so this thought just started running through my head. does the 270 or the 30-06 do anything better than the other? would you be able to tell a difference when shooting at game and on how quick the animal went down? Personally i dont think their would be a much of a difference if any difference at all. I started off with an 06, sold that (not because i didnt like it but i wanted to try a 300 out and wanted some extra $$ to spend on it), bought a 300, sold that pretty quick (just didnt cut it for me. People were always talking about "upgrading" from an 06 to a 300 up to me their just wasnt an "upgrade" that i felt. its the same bullet going around 200 FPS faster. WOOPTIE DOOOOO!!!), bought a 270 and a 338 win mag and i VERY happy with both of them. I would deffinatly buy an 06 just because its a good cartridge but for right now theirs just no point to. what do you think about the 270 vs the 30-06? Whats your opinions on the two?

I prefer the 270 because I mostly deer hunt and it just seems "right". Probably not much flatter than the 30-06 and I'm not going to bore anyone with meaningless mathematical minutia. I just think its "just right" when it comes to deer hunting.

I have used the 30-06 and it works fine and I'd admit that its probably a bit more versatile with heavier bullets on bigger game like elk. But, if you don't need that, why not go with the one you like?

I like the 270.

Nooooooooooo............


Let's see if this thread has any legs.....





Casey

This might end in a few posts, or it could go 10 pages.

Short correct answer is that they are two peas in a pod. Especially with todays good bullets what one will do so will the other.

Yawwwwnnnnn.

[img]http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c218/Airmail99/e877f113.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i412.photobucket.com/albums/pp208/LegalTiger94/beating_a_dead_horse.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i403.photobucket.com/albums/pp111/agtBobPhillips/deadhorse.jpg[/img]

No ones forcing you to reply. if you think its such a waste of time then why waste all that time posting those pictures. your just helping this poste go longer than what you think it needs to. quite being a cry baby!

You're funny . Would you like some goo-goo with your ga-ga?

270 vs 30/06 is about the DEADEST horse in the pasture. BOTH are stone cold BORING!

Funny stuff, Gringo Loco. Your Web Fu grows strong......

Boring.....................perhaps.

Incredibly effective................without question.

I will take a 280.

Yeah, both stone-cold boring....but practically speaking nothing much that has come along improves on them a whole bunch.

......and after you get over the infatuation with messing with little brass bottles of different shapes and sizes that only hold powder and seal chambers,and just wanna go hunting;and after you realize all any of them do is propel bullets from rifles,they are likely the two that will be remaining.

This is because both work well on the overwhelming majority of BG animals a guy is likely to hunt here or anywhere else.

Their only fault is they don't leave you much to talk about.......

I saw the title of this thread and thought " no way..." but I tuned in and was rewarded with this post...derivations on a theme...

Ingwe

And heeeeere we go!

Yes..The .270 shoots smaller bullets better than the '06 but the '06 shoots heavier bullets better than the .270.I have both now but the far majority of game I have shot here in Idaho has been with a 130 grain bullet out of the .270 Win.

I have seen people down size in the '06 to match 270 performance and fail miserably compared too, and in another sense,I believe 160's are to much for the 270 where 165 and especially,180's are the cats neow for the '06.

Either of them make a great all around Idaho caliber.

Jayco

the only thing I would say is I would feel more comfortable hunting bigger stuff with the 06, not saying the 270 can't do it, but if I were bear hunting (brown bear/grizz)I would prefer to shoot a 200 grain pill from an 06 than a 140 from a 270.

In the field performance, I'm pretty sure they'll both work. I have to admit to personally being more drawn to the 270. The 270 seems to have been built by a hunter for hunter's and hunting.Where as the 3006 was designed for the military and pushed into hunting service as an after thought.We all know they're both damn good cartridges.

One goal I have is to have at least one rifle in all of following: 25-06, 6.5-06, .270, .280, 30-06, 338-06, 35 Whelen.

It's really like having a package of different color britches. When you hunt on Monday put on the red ones, Tues the blue, etc. etc. Things are often too close to call depending on where you hunt and how far you might need to shoot.

.270 Vs. 30-06....Just pick your color for the day!

It's really about the rifle.

YMMV

If you already own a .270 and a .338WM and are happy with both. Mission accomplished! I'd dare someone to tell you there is something you can't kill with this combo! and buying an '06 just because is never a bad idea. Buy something different, like a real nice Mauser or a Husky in '06..

CLB

Deep into two pages already. Guessing here it wall make 5 easy, and maybe 10. Do I hear 10?..........

I wouuld prefer the 30-06 for huge bears, elk and moose, and the 270 for everything else, especially open plains.

The 270 drifts less in the wind, drops less, kicks less, what's not to prefer?

My next rifle will be a Kimber MT in 270... I'll have the barrel cut to 23" and mount a 2.5-8x36 Leupold on top in Talley Lwt's... should come in all-up with sling and rounds at 6.75-ish pounds.

A 150 Partition at 2,950 should do anything that needs doing to anything I hunt and recoil woun't be obnoxious. As to 30's, these days I mostly prefer the 308 Win over the 30-06. Kicks less, smaller, lighter and does the same thing.

10



Ahhhh, just split the diff and get a 280.
Once upon a time I had a real nice '06 and a real nice 270 so I sold them both and got a real real nice 280. Problem solved.

Easy answer! .30-06, necked down to .27 cal. Works even here in Ak. for most everything.
Bear in Fairbanks

Go .30 Whelen....

.270 for my money, a little flatter, a little faster, 140 gr. works for me, reaches out to around 400 yds mostly for deer here in Idaho, still based on an .06 case. Both are great cartridges and no matter where you are if you forget your ammo you'll be able to always find .270 or .06, try that with a 35 Whelen.

Idaho Biker,

He wrote ".30 Whelen," not .35 Whelen.

It's a joke, just like this thread....

