I am really liking a 260 Rem. It's a reloader's cartidge, but you won't be disappointed in it's performance.

JB, but didn't one have something going on with Marilyn Monroe? Now that is a difference! LOL.

Dan, Coincidentally I had Chris at Pac-Nor do a 5 groove heavy sporter/light varmint taper, about 23", around .750 OD, by mistake got a 9 twist, but was good up to 129s, and this was done after having a long affair with the 7/08, and I got to thinking the 6.5 in a 308 case looked like a better thing.....for my needs, less recoil, lighter bullet range, higher BC/SD for similar bullets, anyway, this was around 6 months prior to the Rem launch of .....Jim Carmichael's new creation...yeah right, well according to Outdoor Life editors...even called Lonoke, AR ammo plant as receptionist lady at Rem said I cannot confirm nor deny we are coming out with the 260. Explained I wanted to get info to know in advance if my custom 6.5 would work with 260 brass/ammo, so the ammo plant GM sent me a Saami drawing which I compared to the one Chris had at Pac-Nor, and they looked like you could overlap them, VERY VERY much the same, so when ammo came out I shot some and it worked fine. Noticed recoil was more like the 243, but I was launching heavier bullets. It is a round for handloaders no doubt, due to the unfortunate lack of factory ammo, for those non loaders.

NOW, as to .277, as fine as Jack's round is (and believe me I read much of his stuff and fantasized about the round) having owned several, it does not float my boat. Not that it is not doing a great job, and even the 'Steroid' version, WSM, it also does not do it for me.

NOW, should Winchester come up with a 277-08, THAT would cause me to re-think 277. I could split the difference in the 260 and 708 and still have my short action, remembering Charles Petty IIRC pushed 130s right at 3000 in a custom 700 '270 Redding', with 22" bbl. THAT would get my interest, though it'd be some 90 grain HPs for varmints, and 140s for all else. Likely though it would not push a 140 as well as the shorter 7/08s which can use more powder and meet OAL.

I'll stop the 'gack' but I think the industry let the public down not pushing the 260. I recall long ago how Rem pushed the 7/08 and the 280 Express, ads comparing ballistics to 'educate' the public, back in the days before the 'Magnumitis era' hit, so the 338 Federal, another very practical round IMHO, is not riding a bigger wave, perhaps the NA public wants the larger brother that should have been standardized long ago, A-squares 338-06.

Well, I never met a person at a Shot Show booth who knew 'Ballistic Gack' at Rem or Win for that matter. Now Hornady, they could talk the talk. The Creedmoor may get swept under the rug, but alot of deer/varmints could succumb to 120/140 amaxs, if it caught on.

Well Dan, looks like we 6.5 fans are unique in the US as Jack did a better sales job and that can never.....rather... likely never be undone. Not that it need be.

Let's just keep quiet about how much fun shooting the mild 6.5s can be, and how we keep killing things as dead as they need be, at ranges most of us truly hunt.

Actually, I don't believe Jack O'Connor ever said that the .270 was superior to any 6.5mm. I have perhaps 90% of his writings and can't remember him saying that.

In fact he was remarkably tolerant (if that is the word) of slightly varying bullet diameters, and thought the .280 and .284 were as good as the .270 (or more precisely, indistinguishable in the field). In fact I seem to remember that the gun writers who insisted on building .284's on long actions (or thought about it) were semi-nuts--though he didn't put it that way. If he ever wrote about the 6.5mm Remington Magnum the same opinion would probably apply. I can't remember anything specifically about the 6.5 Rem., though he probably did say something. It was intended as a sort of .270 and succeeded at that--but wasn't noticeably better.

That is irrelevant. The .270 came along first and got established and there it was. O'Connor helped it along, but shot enough game to know that anything else in the same ballpark would do as well. Which is why in his later years his primary round was the 7x57. Would he have been enlightened by the 6.5x55? I doubt it. There really isn't a hell of a lot of reason to pick any of them over another, except the notion that we each somehow have a secret our fellow shooters don't.