Well, I may as well contribute to help this get to 10 pages. The .270 and .30-06 just don't hold much appeal to me because they are so common. Obviously they are common because they are good, versatile cartridges that are highly deadly within the effective range of most hunters and don't beat you to death with recoil.
I loved my .280 and would like another if I had to choose a standard length mid power cartridge for deer. And I'd rather an 8mm-06, 8x57, .338-06, .25-06, 6.5-06, .308, 7.65x53, .303 and a bunch of other stuff in that power range before building a .30-06 or .270. But if I fell in love with a rifle that just so happened to be chambered in .270 or .30-06, I'd still buy the gun, but I'd AI it, just because.

I'll help: I read (probably here) that the toughest part of shooting a .270 is telling your parents that you're gay.

idahostalker �

The .270 Win has always seemed to me to be an excellent choice for a dedicated deer cartridge � arguably the best. It will also work on elk, as has been proven many tens of thousands of times.

The .30-06 is more versatile, IMHO, when it comes to big game - particularly when big bear and moose are concerned.

They say a man with a .30-06 doesn�t need anything else and I always figured that was a good reason not to own one � so for the first 24 years I big game hunted I didn�t. That said, since 2006 I have acquired three. Not sure why but no regrets. Still don�t have a .270 and have no plans to get one.

Classy.

4 pages in less than 24 hrs. Well, 5 for sure now.

Still on page one for me.

.270 interests me not.

30-06 is a wonderful cartridge.

A .280 would be fun.

Or a Whelen.

Or a .338-06.

But a .270?! Boooooring!

You must be easily stimulated,Jeff.....You want boring? Run a 358 Win over the chronie some afternoon

You can do the 358; I'll do the 270 and we can see who falls asleep first

Taint nothin' that'll make one yawn more than a .358 over a chrony. In fact, it puts deer and bears to sleep.

THAT is true!

Not trying to be a turd but have you ever heard of anyone who went on a hunting trip and forgot their ammo? I've been hunting since the late 1960s and I never heard of anyone who forgot their ammo and had to save the trip by going to the local hardware store in some small town and picking up ammo.

I've run out of ammo and had to buy shotgun shells locally but thats another story.

Whats wrong with being a turd...?....

Ingwe

Jeff - you're right! I've frequently seen the 270 bore animals to DEATH.

Forgetting their ammo no....running out while hunting antelope yes!! I guided a guy one time that used up both boxes of .300 win. mag. that he brought in a three day stretch. We fetched some more at the local hardware store and continued on....he finally got his buck on day four...that record still stands, 68 shots fired!

Betting he was an MPBR guy.....

He was....but I made him hunt with a cold chamber....grin!

Pat..you are a nicer man than me...( than I ( ? )..)

I havent shot 68 rounds at antelope in my life and someone like that, who has so little regard for the game, lets just say wouldn't have got to shoot 68 rounds at them either....

Ingwe

I think alot of you would be surprised at the people needing ammo during hunting season for one reason or the other.Here where I live there is exactly 1.5 places to buy ammo and if it isn't a popular caliber,your out of luck..I needed a box of .375 H&H to sight in my .375 and none to be found closer than 75 miles away.

Sheet happens out there..

Jayco

Not only did he have the record for most shots fired, he also had the most cactus in his knees, elbows and forearms....I guess thats what you would call, "poetic justice".

I have a buddy who used to be a .280 fan. In fact he outfitted both his wife and 2 daughters with a .280 as well. They headed for eastern Montana one fall to hunt antelope and he took along a couple boxes of ammo, which he thought would be plenty.

They ran out of ammo before all the antelope tags were filled and went to the nearest town (can't remember where, but it was tiny) and couldn't find any .280 ammo.

Before the next hunting season he sold traded all the .280's in on .270's and has been happy ever since. Besides, as he told me, "I never could see the difference between the .270 and .280 on game anyway!"

Good...at least he had to do some crawling...


But hey...I thought I set the record for cactus spines....

Ingwe

HERETIC!!

Ingwe

Chucklin' here.....

We are ssooo sick and twisted....

On one elk hunt I opened a box of relaods only to discover I had somehow grabbed the wrong box of ammo before leaving home, which was by then over 5 hours away. Not just the wrong ammo, it was also the wrong cartridge.

Fortunately I had a second rifle and the correct ammo for it.

I'm sure it could easily happen. I went on a four-day fishing trip with a good buddy a few years ago and as we approached the lake, about 4 hours from home, he realized that he had forgotten his fishing rod. He'll never live that one down.

My first thought when I saw this thread was to go back to my stacks of mags from the 70/80's and scan all the articles I could find written on such subject...grin

Then I thought, ah heck it might be entertaining, kind of like a 7/08 vs 308 thread might be if...we ever did one...grin

As to 68 rounds at lopes, yepper that's a bunch, how many times did he stop to clean...grin

One of the rodeo's I observed over the years was a fella taking 27 rounds from a 300 to whittle down an elk.

Dober

You shoulda made him fish with a Barbie pole!

Two pages added in just overnight. Lookin more like this turd will make ten pages now.

Yeah, but it's wandered a little far from the original question, to forgetting ammo and fishing poles, which indicates the original question was, ah, less than dynamic.

I read this earlier and the impact of it just did not sink in until a few minutes ago when I read it again......how does this shidt happen????

Easy you go hunting with me, Pat was very gracious with me that day...

Dober

Back when I was guiding in the late 1980's, one of the clients who hunted with us was a kid just out of high school. The kid had already decided he wanted to be an Alaskan guide, so bought a .338 Winchester Magnum. It was his only rifle so he brought it for the pronghorn hunt, and used up over a box of ammo the first day, flinching and missing.

That evening the outfitter talked the kid into using the outfitter's .25-06 the next day, but by then the kid's shoulder was so badly bruised that he couldn't even handle that.

On the third and final day of his scheduled hunt, he was given to me, because I was willing to give him a shooting lesson before we went out, and loan him yet another rifle, my Ruger 77 .220 Swift. (The big reason for me giving him the shooting lesson was that I had actually built the benchrest and practice range out behind the barn on the ranch. The outfitter generally had clients check their scopes by shooting over the hood of a pickup at some indeterminate range.)

I first had him shoot the Swift at a target at 100 yards, and after the first shot (where he discovered that it didn't kick enough to hurt him) he managed a decent group. Then I had him shoot at the 300-yard gong, and when he hit that a few times(and was ecstatic) we went hunting.

By 8:00 we'd stalked within about 150 yards of a nice buck, and after the kid shot the buck trotted in a tiny circle and fell over. The 60-grain Nosler Solid Base had done about the same job a .243 would have, with a quarter-sized exit hole on the other side of the rib cage.

Now, that particular pronghorn took over 50 shots, so yes I can see 60-something shots.

I would have never told Mark!....Grin!

I knew it was going to be a long day with this guy after the first stalk...we bellied to within 200 yards of a really nice 15" buck....I slid my day pack out in front of him and instructed him to use it for a rest. He shoved it out of the way and whispered "I dont need it". I looked over at him as he raised up on one knee to shoot....with his left elbow just hanging free. I can remember thinking, well maybe this guy is some sort of ringer..the first shot hit about 5 feet low and as the buck spooked and took off he fired two more quick running shots at it and hit way behind it. He was shooting a BAR .300WM with a 3-9 Leupold. We made another good sneak on the same buck and that was a repeat performance of the first go...I suggested we go back to camp and check the rifle again on paper. I also checked the mounts and ring screws and all was tight. I set a target at 50 yards and he shot a 3 shot group that was about 5". He told me that was the as good as it ever shot and was more than good enough for all of the elk hunting he had done back home in heavy timber...he was a really good guy but didnt have a concept of hunting critters out in the open...the funniest shot was on a buck he shot at about 250 yards. The bullet hit an honest 25 yards low and only a couple feet low on the ricochet!! I offered to him the use of my Sako .220 swift but he said he didnt want to take a chance of wounding an antelope with my gopher gun!!

I'm not making this up...it really happened!!

AH-HA, spray and pray...

I don't want to state it that all individuals who hunt with a self-loading rifle lack marksmanship skills, but some are just overtaken with a false sense that sheer firepower will somehow get the job done.

Autoloaders have a place, but not as a substitute for marksmanship. Some try to do just that.

An AR in a Prairy dog town is sinfully fun.

A couple yars back my brother and some other family members went to the range, a 45 minute drive. with all the "help" I had, packing up the rifles, ammo, targets and other stuff took no time at all.

Unfortunately, while the ammo bag left my office, it never made it past the dining room table. Somebody got sidetracked along the way.

My fault for not checking.



(Thankfully, my brother had a bunch of .40S&W and .45ACP - but we didn't dget to do near the shooting we had planned on.)

Heavy drinker would be my guess.

Actually, he doesn't drink at all--which may be the root of the problem!

Actually,I don't understand the bravado.A new guy with less than a year on the forum and 200 post,ask a question,only to get put down from some for asking something that might be important to him and has not seen before..Searching can be a pain..

Those of us that have been here a while should be more tolerant of the new guys trying to learn,even if it is old hash to some.

Just an opinion....

Jayco

I hate self-appointed internet hall monitors.

Not really a question, he has his opinions already on it, asking others theirs.

We all have our opinions but actual experiences help..I think that is what he was asking and it started out sarcastically..We were all alitle green behind our ears at one time or the other.

Remember back then?

Loco..

Jayco

That's priceless!



I believe you, Scenar.

I once saw a guy shoot 17 rounds at an antelope in Wyoming one time and thought that had to be some sort of record. But your guy's in another league.

It wasn't until me and a buddy were unfortunate enough to share a caribou drop camp with two French Canadians that I heard/saw the best. Over 20 ( I lost count) .270 rounds fired at a caribou at over 900 yards. All misses, some spectacularly so. He even had his buddy loading his clips for him.

It looked more like he was taking a beachhead than a caribou.

Would you like to know what he was shooting?

Was it a custom built precision rifle shooting handloads with a $3000 dollar scope on top?

Nope.

It was a Remington 740 Woodsmaster with a Tasco scope mounted on see-through rings 2" above the bore. He was shooting greenbox Remington factory ammo.

My buddy and I just shook our heads in disbelief......

I'd have paid money to watch that hunt Scenar's talking about.

Puts my stories to shame.

I remember that.

I grabbed my .300 Weatherby Deluxe out of the safe one time thinking it was the .257 with almost the same identical wood. I loaded the .300 with the .257 ammo and had hunted for nearly 3 hours that afternoon and was sitting in the stand admiring the rifle when I realized it was the .300 instead of the .257......Needless to say I am glad I had a the boring old 30-06 Winchester Featherweight in the truck with several loose Core-Lokts in the glove box. Actually shot a nice buck that evening with the 06. So Yes, it happens.

That's pretty much my thinking as well.

The put-down's, especially from someone that makes his living hashing ballistic minutia in print, is especially telling, but in no way surprising.

Funny you should mention that....during my short stint as a range officer at an anonymous public shooting range, I found, what I thought was, a unique piece of brass. It looked like this:



Turning it over I found this case head stamp:



I thought to myself, someone must have been sighting in a 7mm RM and a 300 Weatherby and gotten one round confused.

I then looked more closely and found 19 identical cartridges on the ground!

Just glad they didn't try the 30 in the 7. Of course they'd only have done that once.

True story!

osd
I thought you might be showing that off......

that's the rare Winchester Super Short Dumbass round.

they didn't make too many WSSD's. keep it, might be worth something.;)

Mule Deer, I don'i trust a man that doesn't drink.