Yes, my decision to go with the .270 over the .30-06 was the result of a very deliberate analytical process: After waiting a couple months for a lefty .30-06 Model 70 that never quite materialized at my local shop, I realized I'd better grab the lefty .270 that had been in the rack the whole time before it disappeared on me. Instant .270 man!

Scott

JBs right to some extent... Part of what drew me to build my first 6.5-08 was the fact that I had something different, at the time a wildcat. I couldn't help but notice that all the guys winning with "Match Rifles" I saw at Highpower matches were 6.5-08's. That was really all it took early on for me to love the 260. It made sense to me at the time, the caliber had proven itself as a long range sweetheart, and it was a pussycat in the recoil department. I did some homework, and found out it would make one hell of a deer rifle too. And I had a Model 7 in 243 that had a cooked tube. A phone call to Dan in Plains, and 4 months later I had a barrel chambered and ready to install...

Now my grandpa is still shooting deer with his old pre-64 Winchester in 270, although he put a fixed 4 on it shortly after he retired because his eyes were going. Two of my uncles have 270's, bacuase thats what grampa always used. Me on the other hand, at age 31 decided that I needed to get a mohawk and braid my goatee

Some people just gotta be different...

My preference for a 270 doesn't lie in any mystic mumbo-jumbo concerning its' killing power,or any clear superiority over other cartridges in its' class. It's just that it does routinely go a bit faster than the short cases,and said another way,easily kills as well as any of them.

I like things simple,and 270's are "common",along with good bullets and ammo in far-flung places. I stifle a yawn at the mention of short actions holding some necromancy and can still get around well enough that a 7 pound 270 is still no big deal.I don't care that 6.5's win matches because I don't shoot matches; I hunt big game,and any slight advantage a 6.5 holds over a 270 in the game fields is irrelevant at the distances 99.9% of game is shot.

The concept of jumping for glee because your pet short action 6.5 LOSES 200-300 fps to a 270 leaves me scratching my head, but you know what they say about different strokes....So at the end of the day,since nothing realy beats it,and because it's everywhere,and because I already possess enough characteristics which make me different, I'll just keep hunting with the 270.Dead is dead.Why complicate matters?

Again BOB, I am comparing a 6.5x284 to a .270 WCF which has almost identical velocities. I dont own a .260.

kyre-got it; yes the6.5-284 is sure similar to the 270;thought you were talking 260.sorry!

Kyre-true that the 6.5/284 is pretty much in the same league as the .270. However, I've yet to find one 284 based round action that would feed in a manner of which I find acceptable. Will they feed yes, but not how I want them to, let alone like a .270 will.

Plus, you will generally be losing a round of mag capacity over the .270. Once again not a big deal but it is something to cuss and discuss...

Dober

All true e-nuff!These same issues run to many short-fats in certain actions...But that 6.5-284 is an intriguing sort of round.

It's always interesting that new cartridges keep getting introduced that "will do anything the .270 will." The next question is obvious....

I guess I need to fix the feeding/round magazine problems by barreling my next one in 6.5-06. grins

Wisdom......................................

Well isn't this mind candy or what. Over the years I have been lucky to hunt some and to shoot a whole bunch of rifles. I started off with of all things a 7.62 x 54 R back in 1960, back then you could go into the Western Auto and buy that ammo by the pound. It was a bad thing, I shot that rifle some, and killed a couple of deer with it, then I started reading things like Outdoor life Sports Afield and Guns and Ammo and well I needed something better. And that started the quest for something better. Well its been 48 years now and I can say with out a doubt, that any number of cartridges will do, I like the 6.5 x 55 and I hunt a lot with one these days, its what I would call a pocket 270, then there is the 270, my Uncle Felix shot nothing but a its one of the finest hunting cartridges going and with the kind of bullets that can be had today it dose things that old JC could only dream of. In the end its not the bullet launcher its putting a good bullet in the right spot, that dose the trick. Look its a very wet day here in CT, and warm too. Deer Season is on, yet here I am putting my two cents worth on this thread, just the hear myself type.

Kyre-that will take care of the feeding problem and from the 6.5/06's that I've worked with and been around for the most part you'll run 140's @ 2850 (out of 22-23" tubes)which is a very capable set up.

Dober