This has been a fun read.

I don't what this makes me but I own two chambered for the .270 Win and two rifles chambered for the .30-06.

I like both.

"so this thought just started running through my head. does the 270 or the 30-06 do anything better than the other? would you be able to tell a difference when shooting at game and on how quick the animal went down? Personally i dont think their would be a much of a difference if any difference at all. I started off with an 06, sold that (not because i didnt like it but i wanted to try a 300 out and wanted some extra $$ to spend on it), bought a 300, sold that pretty quick (just didnt cut it for me. People were always talking about "upgrading" from an 06 to a 300 up to me their just wasnt an "upgrade" that i felt. its the same bullet going around 200 FPS faster. WOOPTIE DOOOOO!!!), bought a 270 and a 338 win mag and i VERY happy with both of them. I would deffinatly buy an 06 just because its a good cartridge but for right now theirs just no point to. what do you think about the 270 vs the 30-06? Whats your opinions on the two?"

There's the original post.

I've caught a couple of cracks about not taking it seriously.

Well, now I will, partly because I've taken more big game with the .270 and .30-06 than any other cartridges. The .270 was ahead for a while, but the .30-06 took the lead (by just a little a few years ago).

But first I'd like to analyze this thread. There have been 70-some posts so far. Twenty-four of them suggested a dead horse, or the equivalent. Thirty-one were off-topic. Sixteen took the question seriously.

Of the 16 posts, that took it seriously, not a single one said anything that hasn't been said or written on this subject for decades. A few made the obligatory comment about "the big bears." Some even stated the obvious, that the .30-06 uses heavier bullets.

Since the original poster stated he's already read or heard quite a bit about various cartridges, and has already used a .30-06, .300 magnum, .338 and .270, I doubt he has learned anything.

Probably he was hoping for better, but since this debate has been going on since 1925, with nothing much new that's applicable since the Nosler Partition appeared in 1948, I doubt there COULD be anything new said.

Since over 3/4 of the posts didn't even bother with the original question, it looks like most posters felt the same way I did. But apparently I was the only one to hurt anybody's feelings.

So here's my serious answer: The .30-06 uses heavier bullets than the .270, though not all the time. I have shot a bunch of animals with both rounds, and seen a bunch of other animals shot with both rounds, and when the shooter put the bullet in the right place, all the animals died quickly. If the shooter knows the trajectory of the load he's using, both will work to the limit's of the shooter skill, on the same kinds of game, except maybe really, really BIG bears.

Glad to help with new and startling information.

It's like the old question Ginger of Maryanne (I'm old)...like cole k said I like both. Maybe just enough difference to not be the same but similar enough to be familiar.

You make a living splitting ballistic atoms in print (like the 270 vs 30-06)... I enjoy your writing, despite the very narrow topic. Thing is, the oft repeated criticism of you is that you talk down to readers and this thread is a perfect example.

If you decided to measure groups outside to outside instead of center to center (don't laugh, I know someone who does), the 270 will shoot smaller groups than the 30-06.

Eh, on the 'fire and in most parts of life, ignorance hurts, and it should.

I was mocked and lambasted not too long ago on here for wondering about "Mountain Hunting in California". It was outlawed there decades ago, and reconfirmed in 1992. I would have known this if I had even typed in the phrase "mountain lion hunting in california" into google. I wouldn't have even needed to open a page, just the descriptions alone explained that.

My point was and inquiry exposed how ignorant to the topic I was. I got called out on it. I wasn't butt hurt about it. I actually found it rather funny.

Everybody here has missed the mark greatly a time or two and been ridiculed by the lot. I think that's part of the fun of the 'fire. If anything, this guy was just initiated and welcomed to the fold. His jabs at my ignorance are welcomed any day.

Gotta toughen up a little....

Never explain yourself. Your friends don't need it and your enemies won't believe it.

Mule Dear,

In your experience does the 30/06 with a 180 grain bullet have any field game killing advantage over a 270 using a 150 grain bullet? Using the same type bullet at standard factory velocities out of the same length barrels.

idahoguy101

Mule Deer, not Mule Dear

My question is would a 200 grain 30 calibre bullet, at say 2700 fps, be needed to outperform someone shooting a 150 grain 270 Winchester factory standard load?

Bullhockey, everyone knows that.....nevermind (grin).

idahoguy,

In theory the .30-06 should do better with 180's than the .270's 150's, but I have never been able to see a real difference on game.

The 200 might get us into that "big bear" territory, but not many of us hunt really big bears with a .270 anyway. On non-dangerous game a 150-grain .270 bullet works pretty darn well, at least in my experience.

In fact a really deep-penetrating 130-grain .270 bullet, such as the Barnes TSX or Nosler E-Tip, works very well on pretty big game. I have seen the 130 TSX used on 1000-pound animals and it worked very well indeed.

As alluded to in an earlier post, for 99% of hunting the .270/.30-06 question was pretty well put to rest by the invention of the Nosler Partition over 60 years ago. Some of today's bullets make the question even less debatable. A 150 TSX or E-Tip in the .30-06 is plenty for just about any non-dangerous big game, whether elk or similar-sized African plains game (or at least that's been my experience). A 130 in the .270 does very similar things.

I think you could spend a lifetime using both in the field and not see any real difference....but there would not be any better way to spend a lifetime in my opinion.

I can say that I've never tromped around brown bear country with a 270, I have with a 30/06 loaded with 220gr Partitions.

Not a bad choice at all.

I have hunted grizzly country in Montana with a .270 in my hands (or a .280, which is indeed the same thing) and haven't felt particularly nervous. 180 Woodleighs in the .270 or .280 would be an option, but I have generally had 150 Partitions in the rifle.

While maybe not ideal as big bear stopper I certainly wouldn't throw the 270 down and run

I'm with Steelie on this one..220 NPTs in a good '06 and I would feel as good as I would with a .375...especially after reading some of Phil Shoemakers stuff on the '06 and big bears...

Ingwe

I agree but the 270 would better than a rock or hoping the bear would slipping on the brown stuff coming out of your pants while running away. Of course you may take a step back no matter the rifle in your hands and slip on same brown stuff

Yeah, Phil's a believer in that combo.

Before Nosler made a 220 Partition, Phil used to carry a .30-06 with 200 Partitions for back-up on brown bears. Of course, that was before he got his famous .458--and one "interesting" experience with the '06 and a wounded bear helped him make the decision to buy a .458. But he obviously survived....

Never seen a grizzly in Montana but I've seen salmon eating bears in Alaska and they tend to be on the large size! Fact is damn near anything shy of a rocket launcher still don't warm my heart when pushing bush.

Brad-
With all due respect, I couldn't disagree more. MMV, but I can't think of another writer that's as pragmatic and lends as much common sense to his prose than JB.

You have a point there...buttt...

On my first trip to Alaska ( fishing) I did what any good tourist would do, and strapped on my .44..
We ran into one of your bears...very gratefully he was completely cool...but my first thought on seeing him up close is......" this is gonna really suck..."

Ingwe

Steelhead,

Yes, brown bears do average bigger, and I have seen some VERY big ones, both on Kodiak and the Peninsula.

But we have a few bigger bears in Montana than a lot of people tend to believe. A few years ago some biologist caught a big boar that bottomed out a portable 800-pound scale--and as I recall that was in the spring. And a couple years ago another 800+ pound bear was hit and killed on a highway less than 100 miles from here.

The really big ones, however, are pretty shy. You're far more likely to run into a younger male--or a female with cubs.

The closest run-in I've had down here was in the Bob Marshall. I came around a corner in a trail one spring while hunting black bears, and found a 400-500 pound bear maybe 20 yards away, eating grass. I had a rifle in my hands (a 7mm Rem. Magnum) but he went the other way.

The only time I've been charged, though, was on Kodiak--twice on the same day by different females with cubs. Luckily they were bluffing, but it still got the blood flowing.

He disparages the originator of this thread, repeatedly, and gets a clean slate. Bullchit.

It's his MO... he thinks he's bringing down tablets from God but he's writing the same ballistic gack he's putting the fellow down for from Idaho. I'm calling Bullchit. Barsness never asks questions as he's apparently past learning. The only thing suspect, to borrow his sig line, is something other than his own opinion... I know a little man when I see one.

Looks like I need to make a beer run for this one!

Don't forget popcorn!

ingwe

If you want to hunt bears with Phil Shoemaker, he says a 30/06 is good to go. I don't know how he feels about .270 performance on bruins but Phil is as informed about Alaskan wildlife as anyone and he endorses using a 30/06.

Besides, having one rifle is boring.

Wow..... you are a piece of WORK! John Barsness DOES have lots, and lots , and LOTS of rea world experience that entitle him to make well thought out experience based observations and comments. Wise folks tend to LEARN from others who have been there and done that.

WOW #2... ALREADY at 10 pages. On a beat to death hackneyed topic. Just... WOW

No doubt. Aren't we all?



No one ever questioned his real-world experience, talent as a writer, common sense, or pragmatism in print. I thought that was pretty obvious by "I enjoy your writing"... I got pissed the way I believe the originator of this thread was treated and said a couple of hard things. Basically, I further drug down an already drug down thread. For that I apologize to Mule Deer and everyone else. Over and out. Permanently.

After reading Pat's account of how this guy conducted himself, I doubt he would have much of a clue about either method...he just sounds like a deplorable field shot.No gear or method would help him.

I am not going to read all of this, but simply put, I believe the response is best left to bias.

In the 70's I hunted a lot with a .270 and a .257 Weatherby. On medium deer sized game, I felt the .257 was a faster killer which simply means a higher % of DRT. The.270 was very good with Speer 110gn flat bases and at that time, the Hornady 110gn HP was the darling of that weight. My favored bullets in the .257 were the 87gn Hornady, 100gn Nosler Solid Base and the 115gn Parition. To the .270, add the 130gn Hornady.

At that time I got into the magnums quite severely. Through the 80's had a wonderful .300 Winchester which I sold when offered too much money for it.

The .30/06 and me read like a Boddington Story, in that I touched on it in the early 70's and never went back seriouly until about 20 years ago when I got a slew of .30/06 rifles to review over a period that permitted me to do a not of range work and culling using this, the .270, and a lot of others.

My bias lead me to the .30/06 which I used as an excuse to buy another Wincehster Featherweight. To this day one of my most accurate rifles and also one of my most successful rifles looking back on the game taken. It has about 3,000 rounds through it now and an aweful not of blood on its hands.

I don't think I could go back to the .270 as I have also used the 7x57 going back to my first Featherweight in about 1981. That cartridge has performed beyond any sales pitch that could be offered.

I simply would not take a .270 out to play when I have a 7mm Mauser and a .30/06. That is no slur on the cartridge, just a bias on my part.

JW

No doubt.....

The most impressive part of this thread to me is the fact that Pat was able to get the guy 68 shots at an antelope!

That takes some skill right there.......

I'm guessing the rifle hadn't been shot 68 times prior! Poor bastid was probably closing his eyes and saying a little prayer before jerking the trigger.

68 shots...I better go load up some more hunting ammo.

The 06 is my favorite in that case capacity followed closely by the 280 Ackley. I remember that guy here named "Big Stick" used to say that the 270 was the most lame of the 06 family. For the most part, I tend to agree.

I could easily see having a sleek, svelte Mountain Rifle in a 270 or 280 with a single 130-140 grain dedicated load, while having a standard weight 30-06 with a dedicated 180-220 grain loading; one for scrambling or crawling after smaller fleet-foots, the other for tracking down heavy meat.

AussieGunWriter

My experiences have been quite different than yours.A 270 Win has been in our family since I was born.I don't ever remember a year in my youth our freezer was not filled with Elk from it.There was never a year hunting that an '06 was not in camp as well as other calibers and to this day,I have never seen any of them put down Elk quicker/better than the 270 with the right bullet and shot.

Of course that was before the net.It was only last year I bought my first '06 and with two 270's in the safe,it is truly hard for me to pick up the '06 for the tough hunting we have now compared to what it once was.

Kinda like a guy using a Husky chainsaw to fall tree's and just got his first Stihl and your a mile in with one saw..I'm sure,and it does,the Stihl would work great as alot used them,but I was a Husky user from head to toe and new them and what they would do where the Stihl suffered from weight and RPM's...The Stihl is a tank and almost bullet proof but the Husky is a Porche,quick and nimble, if you treat it right.

Treat the 270 right and feed it good fodder and it will never let you down in the lower 48, as the Husky chainsaw.The '06,like the Stihl,just does everything but nothing great,in my opinion.

My choice for a Deer/Elk hunt and one rifle at any range,would be the 270 Win over the '06 based on only what I have seen over many years of seeing them both used on the same game in the same steep country.

Just another opinion.

Jayco

I like the .270 over the 30-06
I like ford trucks over chevy
I like Brunettes over blondes
I like marlin lever guns over winchesters
I like Dick York over Dick Seargent
I like David Lee Roth over Sammy Haggar
I like captain kirk over captain picqard
Mcdonald's over burger king...
Coke over pepsi....

Yeah right, we could only hope.

But just in case, don't let the door hit ya in the ass.........

fingers crossed.....


Ingwe

He's leaving over that? Strange times..

I have a confession to make...

Ingwe was the hunter who shot 68 times. LOL.

Breaking my previous record of 62.

That's not even a Browning record John.

Um...would it make a difference if one was a push-feed and the other one was a controlled-feed action?


...



Now where's that horse...?

What JM says is true...


I did shoot 68 times.....

At gophers.....

And I killed 68 of them

And they are smaller than antelope, and faster.....


Ingwe

You, sir, have not heard of me then; I did that very thing only it was with .340 ammo except I did have four rounds which turned out to be enough. Ironically, I'm obsessive compulsive and make lists of stuff that I check off but I also have ADD unfortunately--think, carefully making a list...then losing it.

Ok you guys; time to relax on the .270 v. .30-06 argument; the nature of these arguments is that the whole generations of those involved must die off before it can be revived again after being discovered on your ninety year old great grand daughters old iPad found stored on a salvaged heritage satillite circling mars.

12 pages.... Past even my overly pessimistic estimates of how far this dog, or dead horse, might limp.

Clapping hands here...I don't believe it though...

By gum, this thread DOES have legs after all........



Casey

I 'd like to give this one a shot from a serious point of view.

As far as experience with both cartridges,I have used these two to take scores of deer and dozens of hogs as well as the occcasional elk,bear,and antelope.

There are some subtle differences in the field IMHO.

The 30-06 tends to make bigger wound channels,exits more often,and tends to leave a bigger blood trail.

If you are hunting in thick,wet cover where blood trails are hard to follow,I think the 30-06 is a better choice.

If you are hunting in places where the size of the blood trail is not critical,take a 270,it tends to shoot flater and is a bit more pleasant to shoot.

This thread reminds me of the great pictorial in Playboy a few years ago featuring the blond set of triplets cavorting in the shower-room, and trying to choose which one you'ld like to be stuck in the cabin with. You can still get great enjoyment out of trying to choose the best one, even if you can't go wrong with either one of them.

This is enough to make me want both..... Good synopsis by Britt.

I like the analogy to the blondes as well....who says this thread has no substance!

Here's a few pics of the legs this thread has...

I have two sharp broadheads left for my bow, will not buy more until I shoot these! I get a kick out of people who think they are going into a war zone and carry 20 rounds of ammunition on or about their person when deer hunting that is unless they are hunting with a .223 ( )

ruraldoc,

Excellent post, with some good information.

On the other hand, I'd like to quote an old elk hunter I know here in Montana, who killed a pile of elk with a .270. I told him once that some people claim the .270 doesn't leave much of a blood trail.

He snorted and said, "Son, with a .270 you don't NEED a blood trail."

Ok, let's put this to rest if the gentle readers here will allow. For now.. If possible. [/b]All things being equal[b] the .270 is a "little gentler"; a " little flatter" on the asset side; the '06 is is just a "little bigger" on the asset side. We will focus on assets for brevity and clarity. Well, guess that's it. Remember all other things, aspects, foci are equal.

Application: would all agree the .270 can be [/i] fittingly [i] well used from varmint to bull elk or their equivalence assuming intelligent choice of bullets? Ok. I realize "fittingly" is the pregnant-with-meaning word here. Would all agree that the '06 is [/i] fittingly [i] appropriately used from, say, pronghorn to AK moose with of course this same diligent attention to bullets? Ok. Remember, all other things are equal.

So, on final argument, there is tremendous overlap in appropriate use with some slight but noticeable differences which may give an advantage to one or other at the edges of there application.

Well, I'm convinced.

Since I'm pretty sure the statute has run,let's just say that I know 'a guy' who used one 150 grain partition from a 270 to make two blood trails in the snow that led a short distance to two very dead bull elk,not an intentional event but things do happen.

Hunting is like a box of chocolates.......

I'm telling..

Oddly enough (or not...grin) but I've seen more 30 cal bullets inside dead elk than .270 bullets inside. Fact is over the last 30 some years I can recall finding exactly two .270 bullets and both of those were in bruins. Of all the deceased elk I've been around taken with the .270 (and there's been a lot of them) I/we've never had a .270 slug no exit and make another hole.

Can't say that for the 30's, fact is friend Brad consistently finds 30 cal bullets in his dead elk. And yeah I get the fact that it's been dead elky's.

Point being, by my way of thinking and by my experience I'd not concur that I've observed better blood trails with the 06 over the .270. But, that's just been my experience and we know that may well vary from people to people.

Of all the elk I've taken and seen taken with the big 7's I can recall only finding one slug and that was from my bull from last year. (150 TSX that lost it's petals). Take that back, my bud and I found a slug in a small bull he'd taken with his STW, the bullet hit the bull (from top angle) thru the spine, then thru a front and just under the off skin, the bullet was a 175 Horn.

Take it for what it's worth and toss another log on the Fire please.

Dober

Said volunteer that I found the 150 TSX in

Dober

Dober, interesting about the exits.

Your WolfBull was a big one!

That's a mighty nice volunteer you found there to test that TSX! I'm thinking I would keep a semblance of him on the wall to remember the occasion.

Yea, tis but even with the same cartridge, load, powder bullet, rifle etc., there is variation even in animals of the same species in penetration, presence of exits, blood trails, running dead distance, etc. again, because we can't eliminate all the variables.

So we've probably come full circle to a guy probably has to kill a 100 critters with each, minimum, to begin to see the subtle differences between the two and of course with the same bullet type and SD.

The rest-these perceived differences and experiences-is pretty well anecdotal and really statistically meaningless.

Thx Sam, did you get your deer/elk/lope apps in yet?

Dober

Yep, got 'em in a week or two ago.

Even got my Rez apps signed and in the mail.....(grin)

No doubt it would take a lot of critters to truly confirm how this or that round works, but I've found over the years as the amount of game I observe taken with certain combo's that I get a better idea as to the trends. And when I made my comments about finding bullets that is what I was going off of.

And like I've always said, use a bullet long enough and sooner or later it'll give one reason to go hmm...?

Dober

Really?..Hummm..Not knocking you sir buttttt.When the old Silver Tips/Bronze Points etc etc worked for years...

Why is it different now coming from a dedicated Nosler user?Sheeet...

Hunting is getting to hard for me to understand, these days.No slam intended,Mark.

Jayco

As "idahostalker" originally stated, he presently has a .270 and 338WM. But when on to say there would be no point in really buying a 30-06. Taken just like that, he is right. The 270 and 338WM cover basically everything for North America. Its a very nice, functional combination. If "idaho" had NO rifle, then we all might agree for him to buy the 30-06 and be done with it.
As it is, he doesn't need anything else unless he just WANTS it.

Dober/RuralDoc: Good posts!I never paid to much attention to exits vs non-exits because sometimes bullets exited and sometimes they did not,depending on....well...all kinds of things.

One thing I am learning, especially as I watch on here,and since I have younger compadres who keep sending me info and recovered Barnes bullets(if they are recovered, clearly they did not exit) is that,even with these super-penetrators,exits some times happen and sometimes they don't.....so the trend continues....

The most recent is a friend who just returned from a BB hunt on the Peninsula and last week he used a 416 Rigby with a 400 gr Barnes to shoulder shoot this very large bear....another recovered Barnes(did a splendid job BTW),.........and if you can't depend on a 400 gr Barnes from a Rigby to make two holes...well what the hell CAN you depend on?

Rambling thoughts and a bit off-topic but I guess as good a place as any to discuss it because we are talking about "holes"

I don't own either one any more. With a 25-06AI and a .308 why would I?

Funny thing, many here state that there's not much difference in the field between the .270 and the .30-06, which I tend to believe. Heck, on mule deer I haven't seen much difference (none?) between the little 6mm Rem and the .30-06... Shoot 'em and they fall over... Yet here we are, debating between to fine, well established cartridges.

Not long ago, in another thread the .30 cal was touted as being far superior to the 7mm because the .30 produced better blood trails.

Are we back to the angels on the pin argument? Hint: Yes.

Mark,

Well, you got me curious, so I went to my hunting notes and added up all the bullets from .270's and .30-06's that I'd recovered over the years. I am guessing that the number of animals shot with each is pretty similar, but didn't go back and check.

Not all the animals were shot by me. Some were taken by Eileen, and a few by other people I was hunting with or guiding.

Turns out the number of bullets recovered from each caliber was so similar that there was no "statistically significant" difference.

The animals that stopped .270 bullets ranged from pronghorns to elk and Shiras moose, and in the .30-06 from relatively small whitetails to kudu and blue wildbeest. So the size range was pretty similar.

The .270 bullets included Sierra GameKings, Hornady Interlocks, Nosler Partitions and Speer Grand Slams. The .30-06 bullets included Berger VLD's, Winchester Silvertips, Remington Core-Lokts, Nosler Partitions, Winchester Fail Safes, Speer Deep-Shoks and Norma Oryxes. So bullets ran the gamut in both cartridges as well.

This is obviously only one person's experience, but it covers a wide variety of game with a wide variety of bullets. And there just wasn't any real difference.

Sorry for the left turn here, but logcutter, my experience with Bronze Points is that they came apart upon contact with hair let alone anything thereafter.

Ok, back to the fray.

edited to add, "that was my experience with the 130-gr BPs out of a .270."

To add a little more soft green cow patty to the fray. I have never met an African PH who preferred the 270 over the 30:06.

That has pretty much been my experience on Whitetail with the range of cartridges running from the .243 to the 45/70.

Disrupt the lungs/heart, you get a short dash and a pile-up.

Disrupt the CNS, and you go straight to pile-up.

Bullet construction and placement have seemed to matter more than headstamp.

Here's a wrinkle: It seems to me that size/weight must at some point make a difference even though substance, construction and S.D. Remain the same. Take bullets of a S.D. Of .250 which for most standard cartridges most would agree is on the wee side for elk for instance. In a .270 this might be somewhere around 140 grains; it might exit; it might not. But a similar bullet (construction, S.D.) of 150mm and the size of a loaf of bread and at about them same vel (case capacity stays proportional)--does anyone doubt that that would exit? Probably, not even here.

MDs notes show no significant differences between the '06 and its progeny but my extreme example from common sense tells us that at some point size will be "a better killer". It seems silly in the telling and yet that is what this whole thread is about-- does .031" make a difference on the same range of creatures?

Apparently not at this point in slight difference but at some point it will.

To wrinkle it some more....

An 06 struggles to get 2700fps with a 180gr and 22 inch bbl. A 270 can generally hit 2900fps with a 150gr and 22 inch bbl. Again, it's a push as far as any kind of "killing power".



Casey

Well, this seems like a good post to increase my post count while making as much sense as the rest. Bob

Casey, I don't know nuthin' about what a .270 will do. But my 22" '06 doesn't struggle to make 2800 fps with 180's, much less 2700 fps. I don't think that's atypical.

A .30/06 that won't make 2800fps with a 180 grain bullet would be a rare bird indeed. That is enough for 99% of what will ever be hunted.

JW

I see it this way. In the hands of someone who can handle the rifle, I look at the 270Win, the 30-06, and the 375H&H as being about the same, with the exception that the 30-06 throws a heavier chunk of lead than the 270Win and the 375H&H throws a heavier chunk of lead than the 30-06. With that said, as long as you are throwing a chunk of lead heavy enough for the game you seek with the ability to punch a hole through the vitals, they�ll all work.

Best:)

I have a pretty nice collection of Hornady 140 grain bullets recovered from just under the offside hide of deer and hogs that were fired from my 270s.

I kept using this bullet because it is accurate and a really quick killer.

At the same time I used 150 grain Hornady bullets in the 30-06 to hunt the same critters in the same places.

I never recovered one,not ever.

I just find more 270 bullets in dead critters.

Maybe it's because most of my shots are fairly close and iimpact velocities are higher with the 270 and they expand more,I don't know.

I do know that cup and core bullets do tend to work great on game from the 308 and the 30-06.

I know Dober hunts pretty open country so maybe the differences we report are due to my critters being mostly inside of 200 yards and his are often a good bit further.

I'm assuming pretty much the same muzzle velocities from the 140 .270's and 150 .30-06's?

The difference might be in the core hardness Hornady uses in each bullet. A lot of companies vary the lead alloy in the core somewhat for different bullets, depending on the probability of what it might be used on.

I have never used the 140 Hornady in the .270, but Eileen and I have shot a lot of game with the 130 and 150 Spire Points. Most of the bullets we've recovered have been 130's, which makes sense as they're starting out quite a bit faster than the 150's, so tend to open up wider.

The only 150 .270 I ever recovered from a deer was from a whitetail buck shot at about 225 yards through both shoulders. I found the bullet in the far shoulder-blade, the core and jacket just slightly apart. But that was a long time ago, before Hornady bullets had the Interlock ring. If it had been an Interlock it might have gone all the way through, and almost certainly wouldn't have separated core and jacket. I've shot the 150 .270 Interlocks through some pretty big animals, and never recovered one.

I agree... 2800FPS for 180g bullet is no real stretch for a 30-06 with a 24 inch tube

As for recovering bullets I've not found many in deer, IMO deer are pretty darn easy to blow thru and not a good test of bullets. But, that's just the way I see it..

To me, elk/moose is where we begin to run into Big Game and begin to get to be some good test media. By my way of thinking the size of game has more to do with it than the range.

Uno mas observation about bullets being recovered, I've seen more 30 cal bullets taken out of (dead) elk than all of the 270's and 7mm's combined. Once again take that for what it's worth.

I'm one that likes to have two holes (from one bullet...grin) in game and I've noticed that I see that less with the 30's than I do with the 7's and .270's. Hence why I don't believe that we get better blood trails with the 30's. As well that's just one of the reasons I like the 200's in the 300's.

Dober

I am truly stunned by that last sentence. Actually stunned at all the remarks there directed to Mule Deer.

I don't have a dog in this fight but I will say this: Folks that hang out in the gun rooms, like this one, have usually achieved a level of ability in reloading, and shooting, and hunting that is not common to the average box a year hunter/shooter.
But it is those folks and the ones just starting out that buy magazines and they represent a much greater percentage of buyers than, for instance, folks in this room. -- how many of you have let reloading/hunting magazine subscriptions lapse because there just wasn't anything new for you?? And so your articles have got to be directed toward the market. If it insults you to have a basic reloading technique explained in detail, remember that to someone, that info is brand new.
And too, if a writer is creditable, his information should be grounded in first hand knowledge or, at least, impeccable sources. I would imagine it gets a little tedious after a while when you're standing there with blood on your hands and knife and someone starts quoting ballistic charts to prove you didn't do what you have done.
I'm through now.

Good post

Slasher
Just consider the source... As to knowing the little man, his mirror shows him one daily. And that would apply physically and between the ears.

The gruntling has limited experience so feels the need to add trekking in Nepal to his hunting resume, denies physics (including his own altitudinal challenge), and fantasizes about special insight...
art

Typical banty rooster-- little man's syndrome.

I think MD may get exasperated by us sometimes, but he is always forthcoming with good info. I took up a lot of both his and Eileens time at a gun show last year. They were both gracious and easy to talk to.

As to the 30-06/270 discussion I own both and have only come to the 270 in the last 10 years or so. In order to get real experiance with it I have used it for most of my deer hunting the last 5 years. To my amazement it actually kills stuff. (My brother, the original 270 fan in the family would be laughing with self-righteousness by now.) Oh, and using it last year I only needed one shot to get my antelope thank you very much.